From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Fri 01 Nov 2002 - 08:47:43 GMT
On Thursday, October 31, 2002, at 04:49 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> That is why I get itchy using the term 'beme' to refer to behavior.
Beme is used for those specific cultural behaviors that requires both
performer and observer. Nothing to get itchy about.
> To add one meme-type is not in the same Occamic violation class as is
> indefinitely multiplying behavioral instantiations.
Interesting take on the bemetic model. Completely facetious, of course.
It is simply a fact of time and space that all things are not something
else, and that all events, in time and space, are unique. That each and
every behavior is something new, as each and every moment is something
new, is elementary.
It is not multiplying instantiations to simply count them.
> Since memes reside in the mind, the systems entailed by such a model
> are the proper criteria be which to judge.
You have no proof that memes are in the mind, and you are criticizing
_using_ the memeinthemind model, about a model that _does not_ include
memes in the mind.
I do not conjecture about bemes in behavior- we know certain behaviors
are both performed and observed and culturally relevant. We know nothing
about any memeinthemind other than that such conjectures are part of a
hypothesis of motivational ideation.
But, using a mutually exclusionary model to condemn another is
irresponsible.
Show me your meme, and responsibility is established.
I can show you a beme. You've seen millions in your life. You're doing
one answering this, if you choose to do so.
And every one was different.
No-one has ever seen a meme, or a meme-ory, and, indeed, there is no
way, at the moment, to elucidate such unique mental patternings as the
memeinthemind model demands with the present state of observational
tools.
To use one conjectural model to criticize another is senseless.
It would be like a sculptor criticizing a painting because the back of
the canvas was empty.
- Wade
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