From: Dace (edace@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu 22 May 2003 - 20:11:28 GMT
> From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com>
>
> on 5/21/03 9:07 AM, Keith Henson at hkhenson@rogers.com wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >
> > Memes are in competition for a limited resource, human brains. This is
the
> > main factor that makes memetics so interesting since memes can induce
> > behavior that affects how many are carrying them. "Convert or die,
infidel!"
>
> This makes no sense. Sooner or later mentalist memetics gets around to
> talking about memes as though they were living beings flitting about from
> mind to mind.
Ideas don't have to go flitting about like Tinkerbell in order to be
transmitted from one mind to another. If I write "Tinkerbell" on my
computer and then email it, and you read "Tinkerbell" on your computer, does
that mean Tinkerbell has traveled, via computer networks, from my mind to
yours? Not at all. What travels through computer networks is electrons,
not angels. What appears on your computer screen is pixels, not pixies.
Tinkerbell exists in only one place: human imagination. When you see the
pixels correctly arranged on your screen, Tinkerbell appears in your mind--
just as she appeared in mine-- without having had to cross the space
separating us. All that's required is that we interpret written language
the same way, and ideas that were in my mind instantly appear in yours.
Think of Captain Kirk beaming down to a planet. He doesn't have to pass
through the hull of the ship and the planet's atmosphere to arrive on its
surface. The atoms on the planet's surface simply rearrange themselves to
become the body of Captain Kirk, and there he is. That's how mind-to-mind
communication works.
> People compete with one another for all sorts of reasons, individually and
> in groups. People say do things like: "Convert or die, infidel!" Arguing
> that what's really going on is that memes are manipulating people for
their
> own replicating ends is just silly. It was a bad idea when Dawkins
advanced
> it, and it hasn't improved any for all the elaboration and repetition it
has
> received by others.
When people freely determine their beliefs, they're dealing with ideas, not
memes. But when an idea exploits a weakness in an individual's mind, the
power of determination has shifted from person to idea, in which case we may
call the idea a meme. The idea that black people have lower IQ's is thus a
meme because it replicates from mind to mind by exploiting the unconscious
desire to justify continued poverty among nonwhites. While the racist meme
builds its own momentum, the counter-argument has to proceed under the power
of conscious intelligence. This is why we're so often helpless in the face
of irrational beliefs. Their advantage is that they self-replicate, while
rational beliefs do not.
Ted
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