Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA22198 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 10 Jun 2000 17:04:30 +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Imitation or transmission? Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 16:51:56 +0100 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <20000610110615.30526.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-Id: <00061017023002.00586@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Sat, 10 Jun 2000, Diana Stevenson wrote:
>Mark wrote:
>
><Can you describe the entity being transmitted? Can you then link the
>entity to natural selection?>
>
>Is memetics confined to natural selection? Is Coca Cola vs. Pepsi or Nike
>vs. Addidas about natural selection? Or is it about memetic engineering?
Same thing. "Natural selection" does not mean "selection by any means
other than human intervention". The distinction between what we do, and
what happens by other means, matters only to us, and sometimes it doesn't
matter even to us.
>Natural selection has been compromised since the invention of agriculture,
>and now we have genetic engineering also. Do do we have to stick to the
>natural selection model for memes?
Genetic engineering does make a difference, in some ways: before it, I
believe, genes could not move across the species barrier, though I'm no
expert, and that might be just a generalisation. But if you aspire to
"the big picture", the scientific view, then again, ultimately, there's
no difference. Human activity is just part of the environment in
which genes replicate or die out.
>I can think of many memes which are widely copied by I'm not sure how they
>can be linked to natural selection. Whole national cultures have changed on
>the whim of the sovereign, for example.
That's an extreme example, but memes are necessarily affected by our
conscious decisions, all day every day in every one of us. So what? They
survive or become extinct, and in the big picture, the details of how
that happens in any given case don't matter too much. Of course, we don't
always want to look at the big picture -- sometimes we get personally
involved in the nitty gritty details -- but that's another matter.
-- Robin Faichney===============================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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