From: Philip Jonkers (philosophimur@dygo.com)
Date: Thu 15 May 2003 - 09:21:48 GMT
Of course when information is transmitted from one person to the next
it is likely to be distorted, mutated, scrambled or what-have-you
along the way. But this constitutes the very core of the variation
component essential to (cultural) evolution.
Also, when one says that information is passed from, say James to Jack,
no claim or assertion is made about the actual accuracy of the transmission. In general, one can expect that Jack has obtained a different information version than James' original. It is dependent on what Dawkins calls fidelity as to how accurate the information content
is preserved in the process of information transmission from James
to Jack.
--- "Wade T. Smith" <wade.t.smith@verizon.net> wrote:
>n 1: the act of sending a message; causing a message to be transmitted
>[syn: transmittal, transmitting]
>
>That humans transmit is self-evident. That information is present in
>the messages being transmitted is also not in dispute.
>
>But what _is_ in dispute, and it's not a skeptical position, it's a
>straight up logical and procedural one, is whether or not the
>information being transmitted gets transmitted in toto from one human
>to another, and it is my contention that, since there is no direct
>means of this transfer (i.e. telepathy is not an agent in this
>universe), the information in one mind is, at best, a reasonably
>accurate representation of the information in another's, and the
>maintenance of the accuracy of this representation is the duty of
>culture, as well as a function of a mind in a society of minds.
>
>Thus, I claim, and I see no refute, that saying 'information is being
>passed from one mind to another' is a grossly simplistic way to
>describe the actual events, agents, objectives, participants, media,
>and processes that go into _any_ cultural (indeed, any interpersonal)
>interaction.
>
>And it is a simplicity that dumbs down any further effort to explore
>memetics, if not halt it altogether.
>
>- Wade
>
>
>===============================================================
>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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