Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA15345 (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 22:34:34 +0100 Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 14:32:44 -0700 From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Criticisms of Blackmore's approach To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-id: <394556FC.FE287F64@pacbell.net> Organization: Saybrook Graduate School X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en]C-PBI-NC404 (Win95; I) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: ja,en References: <4.3.1.0.20000609101720.00c29290@pop3.htcomp.net> <B0003972722@htcompmail.htcomp.net> <4.3.1.0.20000612105255.00c41e00@pop3.htcomp.net> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Mark,
Bill:
> >OC, one may say the contrary. ;-) Behavior is the genotype. It is
> >what is copied, after all. Neural elaboration and mental
> >interpretation of the behavior are phenotype, differing from
> >person to person.
>
Mark:
> I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'neural
> elaboration.' Maybe you
> can define the term better for me.
>
Mere mimicry requires certain neuronal connections and responses.
These are *always* elaborated on, and differ according to the
person and circumstances.
Mark:
> I agree that mental interpretation is phenotypic. The Lynch meme is not an
> interpretation, but the physical configuration of electric gates to current
> flow on the synapses.
That is why I used the term, "elaboration". :-) (But I am happy
to use the term, "interpretation" in a non-mentalistic way, as
well.)
Mark:
> In the case of the 'old saw', where do you place the genotype?
In the phrase itself. Perhaps a better example comes from music.
The score is genotype, the performance is phenotype. What about
the idea of the composer? That died with him. (What is Beethoven
doing now? Decomposing. ;-)) What about the neuronal connections
and activations of the composer? Not replicated. What is
replicated is the score.
If you wish to make use of the genotype-phenotype distinction,
the external meme clearly is more analogous to the genotype. We
may consider a gene as a recipe for making a protein (more or
less). Even in the body, different proteins have different
effects depending on the physiological context. We talk about
genes for this or that, but the relation between this or that and
specific proteins is generally unknown, and complex. A musical
score is a recipe for a piece of music. The relation between it
and the musical performance is clearer than that between a gene
for something and that something, but the performance depends on
many factors besides the score.
My own view is that the genotype-phenotype distinction is worth
little in memetics. One reason is that it plausible to view any
form of a meme as the genotype. :-)
Best,
Bill
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