From: Dace (edace@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun 16 Mar 2003 - 00:29:00 GMT
> From: "Alan Patrick" <a.patrick@btinternet.com>
>
> My thought was about memes that are "emperor's old clothes" memes, ie that
> are still in situ even though their basis for existence is provably
eroded -
> do they work mainly by:
> (i) having strong self-reinforcing elements, and/or conversely are good
at
> preventing entry of new memes for long periods
Right.
> (ii) "perverting" the vision of the meme-carrier so that he/she cannot see
> reality
Memes can't pervert their hosts. Perversion is strictly psychological.
People are perverted, not memes. Memes just promote themselves (and thereby
crowd out competitors). Mental causation goes on at both the memetic and
personal levels. In fact, it's carried on at three levels: memes, people,
and groups of people. Each level has automonous, causal power, and each
level can become pathological and dangerous. As Dennett has finally
realized, the attempt to use memetics as a way of "explaining" culture
without resort to conscious agency can only discredit the emerging field of
study.
> (iii)a "natural half life" exists for dominant old memes and they have to
> fall below a certain strength before they are dislodgeable
"Half life" is a chemical concept and has no bearing on biological
evolution. So, it probably doesn't make a very good analogy for memetics.
Incidentally, the resilience of not only useless but actively harmful memes
is the only way to study the subject scientifically. This is because the
existence of helpful memes can be ascribed to the ordinary attributes of
ideas, which passively replicate on the basis of their value from one person
to the next. The point of memes is that they're "selfish." They
self-replicate, just like genes. When an idea that's clearly harmful is
also impossible to eradicate, then we know we're dealing with a meme.
Ted
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