From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Mon 23 Dec 2002 - 18:16:22 GMT
>
> >When perusing whether and to what degree an existent
> (I'll just substitute 'item' where ever I see 'existent')
>
>
> > such as a behavior
> >or belief facilitates or hinders niche occupation in a spectrum of
> >variable environments (and the prevalence and concommitant social
> >benefit or superfluity of a particular behavior or belief is part and
> >parcel of the memetic environment), a fitness landscape is indeed a
> >better representation, but when simply perusing the spectrum of
> >occurrence of a particular existent, such as manifestation of a
> >particular behavior pattern or belief in a certain concept, where
> >some percentage is likely to manifest such a behavior or hold such a
> >concept more than others and less than still others, the Bell curve
> >is the most Occamically efficient faithful representation of such a
> >statistical spread.
>
> No. I think that if you want to describe what percentage of a
> population has a certain belief as opposed to another then a bell
> curve would not be appropriate unless you have gathered statistical
> evidence that a bell curve is the appropriate distribution for that
> belief. A two dimension array such as you were describing would also
> imply a range of behaviors along a scale and not just the percentage
> of one behavior. Such a range would have to have linear relationship
> so that one item differed from the other in such a manner that one
> could be said to 'increasing' from another and that another was
> 'decreasing'. The advantage of a multidimensional array is that there
> doesn't have to be a continuum of increasing or decreasing
> relationships between items.
>
Bell curves do not have to be shaped like bells; they can be skewed to
reflect the aggregate data they represent. Thus, whatever the statistical
distribution, the Bell curve works.
>
> I couldn't find 'Occamically' . I think Occam would have preferred
> that you use 'simplistically'.
>
> Ray
>
>
> > >
> > > Ray Recchia
> > >
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
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> 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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