From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Sat 02 Nov 2002 - 03:59:01 GMT
On Friday, November 1, 2002, at 09:00 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> Neither can a zombic body alone. But' you keep your performance
> exclusivity.
Once again, I keep the performance exclusivity _exclusively_ to the
realm of the _cultural unit of transmission_, not to the operation of
the mind or to anything else in the functions of the individual human.
> you have failed to explain the tokens' similarity to each other
> in the absence of recourse to a common type.
One peme's similarity to another is a function of performance- the
commonality demanded by the pemetic model is a commanality of brain
function across the human species, not to a commonality of actual
memories inscribed therein. (The commonality of memories is caused by
the apprehension by these similar brain functions of the cultural
environment, although that is also self-evident.) I actually don't need
to explain any token's similarity to any type, because those are
categorizations of products, not descriptions of function.
Once you have a set of observed pemes, you can categorize them any way
you please. But the brain's functions do not do that, (and you only have
conjecture that they might), and the performance is simply that, an
attempt to perform, prepared in memory and skill and staged in the
cultural proscenium. When such a performance is barely distinguishable
from the first performance, the type category can be invoked and the
token class inferred.
> except for peer acceptance, and that begs the question of why the first
> few aficianados would engage in such behavior
When you beg the question, you're also supplying the answer, so, peer
acceptance is the reason people engage in such behavior. But, yes, the
question of where the first instance comes from is a good one,
nonetheless, and there is no reason to invoke memesinthemind for it-
invention is often a serendipitous process with a great degree of
unconscious processes. The whys behind creativity are fascinating. But,
I'm not convinced culture cares, and I know for sure that cultural
transmission doesn't care how things came to be available for
replication.
Indeed, the pratfall, one of the first examples that satisfied the
pemetic model, could well have been just that at first, an accident.
Observed, laughed at, and copied. And laughed at again. Are accidents
behaviors? Limitedly, yes, but, memetically, culturally, no.
> For a simpler model of the same
> phenomenon, you might wat to check queue theory.
I have. It is not sufficient. It's close, and it was used for a while
(still is, alas, by some traffic engineers), but granular mechanics,
after fluid mechanics (which also came close, and, yes, alas, is still
being used), has shown more predictive strength.
> And each of them depend upon similar, albeit individual, individuals in
> common circumstances react[ing] to common environmental
> exigencies.
This is the stage and personae of the pemetic model, which is why I
mentioned it. No memeinthemind meaning needed for analysis or prediction.
> Actually, your persistent adherence to the exclusive 'external only'
> model, in opposition to the both-and mentation-behavior model, is what
> I find to be absurd. A one-sided coin canot exist.
I am maintaining no adherence to any external only model. Again, and
again, and yet again, I am only maintaining that the _unit of cultural
transmission_ is the performance. _Involved_ in performance is a human
being, fully mentational and capable of performance, and another human
being, also fully mentational and capable of performance. Not only
two-sided coins in your mention, but at least two two-sided coins.
And, as I already commented, criticizing a painting because the paint
itself is only on one side of the canvas is bogus.
- Wade
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