Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA20971 (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 22:25:43 +0100 From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: What is "useful"; what is "survival" Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2000 14:23:39 -0700 Message-ID: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJCEJIEOAA.richard@brodietech.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <39384B8B.29C22511@mediaone.net> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Chuck wrote:
<<Do weathermen predict the future? How well do they understand the
weather?>>
Yes of course they predict the future and understand the weather... that's
their job. What's your point?
[RB]
> Assuming you are talking about memetics, let me ask you a question. Do you
> think every person to use steel independently invented steel in response
to
> a changing ecology? Or did the idea of steel spread rapidly once invented
> once or a handful of times, filling a cultural niche?
<<As I said in a previous post, one could indeed say that each person
"invents"
it.>>
So you see no distinction between coming up with a novel innovation on one's
own and learning about it from someone who already has the knowledge? Isn't
one a lot more difficult and rare?
<< But did it spread rapidly or was it invented a handful of times? It's
very
hard to know - the debate has been around for about 150 years. But these
days
they are finding more and more evidence for the latter. On a really complex
invention, though, remember that it pays to keep the process a secret.
Producing
bronze, for example, is a complex process. It was invented on one island in
the
Mediterranean Sea, and there it stayed; it was the source of bronze for the
entire Mediterranean. That may be because the exact minerals only resided
there
and there were lots of trees for fuel (the island is now treeless precisely
because it was all used up). Another example that comes to mind are
navigational
charts during the Age of Discovery - they were so valuable that they were
kept
secret.>>
An interesting story. I'd love to sit and listen to your stories some time.
But the question was whether you acknowledge that information spread
memetically throughout a culture.
[RB]
I tend not to
> believe you when you say that something is too complicated to understand
> without reading volumes of stuff. Richard Feynman always said that anyone
> who couldn't express the essence an idea in a sentence or two didn't
really
> have a clear idea.
<<But I DID express the essence by expressing in several words the basic
"principle." And it's not just the environment per se that's important, but
the
principles by which we respond to it.>>
I must have missed it. Could you please repeat the essence of your theory
that conflicts with memetics?
> [RB]
> > Frankly I've never heard anyone else on this list, other than you,
express
> > distaste for technological progress.
>
[CP]
> <<You evidently aren't reading some of the posts -- or at least not very
> carefully.>>
>
[RB]
> This is another thing you do that lessens your credibility in my eyes. I
> believe you have a pattern that, when challenged, you tend to point to
> unspecified prior posts rather than answering the challenge directly. I
> always assume, when you do that, that you are wrong but don't want to
admit
> it.
<<Sorry - I don't have the time to go back to find them. I remember at least
two
of them at the moment, and the work of Blackmore is saturated with the
bias.>>
As I remember you didn't get much agreement on that. And I think it's odd to
claim that a discussion conducted exclusively by email is populated by
people biased against technology.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com www.memecentral.com/rbrodie.htm
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