From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@cogeco.ca)
Date: Sun 27 Oct 2002 - 23:07:41 GMT
At 10:03 AM 27/10/02 -0800, you wrote:
>Bill:
> > Such analysis may lead to units at different levels: organs, cells,
> > chromosomes, genes, molecules, atoms, protons, electrons, for instance.
> > Units at one level may be constituents of units at a higher level.
> > Analytical units, then, need not be indivisible.
> >
> > There is a special problem with memes as analytical units, however,
> > which Vincent alluded to: the level problem. Morphemes (such as "morph",
> > "eme", "ad", "lude", "philo", "soph", and "er") and phonemes (such as
> > "m", long "e", "d", and short "a") are both, arguably, memes. They are
> > units and they are culturally inherited. But at the same time, phonemes
> > may be considered as constituents of morphemes. For instance, long "e"
> > and "m" make up "eme". If they are both memes then we have memes
> > constituting other memes. What kind of units are those?
At some point, the information content goes below my level of
interest. Even if words or phrases such as "fact of the matter" are memes,
I don't care because they don't cause wars or even fads.
Keith Henson
>And hence we discover the inherent *recursive* trait of the concept of
>the meme. A computer is a unit, it's also a unit of culture. But so is
>the pentium IV that's in it. It's a cultural unit within a cultural unit.
>A meme within a meme. There's no way around it. And hence a
>cultural unit is not only indivisible, it's even recursively divisible!
>Wham bam thank you ma'am... :-)
>
>Phil
>
> > In practice, this is not a problem as long as you are clear about which
> > level you are talking about. For a long time I considered memes as units
> > for different levels, and it was fine to have memes for one level
> > composed of memes for a lower level. But there is an alternative that I
> > find attractive.
> >
> > A linguistic unit, the lexeme, has the same problem of levels. Lexemes
> > include words but can be larger or smaller:
> >
> > > A lexeme is the minimal unit of language which
> > >
> > > has a semantic interpretation and
> > > embodies a distinct cultural concept.
> > (
> > http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsALexeme.htm
> > )
> >
> > In particular, catch-phrases, such as "Give me a break!" are lexemes
> > that are composed of lexemes. Sydney Lamb ("Pathways of the Brain"),
> > speaks to this problem of level for lexemes: "The process of
> > lexicalization is typically a gradual one: The first time a new
> > combination is formed by a speaker, it must be constructed as a
> > combination of units previously learned. . . . But for subsequent uses
> > it need not be constructed again if it is remembered as a unit. (p. 165)
> >
> > "Now, a lexeme can begin to have a life of its own from a semantic point
> > of view as soon as it is treated as a unit. (p. 167)"
> >
> > Earlier he says, "Lexemes are the units *which are learned . . . as
> > units.* (p. 31)"
> >
> > As the title of his book indicates, Lamb takes a neuro-cognitive
> > perspective. For him a lexeme is a functional unit, which is remembered
> > and learned *as a unit*.
> >
> > Similarly, we may consider memes to be those constituents of culture
> > that are inherited *as units*. This functional definition does not
> > commit us to a neuro-cognitive perspective, but it does avoid the level
> > problem of analytical units. :-)
> >
> > Ciao,
> >
> > Bill
> >
> > ===============================================================
> > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
> >
> >
>
>
>===============================================================
>This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
>Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
>For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
>see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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