Baseball has been very, very good to me

From: Reed Konsler (konslerr@mail.weston.org)
Date: Fri 16 May 2003 - 13:01:52 GMT

  • Next message: Philip Jonkers: "Re: Performance vs. Mind"

    Scott Chase:
    > If a book is where rules are written down, such as rules for baseball, a
    > person trying to teach these rules will try their best to use the book
    (aka
    > artifact) as a basis to teach the rules to others.

    I understand that. It would seem to me that the memes are recorded in the book and then replicated (with whatever arbitrary level of fidelity) in the mind of the people reading the book. But, from what I understand of the performance model, it holds that the memes are actually in the performances.

    I'm trying to understand the difference between memes being recorded in an object (like a book or mind) and in a performance. I'm also trying to understand what happens to memes between performances. Perhaps there is no
    "between performances"? Is culture one continuous stream of them?

    Reed:
    > >...An expedition from First Base
    > >lands on an island called "Second Base" and, after a little exploring,
    > >returns to First leaving behind a bunch of junk they don't need. Among
    > >this junk is the rules of baseball.

    Scott:
    > Are they hanging in the air as a Platonic eidos aaitiing a moment that
    they can
    > be copied imperfectly into this imperfect world?

    Well now, that's just silly isn't it?

    > "Second Basers" via word of mouth and performance after learning it from
    the
    > First Basers?

    Sorry, that was unclear. There are no native inhabitants of Second Base. The only humans that are ever there are the First Base expedition and then the Third Base expedition. They are not on the island at the same time. The Third Basers know of the First Basers only by inference (there are artifacts of their previous presence). The First Basers do not know about Third Basers and did not intend to transmit information to anyone outside their island.

    >Are they saved in a book of baseball rules that wa left by the
    > First Baser expedition?

    Let's say that it's written in tiny, tiny print on a baseball. The only contact contact between First and Third is as the baseball passes Second.

    > The last two possibilities are realistic and are based either on
    performance or artifact.

    Or? Are there memes on the baseball?

    > You are still not explicit as how these rule were left. This happens to
    be a
    > crucial piece of information for you to have left it out.

    I was trusting that you would interpret me in the best possible light. I was hoping that you would fill in something logical if I left a detail out. It's going to be tough otherwise.

    Scott:
    > I think you sealed Wade's case up fairly tightly for him and I'm sure he's
    much obliged.

    Are you under the impression that we're trying to "win" an argument?

    What purpose would that serve?

    > >The questions I have are:
    > >
    > >1) What performance or performances allowed the game of baseball to
    > >replicate?
    > >
    > In the case of the rule book, where's the internal meme? It would be
    > performance guided by reading.

    Before someone reads the baseball, where are the memes? Where are the memes during the period when no one is playing baseball?

    Best,

    Reed

    =============================================================== 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 archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri 16 May 2003 - 13:09:53 GMT