From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Wed 21 May 2003 - 23:05:23 GMT
On Wednesday, May 21, 2003, at 06:42 PM, Joe wrote:
> But that information IS the meme
But, it is _not_ the meme in the performance model. Again, you are
using one model to judge another, and, well, that ain't fair.
> Genes are genes even if they are latent and not expressed (recessive).
Yah, they are. And artifacts are artifacts even if they are latent.
But they ain't memetically useful.
A latent gene (sitting in a dinosaur egg) is not doing its evolutionary
duties, and an extinct artifact (that Tlingit whateveritwas) is not
either. They need some cultural venue viagra.
It's all still a matter of shifting meanings by position and status
with the memeinthemind model. The performance model only has one
meaning, in one place, for one purpose, in one state of activity, for
_its_ meme. And I like that better.
> Both knowledge and performance are necessaty, I have said time and
> time again; both the internal and the external are essential; memetic
> transfer and evolution cannot transpire without BOTH of them.
I know you've said that time and time again. And what I keep telling
you time and time again is this- _in the performance model_, which is
_not_ to be judged by the memeinthemind model (which has absolutely
_no_ empirical or evidential support and is only a conjecture about how
minds work), these two separate things, the information and the
performance, are not only separate and unique words, but separate and
unique cultural operations and they are kept apart in meaning and
utility, and only _one_ of them is the meme. The performance model will
not allow one thing to be in two places at once, even with two
different names. That they are both necessary for your model is, well,
it's a problem, as in the performance model information is _not_
necessary, at least the information that is attempted to be transferred
by the performer. What one infers from a performance may totally be at
odds from the intention (and thus the information being used) of the
performer. And, to my mind, saying that intentional information is a
necessity is a blind error, of both cultural evolution and ordinary
perception. It's a comedian's paradise, the seriously intentioned
character who's enormously humorous.
You insist upon grey crows, and then ask me to eat them. I still say
you have to find one first if not bake four and twenty of them into a
pie.
- Wade
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