Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA12854 (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 15:09:34 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31017458A2@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Jabbering ! Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 15:07:30 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Thanks for this.
I have avoided the notion of choice as a key element of culture, simply
because there are all those problems of conscious/unconscious behaviours,
but I think you're right to point that out as a potential part of it.
Quite often cultural behaviours maintain themselves without most of the
people engaged in them necessarily knowing the purposes of those behaviours.
A pretty obvious one that occurs to me is the tie. Of course, some people
will know where such behaviours came from, what they're for etc., but most
people don't or won't, but it doesn't stop the culture of tie wearing from
persisting.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Lawrence H. de Bivort
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Friday, June 2, 2000 2:38 pm
> To: 'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'
> Subject: RE: Jabbering !
>
> On Fri, 2 Jun 2000, Vincent Campbell wrote:
>
> >If memetics is a theory of cultural evolution then some agreement has to
> be
> >reached about what a culture actually is. It seems to me, from many of
> the
> >postings on this, that the term is used quite differently in different
> >disciplines.
>
> For what it is worth, the definition of 'culture' that I use is:
>
> The collective phenomenon of how people(consciously or unconsciously) make
> decisions, choose behaviors, and arrive at judgements. Collected, these
> individual actions create societally-coded patterns that can characterize
> a group of people and distinguish them from another. Among the elements
> that go into these individual actions are: information and sensory
> channels, beliefs (including knowledge), values, and an ability to know
> (not always exercised) where a person is in the process of taking these
> individual actions.
>
>
> >I'd quite like someone to clarify for me how they use the term culture to
> >describe behaviours of caterpillars or apes or whatever.
>
> Do caterpillars do things like 'choosing behaviors', arriving at decisions
> and judgements? Do apes? I think the issue of whether they have 'culture'
> hinges on this...
>
> - Lawrence
>
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> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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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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