From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Tue 20 May 2003 - 02:27:57 GMT
On Monday, May 19, 2003, at 08:21 PM, Joe wrote:
> They may be modified (mutation),
> and the mutations may be accepted or rejected (selection).
From Wilkins we have-
"Memes must be expressed in a cultural ecology in order to be selected,
but it is the class of behaviours rather than the behaviours themselves
that are memes."
- and I would see this cultural ecology as the venue of the performance
model, and the class of behavior within it as the meme, not, as Wilkins
so aptly expresses, the behaviors themselves, which can, of course, be
happening without a cultural ecology, but only within a social or
biological ecology, and thus, are not memes, at all.
Again, every and any model of memetics needs to show how the meme is
active in cultural evolution, and, face it, the memeinthemind just
ain't- it just sits there, absent of cultural ecology, and once a
performer _becomes_ active, perhaps (but not necessarily) acting upon
the "specific strings of meaning/significance that are learned" then
the performance itself, the meme itself, will be capable of selection.
The memeinthemind model also has a high hurdle to jump to show that it
is a _necessary_ condition for cultural evolution. IMHO, this is an
impossible height for it and all that has been offered in the way of
explanation for necessity is the equivocation of 'similarity' of
information. Well, forget it- similarity is not isomorphism, at all.
Ask that viceroy butterfly over there. And it certainly is not
information transfer.
In the genetic model, the gene still needs to perform to be necessary
to evolution, otherwise, it sits. In Keith's explanation of gene
replication through coded transmission forms, we still can only
construct a small portion of any living entity, not the entire entity
itself, and can only use this replicated piece of DNA in small and
insertive processes. Genome manipulation through chemical structure DNA
manufacture is more an analog of memetic cultural venue manipulation
than the other way around.
- Wade
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