Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA19810 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 3 Jun 2000 18:35:06 +0100 Message-Id: <200006031732.NAA22767@mail2.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2000 12:37:00 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: RE: Jabbering ! In-reply-to: <00060220013501.00647@faichney> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk>
Organization: Reborn Technology
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: RE: Jabbering !
Date sent: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 19:46:12 +0100
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> On Fri, 02 Jun 2000, Vincent Campbell wrote:
> >Fair enough, I think that's pretty clear.
> >
> >I'll have to think about that, and get back to you. It still doesn't seem
> >right to me, as I still think there are quantitative and qualitative
> >differences between human culture and other organisms' communicative
> >behaviours, distinct enough to not warrant calling other organisms
> >behaviours cultural.
>
> A definition of culture that fits perfectly with memetics, though it
> might not satisfy your "cultural intuitions" (intuitions about culture,
> derived from culture) is very simple: imitation of behaviour. To fill
> that out a little: species that are both social, and sufficiently
> intelligent, can learn cooperatively -- what one individual learns
> directly from experience can be passed on to others so that they get
> the benefit without having to go through the experience. This "body
> of knowledge" constitutes the culture, and this is obviously more
> efficient than being restricted to individual learning, in which case
> the wheel is reinvented many, many times.
>
> Of course, human culture has a very substantial content that was not
> exactly learned -- the products of the imagination, for instance -- and
> there are plenty other differences from the culture of any other species
> too. But on this definition, these are all cultures, and I don't see any
> particular problem with this definition. On the contrary, it has
> the advantage of being quite simple and clear. And there are plenty
> of differences between us and other species, so there's no need to
> add culture to the list.
>
But those differences constitute culture. When a mother lion
teaches her cub to stalk prey, she is passing down the same
wheel passed down for countless millennia. I cannot consider this
cultural transmission, but rather species-specific childrearing.
Thousands of different human languages where in each case the
meaning-being relations between words and referents are arbitrary
and by mutual convention rather than being either genetically or
environmentally mandated, a great number of complex and ever-
changing technologies, and both scientific theories to explain how
they - and we - work, and pure abstractions applicable to any
referent, such as mathematics and logic; NOW we're talking
culture(s)!
> --
> Robin Faichney
>
>
> 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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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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