From: Reed Konsler (rkonsler@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed 21 May 2003 - 19:14:54 GMT
Reed:
> The physical props do not
> command or expect anything. Does a broom expect to sweep? Does it get
> frustrated if it doesn't of confused if it is danced with instead?
Wade:
Ah, but, yes, a broom on a stage is _absolutely_ expected to be used by the
performer and seen by the observer. Don't confuse the simple physical fact
of an artifact or object with its position in a cultural venue.
I'm pretty sure that I understand what you're saying. You keep side
stepping my point, though. The broom is not requisite. No specific
physical artifact, or set of them, is required for a performance. Those
that exist will, I'll grant, tend to select for certian kinds of
performances over others. But, in that sense, the physical artifacts do not
'expect' the performance any more than the savanna 'expects' a zebra. The
savanna favors the zebra over the elk, for instance. If you want you could
even say that the environment 'acts on' the zebra. But the zebra does not
require a specific savanna, and the genes in the zebra, given time to
evolve, can perpetuate into any physical environment.
Similarly, the memes in the mind of a cultural participant must express
themsleves in a physical environment. That environment does act on the
performance and, yes, it does tend to select for some over others. If you
want you can say that it 'acts on' the performances. But, I still hold that
the performance does not require a specific environment and, given time to
evolve, the memes within the mind of the participant can perpetuate into any
physical environment.
But, just as genes cannot exist without a living orgnism to act as their
vehicle, so to are memes dependent on their vehicle, which is also a living
organism.
"what is necessary for _another_ performance, one similar enough to be
called similar, to wrap a phrase, is a performer, an observer, and a
cultural venue also similar enough to be called similar."
It's the 'similar enough' that is the center of the conversation. A single
person, without recourse to anything but memory, could recreate the entire
venue and then repeat the performance within it. In this way it seems
obvious that it is the person, and not the venue, that is required. People
can build venues, but the reverse cannot happen. The people are the agents,
the venue is a product.
Sure, a house is a venue with certian expectations. For instance, you could
say that the walls expect you not to walk through them.
I mean, fine...you can use the word 'expect' that way. But it just seems
obvious...and maybe I'm making a huge philosophical boo-boo here...so
completely obvious that when I say "I, Reed, expect you to enter my house
through the door." that means something different and I would go so far as
to say something much more significant than the statement "the door expects
you to enter the house through it."
The door doesn't expect anything. Hell if it were a good, stoutly locked
door it might be easier to get in through the wall.
> Everything else is just a prop.
"Everything else is much more than 'just a prop' in a cultural venue,
although everything in say, a theatrical supply warehouse is just a prop,
and the memory and thoughts and functions of the brain can be seen as a
theatrical supply warehouse in the performance model, where the ones that
are needed to perform in a specific cultural venue are the ones gathered."
The ones gathered by whom? By the participants! Who gets the crap out of
the closets...because all that stuff doesn't move itself. I absolutely
agree with you, elements of a cultural venue must be gathered together to
support a peformance. Memes in the mind of the participant cause the hosts
to gather these objects together in order to use them. The gathering,
assembly, and performance are all part of the expression of the memes. The
objects don't, themselves, have any agency.
We can argue about genes or species or organisms as the agents in evolution.
But no one argues that oxygen and sunlight are agents. They're just props.
Given time, life can evolve to do without them. But life cannot evolve to
do without the organism.
Well, I suppose one could argue that replication is just a sort of vibration
in spacetime that doesn't specifically require anything. You don't need DNA
to be alive...it just happens to be that all living things we've seen do. I
suppose a living thing doesn't even need to made of atoms...it could just be
a complex replicating interference of light particles. In that sense genes
and memes are just a subset of what you could call a performance. Even in
that case, though, most of the work of replication is done inside the
boundaries of the organism.
"After all, a cigar is often just a cigar, but, just as often, it ain't."
I can't understand the significance of that in context.
"Yes, the cultural venue is the element of the memetic process that
_attempts_ to determine meaning."
Meaning?
Best,
Reed
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