From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Fri 28 Feb 2003 - 02:38:55 GMT
> At 06:56 PM 27/02/03 -0500, Scott wrote:
> >(Keith)
> >>
> >>Ah. I don't make such distinctions at all. To me memes are pure
> >>information.
> >Whatever that means...
> >>
> >>Information has to be in some material form, of course, but I make
> >>no distinction between it being in a brain and being on paper or in
> >>an artifact.
> >I think important distinctions could be made between neural states,
> >scribblings on paper, or an artifact (a category which could include
> >paper scribblings).
>
> Certainly. But at the gross level of looking at the spread of memes
> in human culture, the invariant information rather than its physical
> form is all that is important.
>
> Let me provide an example of a meme that changed the world in
> extremely important ways. http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1440.htm
> Consider the meme that made the difference between Newcomen engines
> and Watt's engines. The behavior of an engineer designing steam
> engines in those days was forever changed when he heard about
> "separate condenser" from another engineer, or read about it in a
> magazine, or examined a Watt type steam engine. It made no difference
> which route the information took getting to the engineer to have the
> same effect.
>
> >I might have a hazy vision (neural state) of what a good painting
> >should look like. I might attempt to commit this vision to canvas. 'm
> >not sure how well my attempt would conincide with the vision I have.
> >By the same token I might have ideas for stories, yet attempting to
> >put them to paper may result in a divergence from the original.
> >
> >OTOH I might look at a painting and come away with a somewhat
> >divrgence impression than you would, so my recollection of said
> >painting could diverge from yours.
> >
> >What I'm getting at is that there may be divergence from brain to
> >paper and vice versa just as there may be divergence between brains.
> >I'm not sure this variation could be shoehorned into a reified
> >abstraction such as the "meme".
>
> I have intense memories of looking into the Grand Canyon. No doubt
> the impressions I formed are different in both gross and molecular
> detail from anyone else who ever looked at the Canyon. Interesting as
> these areas of study are, I don't see where they have application to
> memes as they are defined as replicating (transmissible) cultural
> elements.
>
> >>This is by close analogy to genes,
> >I'm not sure how close an analogy can be made between the messy
> >relation between neural states or ideas and scribblings as carried
> >over to genes.
> >>
> >>where most of the time they are in strings of DNA, but can be on
> >>paper or magnetic tape. You could even memorize a gene. They are
> >>all freely convertible from one form to another.
> >Perhaps using some sense of the phrase "freely convertible". A
> >representation of a gene on paper isn't about to go and get
> >transcribed to make an RNA.
>
> Neither is a gene sample smeared on an index card or in a bottle. But
> it is still the gene, active or not. And in these days of gene
> readers that have read out the entire human genome and that of dozens
> of other species along with synthesizers that write genes, I think
> "freely convertible" is just stating the obvious.
>
> >A paper representation is shorthand at best, just like a pencil
> >sketch is but a facsimile of a real life scene, since you like
> >analogies.
>
> Does a computer file of "War and Peace" read differently from a paper
> copy? Is it somehow shorthand or a facsimile? I don't think so.
>
> A base pair listing of a gene is an *exact* representation of the
> physical structure of a gene. You could get 4 different kinds of
> those kid-toy snap together type beads and code a gene that way too.
> The only thing that is common to these different ways of representing
> a gene is the information. If you look in a journal article, nobody
> ever makes a disclaimer that this is a paper representation of the
> hemoglobin gene, they just label the paper listing as Hemoglobin. The
> least complicated thing you can do is to take this practice at face
> value and admit the only invariant element is the information.
>
> By close analogy, the form, i.e., paper, brains, or steam engines in
> which the meme "separate condenser" is encoded are utterly divergent.
> But *something* in each of them can get into the brain of an engineer
> and change the way he designs steam engines in exactly the same way.
> That something is a meme. The only thing common over these different
> forms is information. QED, memes are information in the same sense
> genes are above.
>
> >The base sequence of a gene might be memorized, but it would take
> >some serious effort to make a gene out of a memory.
>
> You type what you remember into a gene synthesizer and push the
> "start" button. There are lots of people who have memorized poems
> with as many words as are in a typical gene. (Pointless, I agree,
> just a thought example.)
>
> >Nonetheless, I don't see how the analogy helps the memetic cause.
>
> My point is that the root of memetics, the meme, is a *simple*
> concept. I might add that memetics is simple in the same sense
> English with 26 letters or chemistry with fewer than 100 elements are
> simple (before you start combining letters or elements). There are
> only *4* DNA bases before you start combining *them.* :-)
>
> Keith Henson
>
> >>PS A while ago someone demonstrated reconstructing active polio
> >>from the published genome. They did this with a used gene
> >>synthesizer that you can pick up for about $2,000. I have not
> >>looked it up myself, but a while ago someone I know looked up the
> >>smallpox genome on a US government web site.
> >>
> >>So the "fact" that there are only two samples of active smallpox in
> >>freezers doesn't mean much in terms of it being used as a terror
> >>weapon.
>
I consider the informational aspect to be necessary, but not sufficient, to
label its carrier a meme. What is required is semantic content, that is,
that the information can be understood by a self-conscious awareness
and replicated between a multiplicity of them. That would exclude
genes pre-Watson & Crick, and for most people, whose idea of the
gene has nothing to do with the information encoded in base
sequences, post-Watson & Crick.
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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