From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Thu 17 Oct 2002 - 03:27:48 GMT
On Wednesday, October 16, 2002, at 11:05 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> It is both being formed by AND forming culture, in a coevolutionary
> manner. Or rather, ideational memes are being formed by and forming
> culture, via behavioral mediation.
I like this paragraph. I like 'behavioral mediation'. It resonates with
my cultural mitigation. Sides of the same coin, perhaps, and yet, heads
and tails.
Somehow both sides need to happen for the coin to be spent.
And yet-
> And the main power of memetic mentation is that a single meme can
> facilitate all these multiple yet of necessity subtly differing
> instantiations. It is a parsimony principle.
- I still see no mechanism for this single meme as mentation. The
necessity of the subtle differences I see as effects of behavioral and
environmental performance by unique individuals, and the parsimony that
model possesses by _not_ requiring a mentating process somehow subtly
yet indefinably different from fairly understood perceptional and
ideational processes, or the presence of some somehow identical thing
somehow passed from brain to brain.
Too many somehows in the mental model.
I don't see any somehows in the behavior-only model, only almost
limitless reams of hows, ready to go.
- Wade
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