From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue 18 Feb 2003 - 01:25:02 GMT
> on 2/17/03 7:23 PM, Keith Henson at hkhenson@rogers.com wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >
> > Memetics is really *very* simple. People have evolved to be good at
> > learning. Memes (replicated information) are a large part of what
> > they learn, clear back to the old stone age. Humans can't learn and
> > pass on every meme that comes along so memes are in competition for
> > the limited resource of human brains and time, thus setting up the
> > conditions for Darwinian differential selection.
>
> This is as empty as it is simple. Social learning theory has been
> around for a long time. Memetics has added nothing to that. The
> "differential selection" etc. language is just pro forma Darwinian
> boilerplate. It doesn't bring anything to the explanatory mix. That
> people can't and don't learn every learnable thing is hardly a new
> observation. This is no more than old wine in new bottles. The
> biological language just adds a pseudo-scientific gloss.
>
I think that it adds a necessary context within which the behavior of idea
selection can be more succinctly explained.
> >
> > Particular memes become more or less common over time because some
> > are better at getting into new human minds. (Most memes are
> > helpful--ultimately to the genes of their host--but a few are
> > pathological, damaging or killing their hosts.) Memes vary (mutate,
> > copy errors) and because of variation and selection ones better
> > suited to get into human minds and be passed on further become more
> > common and memes less good at being passed on become less common
> > over time.
>
> More empty boilerplate. You need to say why people prefer some memes
> over others. To simply say that some memes spread further because
> they're "better at getting into new human minds" doesn't say anything
> very helpful. That's as useful as saying that water runs down hill
> because it prefers being at the bottom of hills.
>
Actually, umm, no. Water is not a conscious agent as people are; it
cannot prefer like people can.
>
> Memetics is an intellectual strategy for avoiding the hard business of
> explaining why people have the preferences they do. Instead, you just
> lay it off on the memes. These magical memes have mystical properties
> that allow them to sneak into people's minds. It's the memes that do
> it. The minds are just empty vessels.\
>
No, what is already in the mind has a lot to do with what is permeable to
it.
>
> Bill Benzon
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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