Re: Standard definition

From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Mon 28 Oct 2002 - 22:02:32 GMT

  • Next message: AaronLynch@aol.com: "Re: Standard definition"

    > Dear Kenneth,
    >
    > > > 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.
    > >
    > > Are you implying a kind of hiearchy, a kind of pyramid- scheme with
    > > on top THE MEME !?
    > >
    >
    > Language and other knowledge is hierarchically organized. As for
    > language, I think that all of the -emes are memes: phonemes,
    > morphemes, lexemes, sememes. However, the higher up we go in these
    > hierarchies, the more abstract we get, the further from the senses,
    > the less likely I think it is that things are transmitted *as a unit*,
    > and the less likely that the entities on those levels are individual
    > memes.
    >
    Actually, the first level that children learn is in the middle of the semantic hierarchy, at the level of the concrete particular type. This is why kids learn the words 'cat' and 'dog' before they learn either the progressively inclusive terms 'mammal' or 'animal', or the progressively differentiating terms 'poodle', 'terrier', 'siamese', 'persian', 'yorkshire'
    'boston bull' 'seal point', 'chocolate point', etc.
    >
    > 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

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