From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Thu 17 Oct 2002 - 02:50:34 GMT
On Wednesday, October 16, 2002, at 09:30 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> So every smoked cigarette is unique, as is every quaffed beer, and,
> furthermore, so distinguishable and unassimilable that they are not
> tokens of beer-quaffing or cigarette-smoking
Unique, yes, each and every one. Distinguishable unassailably? Yes, in
spacetime, but, not, granted, necessarily perceptibly indistinguishable
by humans in cultural environments, and that is the main power of
memetic behavior.
One may hear several performances of Dvorak's Eighth, and, quite
perceptibly, know they are different. But one can also hear how they are
the same, and even remark how satisfying these similarities are, much
beyond just the delight that one is hearing a favorite work again.
What remains is a memory, of a feeling, or an attempt at a feeling, that
one might, if one could and can, put somewhere else, when one performs
another piece of music, or, the same piece of music. But, perhaps the
conductor will not allow the opportunity, or, something else will wipe
the memory away. It is all too transient, the way of the mind, to put
anything there that is behaviorally intact. Mutations happen outside of
the mind memetically, too. (I would say, only, but, then, that's the
model speaking.) One never does precisely what one thought one would do,
in precisely the fashion, although one gets damn close with practice and
experience that lend precision. Cow1 is not Cow2 and behavior1 is not
behavior2, and even thought1 is not thought2, and, gene1 is not gene2,
and meme1 is not meme2, either. But we can have meme1 and meme2 both
addressing the same token, as you say, in that the memory of the
perception of Dvorak's Eighth that I have, and that my girlfriend has,
of the same performance at the same time in the same place, can perhaps
be the preparation for a meme, but, so far, I do not know what, if
anything, she has performed to remark upon it- I don't think she's
spending her token, certainly she does not see that it has the value I
think it has, or perhaps she does, but, we have not spoken of it other
than to say to each other how much we liked it.
> The genome corresponds to the entire form of the individual; a gene
> within it corresponds to the repeated performance of a single meme, as
> it encodes a single characteristic, and not the totality of the
> template.
But not to the entire form of the individual throughout its life,
certainly. The genome presents the strata for the mind, but does not
ensure the mind itself. For the mind to appear, memetic behaviors need
to be performed in the cultural environment, and perceived by the
developing individual.
The meme, by being behavior-only, needs to be forced into constraining
circumstances, like laws and precepts and axioms and conventions and
morals and regulations and dress-codes and borders- culture is the
attempt to contain the limitless change potential of each memetic
action. Otherwise, not necessarily chaos, but, anarchy, and cultures do
not survive well as anarchies, and the survival of cultures is something
that, I thought, memetics was all about.
Once the brain houses all the evolutionary machinery, culture seems
irrelevant to memetic survival, or is, somehow, something emerging from
memetic behavior, rather than something mitigating it.
And, I don't accept that memetic behavior is not being mitigated by
culture, anymore than I can accept that the weather is something
emerging from a thermometer.
- Wade
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