Re: Dennett article on post-modernism

From: William Benzon (bbenzon@mindspring.com)
Date: Fri 14 Mar 2003 - 16:47:38 GMT

  • Next message: Dace: "Dennett & memes"

    on 3/14/03 7:45 AM, Wade T. Smith at wade.t.smith@verizon.net wrote:

    > Dennett has a wonderful little talk at
    > http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/printer_friendly.php?num=13 about,
    > mainly, the criticism of science.
    >
    > In it, he defines 'meme' as 'a replicating idea', taking the popular
    > side of that term's charming half-life. And if we want to define a meme
    > as a replicating idea, which seems, to me, to be fine, then can we
    > reduce memetics to be merely a job of discerning propagation patterns?
    > What about defining 'idea', and even, in this light, 'replication'?
    >
    > I like, in a way, the simple, MTV model of meme- hey, dude, spread that
    > meme. It seems somehow right to relegate that word to slang.
    >
    > - Wade

    As far as I know, that's always been Dennett's view about memes. I doubt that he's ever seriously considered another view.

    A memetics that went to work gathering empirical evidence about propagation patterns would be a worthwhile endeavor. Given that the work has been well done, the results can be used by anyone regardless of what they might believe about the nature of memes.

    Bill B

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