From: Bill Spight (bspight@pacbell.net)
Date: Wed 30 Oct 2002 - 17:38:09 GMT
Dear Wade,
> > And how does this transfer happen?\
>
> Person A performs meme A. Person B observes Person A and performs meme B.
You need to be more specific. Meme A could be your singing a particular
song. Meme B could by my saying, "Good show!" That's not a transfer of
culture.
>
> > But all performances differ. What is transfered?
>
> The fact that all performances differ is not self-evident in all memetic
> theories,
Or physical theories, either. ;-)
> although they are, of course, and that is a groundwork to the
> behavior-only theory. As to what is transfered, take your pick- ideas,
> thoughts, implications, inferences, physical motions, social
> conventions, what precisely the information that actually gets
> transfered is open to great and limitless analysation.
>
> There is no reason to assume anything gets transfered, really, only that
> that there are similarities to Meme A and Meme B. Transference is a
> meaning-related condition and can be part of an understanding of the
> performance, but no understanding of any meaning is _demanded_ by the
> performance-only theory. Culture happens when alphabets happen.
If we are not talking about cultural transmission, then I think that we
have left the field of memetics. I take your point if transfer requires
exact copies. But we are talking about phenomena that are both
relatively stable over time and mutable. You currently seem to be
denying or greatly downplaying the stability.
Best,
Bill
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