From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue 18 Feb 2003 - 03:38:17 GMT
> At 06:49 PM 17/02/03 -0600, you wrote:
> > > At 06:23 PM 16/02/03 -0500, you wrote:
>
> snip
>
> > > 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.
> > >
> >True enough; most memes are symbionts rather than virulents, but
> >those that are virulent must be strongly contagious, or
> >'hook-into-able', due to the disadvantage that assimilating them
> >confers.
>
> Some of them are slow poison, so it is not so obvious what you are
> getting into. Though, by the time you are cutting off your own balls,
> it should be clear enough. :-)
>
Kinda like the frog that slow cooks.
>
> > > The environment for memes both physical and memetic is in a flux,
> > > especially in the last few hundred years. So what was a meme of
> > > considerable power to get itself replicated 100 years ago may be
> > > nearly extinct today (example phrenology).
> > >
> >Yep; memetic evoilution snowballs, standing on progressively higher
> >shoulders of the previously known, and thus the rate of memetic
> >change continually accelerates and cascades.
>
> In things like science for sure. Not so sure about other fields.
>
Perhaps not some other fields that are approaching completion, so they
are on the downside of the bell curve.
>
> > > The overall system of humans (constructed by their genes) and
> > > memes (sum of memes = culture) has co-evolved. This introduces
> > > complications, but certainly not beyond that often seen in
> > > biologically co-evolved systems.
> > >
> >There is a mutual feedback system operating between genes and
> >memes, so that neither can any longer be considered strictly in
> >isolation. Genes influence the choices of possible memes in the
> >short run, but memes influence which genes proliferate over the long
> >run.
>
> That's certainly true. The thing that is very different is the time
> scale for memes and genes. But that's not new in biology either.
>
Agreed; that's why I said long-term vs. short-term.
>
> Keith Henson
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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