Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA13013 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 12 Jun 2000 14:42:59 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31017458B9@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Criticisms of Blackmore's approach Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 14:41:07 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Of course, many classical languages are now understood without any oral
knowledge, although whether or not the original speakers of those languages
would be able to hold a conversation with today's experts, who knows. Most
obviously latin is still spoken, (and still taught in schools- including
mine, although I did German instead) but in the same way that the Romans
spoke it?
It seems evident to me that transmission is an appropriate term to use in
relation to memes, primarily because memes have mutiple avenues for
replication through many different means of transmission. Interpersonal
interaction is one, writing is another, TV another etc. etc. What is also
evident is that these non-interpersonal means of meme transmission have
spawned particular kinds of transmission that favour memes, most obviously-
narratives. Narratives occur in every means of information transmission/
communication that humans have, from the folk tales and myths of oral
traditions, to the summary news lead, and the scientific journal article.
Now, and apologies for doing my usual thing in turning someone's else jokey
remark into a major part of the argument, it is in this context that the
Superman/Batman question does become important- not literally which would
win (I'm a comics fan and this has been thought through a few times by
writers!), but in why, as an example, these two particular characters should
have persisted for so long. Both characters are over 60 years old- and of
course the different between them and many other fictional creations, is
that are 'living' characters- in other words stories have been written about
them continously since their inception in the 1930s. When the Batman film
was promoted in 1989, the bat logo was all that was shown on ads and
posters, why? Because alongside Mickey Mouse, Coke/Pepsi, and the Superman
logo, the Bat signal was one of the most recognised symbols anywhere in the
world.
Something in the narratives of Batman and Superman must have particularly
strong memetic qualities that enable them to persist. This undoubtedly
relates to work done in different contexts regarding things like myths (e.g.
Joseph Campbell, Claude Levi-Strauss) or folk tales (e.g. Vladimir Propp).
But what is particularly interesting, is the role of fiction. Fictional
narratives, for the most part do not provoke imitation (parents tell their
children 'its only a story', after scaring them half to bits with a ghost
story). What do they do then?
Even in film studies, few people have done more than notice that after the
invention of the cinematographe, it was not written in stone that film
should become (a) a narrative medium, and (b) a medium dominated by fiction,
and yet it did. (Not overnight, and not in isolation, though).
At its peak during the 1930s and 1940s cinema attendance was massive. In UK
terms, for example, today there are very roughly some 150 million ticket
sales a year, compared to some 1,500 million in the 1940s (which amounts to
something like every person in the Uk going to the pictures at least once a
week). Now, of course, we spend (again UK figures) some 21 or so hours per
week, on average, watching television- most of which, and certainly the
highest rated programmes, is made up of fiction.
The question is why do we spend so much time engaged with fiction (and
unlike religions, fictions we know to be fictions)? Moreover, in terms of
the replication/transmission discussion, what is being replicated in our
level of attention to fictional narratives? Or does narrative simply
involve transmission?
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Robin Faichney
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Monday, June 12, 2000 9:56 am
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Criticisms of Blackmore's approach
>
> On Sun, 11 Jun 2000, Joe E. Dees wrote:
> >I'm encouraged to see you giving consciousness, cognizance and
> >cognition its fair due.
>
> As I've said before here more than once, such concepts as you mention
> there, and memes, have their parts to play in different explanatory
> frameworks. They are, if you like, characters in different stories.
> In practice, we can "mix and match" -- just as we can speculate whether
> Superman would beat Batman in a fair fight -- but there's no place
> for consciousness in "pure" memetics, nor for the meme in phenomenology.
> Just as speculation on the Superman/Batman contest is basically
> pointless, at the theoretical level these concepts are incompatible.
> People have to get over the naive realist "theory of everything"
> fantasy, and learn to get along in a world in which you have to switch
> modes now and again.
>
> >Howzabout this?
> >Memetic dialectics:
> >Level 1) showing: demonstration-imitation
> >Level 2) telling: explanation-understanding
> >Level 3) writing: composition-comprehension
> >
> >Each level depends upon the mastery of the prior levels to be itself
> >learned. This proposal shows that I agree with your point that to
> >learn to tell, one must be shown (referents for the word sounds),
> >and to learn to write, one must be told (meanings) AND shown
> >(written words). I would be interested in finding out about a
> >possible falsification of this view; is there an instance of anyone
> >who has learned to write with comprehension without first being
> >able to speak (engage in discourse), say, a deaf mute who learned
> >to read braille without having learned ASL (American Sign
> >Language)? Imitation is not enough, however; if one learns to
> >knapp a handaxe, yet never sees one used, does it really possess
> >artifactual (frozen memetic) meaning for the imitator, or would
> >spoken or written words possess meaning for those taught to
> >recreate the sound or the script, but not taught the associations? I
> >think not.
>
> It's obvious that one cannot read/write a language one has not
> learned. Whether one could learn a language solely by reading and
> writing, with no oral experience, I don't know, but I don't see
> any reason to rule out the possibility. I think my suggestion,
> that to learn symbolic communication requires imitation -- and
> that in memetic terms these boil down to the same thing, which is
> the transmission and replication of memes -- is not only much
> clearer, but likely to be very much more useful, than your
> formulation. Your distinction between showing and telling
> corresponds to mine between imitation and symbolic communication,
> but to suggest that there is an equally fundamental distinction
> between telling and writing seems to me, I'm sorry to say, off
> the wall.
>
> Note, by the way, that to focus on memetic replication is to
> neglect the distinction between imitation and symbolic
> communication. This doesn't mean either that memetics is wrong,
> or that the distinction doesn't matter. It means that sometimes
> we focus on one thing, and other times on another. That's life.
> Get used to it.
>
> --
> 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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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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