Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA09309 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 2 Jun 2000 01:43:19 +0100 From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: What is "useful"; what is "survival" Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 17:41:04 -0700 Message-ID: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJEEGMEOAA.richard@brodietech.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <3929A97D.B10F573@mediaone.net> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Replying to some posts from Chuck. Let me ask first, Chuck, what you hope to
gain from your participation here. Are you interested in understanding
memetics? Are you here to campaign for an alternate theory? I think either
is fine, but most of your posts seem to be expressing the fact that you
don't get memetics, I think carrying an implication that there is nothing to
get. Are you willing to consider that there might actually be something to
get, but you don't (yet) get it?
Here's a quote that I think illustrates your point of view well:
<<The only way to effectively
understand the process is by looking at a lot of historic detail that
illustrates continuously how our society is a **necessary** response to the
exhaustion of the pre industrial revolution resource base. It has to do with
increasing population densities, the carrying capacity of the land relative
to
old technologies, an increasingly complex division of labor that is needed
to
exploit harder to get resources -- stuff like that. The necessity faced by
this
basic ecological problem of resource exhaustion is finding new efficiencies
at
every level.>>
It's a very interesting study, the progression of culture based on responses
to new challenges and so on. Since you claim to understand the process, what
do you predict about the future?
<< That isn't to say that people who act in this broad ecological
stage understand it as such; they don't have to.>>
What, then, motivates them to change?
<<In short, the industrial revolution did not happen because people were
suddenly
infected with some virus as some memists might claim. It was a necessary
response to a changing ecology. The competitive game is a constant in across
all
human societies - that's how change is ultimately accomplished. But it's not
the
competition itself, but the ecology that drives it.>>
I don't know what a "memist" is, who any of them are, or what they might or
might not claim. Is this a misspelling of "memeticist" or a neologism you
are coining? To whom are you referring?
Assuming you are talking about memetics, let me ask you a question. Do you
think every person to use steel independently invented steel in response to
a changing ecology? Or did the idea of steel spread rapidly once invented
once or a handful of times, filling a cultural niche?
<<Unfortunately to give this a reality, it is necessary to have a good grasp
of a
lot of historical data pertaining to economics, politics, psychology,
population
studies, and history. There are simply no easy shortcuts on this one. But
the
principle is still ecological, not simply a game of cultural catchup -- even
though people may conceptualize it that way in their daily lives.>>
I don't think any memeticist would deny that the environment (physical,
cultural, and mental) is important to the spread of memes. I tend not to
believe you when you say that something is too complicated to understand
without reading volumes of stuff. Richard Feynman always said that anyone
who couldn't express the essence an idea in a sentence or two didn't really
have a clear idea.
[RB]
> Frankly I've never heard anyone else on this list, other than you, express
> distaste for technological progress.
<<You evidently aren't reading some of the posts -- or at least not very
carefully.>>
This is another thing you do that lessens your credibility in my eyes. I
believe you have a pattern that, when challenged, you tend to point to
unspecified prior posts rather than answering the challenge directly. I
always assume, when you do that, that you are wrong but don't want to admit
it.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com
http://www.memecentral.com/rbrodie.htm
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