From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue 10 Dec 2002 - 02:19:38 GMT
> >>>
> >>>On Monday, December 9, 2002, at 12:04 PM, Grant Callaghan wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>I think we have to define memetic evolution as Lamarkian for two
> >>>>reasons: 1) the "seed" of an idea is broadcast to everyone withing
> >>>> seeing or hearing distance rather than selectively passed to just
> >>>>one individual, which these days means everyone watching TV, going
> >>>>to school, reading the same book or reading this list, etc., etc.
> >>>>and 2) the meme which is picked up by various members of the
> >>>>public does not produce a faithful reproduction of the meme that
> >>>>was spread in the broadcast. There is too much variation for it
> >>>>to be a Darwinian type reproduction and evolution.
> >>>
> >>>Each performance is goal-oriented (aka lamarckian) (the performance
> >>> itself, as far as the performer is concerned, is only a goal, but
> >>>the performance itself is only half of the equation of culture),
> >>>yes, but, each replication may only have the goal of replication
> >>>itself, so, while lamarckianism might be a fair analyzation of some
> >>>individuals' memetic processes, I don't think cultural evolution
> >>>itself demands lamarckian mechanisms, at all.
> >>>
> >>>And, evolutionary mechanisms are not presumed to be individual's
> >>>mechanisms, are they, regardless of the agency within evolution of
> >>>individuals?
> >>>
> >>>- Wade
> >>
> >>If Mr. Darwin were still around, I'd ask him. But then I can't ask
> >>Lamark for the same reason.
> >>
> >>
> >Well if he's not too busy with thesis work, I'm sure Mr. Wilkins will
> >be chiming in on you mates as this this happens to be his area of
> >expertise.
>
> Another distinction of memetic distribution that differs markedly from
> genetic is the fact that almost everyone who is exposed to a meme
> becomes a carrier. When you sit around the lunch table the next day,
> nearly everyone is aware of what has been talked about on the news or
> was in the evening paper. Even on this list, most of us are aware of
> what the others are talking about despite the fact that we live as
> much as half-a-world apart. There isno way genes could be broadcast
> and picked up by other members of a species this way.
>
Long-distance communication is a reality; long-distance fornication is a
fantasy.
>
> Another feature of the meme is that it is spread across cultures
> whereas genes are restricted to specific species for the most part.
> The defining characteristic of a species is that they cannot mate with
> another species. Language and culture do restrict the passing of
> memes but don't even begin to prevent them, although they did at one
> time when tribes were small and widely separated. Species that look
> identical are considered separate if they can't impregnate each other.
> Memes, on the other hand can be passed from one species to another in
> a restricted sense. Gorillas did learn sign language, after all and
> used it to pass information back to their human handlers. Altough I
> don't believe they passed it to other members of the same ape species.
>
> On the other hand, humans learn from observing other species all the
> time. Chinese developed martial arts based on animal movements. We
> know more about the lives of animals like wolves and apes than we know
> about our next door neighbors if we're in the business of animal
> observation. We know how lions live, mate and coordinate a hunt. We
> know how wolves mark their territory. We know that an ant colony is
> smarter than any individual ant.
>
> And all of this knowledge is common to our culture and available to
> anyone who wants to pursue it. What's more this knowledge has had a
> strong effect on the shape of our culture and whole areas of memetic
> knowledge are devoted to it. Just because we don't peck the tops off
> milk bottles to drink the milk doesn't mean we didn't pick up the meme
> when the finch (or whatever) did it. And we have passed that
> information to millions (if not billions) of other humans.
>
> So when you look at it, there is no way we can defensibly call the
> spread of memes a Darwinian process. I don't even think we can call
> it Lamarkian, now that I think about it. I doubt that either of them
> envisioned anything like what is going in here.
>
You've got that right. It's more McLuhanesque.
>
> Grant
>
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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
>
===============================================================
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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