From: Bill Spight (bspight@pacbell.net)
Date: Sun 27 Oct 2002 - 19:52:20 GMT
Dear Ted,
> > > The question of memetics is the question of
> > > whether these elements of culture carry their own momentum, their own
> > > drive to reproduce.
> >
> > Bullshit.
>
> I don't appreciate this. Your comment reveals hostility. Where is this
> hostility coming from?
>
I apologize for the vulgarity, Ted. But I have no hostility towards you.
:-)
It's just that when you start personifying memes, talking about "drive
to reproduce," and so on, you are not only going off into la-la land,
you are setting up a paper tiger that is easy to demolish rather than
addressing what memetics is really about.
> You badly misunderstand memetics. Without "selfishness," in the sense of
> "selfish gene," the whole idea is shot.
What do you think the "selfishness" of the "selfish gene" means?
> If memes are just ideas or
> catch-phrases or tunes or habitual behaviors (like wearing a baseball cap
> backwards), then we don't need to refer to them as memes. Unless they're
> self-replicating, we can just as easily refer to them with the same terms
> we've always used. It's their self-replication that marks them off as the
> cultural equivalent of genes.
Genes do not self-replicate, either.
All that memes require is replication, variation, and selection.
Ciao,
Bill
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