RE: Why People are so Contrary

From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed 11 Dec 2002 - 03:16:08 GMT

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    >From: "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
    >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    >Subject: RE: Why People are so Contrary
    >Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 11:01:31 -0500
    >
    >Hurrah, Grant!
    >
    >Memetics has only suffered by insistence that it 'fit' genetic or
    >biological
    >evolutionary models. Nor, truly, do memes operate as mere units of
    >information, or, from the PoV of cybernetics, units of control. To me,
    >memetics is its own thing, and offers its own unique insights, and along
    >with those insights, its own set of applications.
    >
    Whither Dawkins, the ultradarwinist extraordinaire? Whither Darwin's Dangerous Idea?

    OTOH don't forget Darwin's provisional hypothesis of pangenesis, but we can kindly skip over that for the sake of the ultradarwinian memeticists.

    At what point when you step away from Darwinian selectionism and Mendelian particulatism does memetics cease to be memetics?

    Better off calling it something else then.
    >
    >Cheers,
    >Lawry
    >
    >
    > > I am still in a state of pondering what I realized yesterday == that the
    > > propagation of memes in no way resembles either the Darwinian or the
    > > Lamarkian model. Right now, I can't think of anything it does resemble
    > > other than information theory. Cybernetics seems to offer a more
    > > reasonable
    > > explanation than genetics because we have no idea what memes give
    > > birth to.
    > > The fact that we have culture, however, is a good indication they
    > > give birth
    > > to something. And whatever it is seems to be growing at an exponential
    > > rate.
    > >
    > > 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

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