From: William Benzon (bbenzon@mindspring.com)
Date: Mon 19 May 2003 - 02:08:44 GMT
on 5/18/03 9:17 PM, Richard Brodie at richard@brodietech.com wrote:
[snip]
> I don't understand why anyone would say memories can't be memes. The
> statement doesn't even make sense to me. A definition can't be wrong. At
> worst, you could say the study of mental replicators is useless. I don't
> happen to think it is, but then again I'm not a researcher. But this
> constant diatribe against "memesinthemid" makes no sense to me. Not that I
> think it's wrong, just that I don't even understand the argument.
So, just how do you define "meme"? Let us say that we define a meme to be
an entity that plays a role in cultural processes that is analogous to the
role that a gene plays in biological processes. That, I believe, is what
Dawkins had in mind and what Dennett has defended.
So, we now examine cultural processes to see what, if any, entities fit the
definition. You claim to have found such entities in people's minds. Wade
claims that is impossible and so do I. We're not disagreeing with the
definition -- assuming you more or less agree with it. We're disagreeing
about where to look in the world to find entities that satisfy the
definition.
-- William L. Benzon 708 Jersey Avenue, Apt. 2A Jersey City, NJ 07302 201 217-1010 "You won't get a wild heroic ride to heaven on pretty little sounds."--George Ives Mind-Culture Coevolution: http://asweknowit.ca/evcult/ =============================================================== 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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