From: Ray Recchia (rrecchia@mail.clarityconnect.com)
Date: Wed 28 May 2003 - 03:01:06 GMT
At 06:41 PM 5/27/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Bill,
>
>It only took me two tries to find a paper that seemed to resonate with your
>point of view: http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Richerson/CambMeme.PDF
>
>He claims memes aren't replicators because it is likely that the same
>phenotypic characteristic can be transmitted with a completely different
>mental rule in the recipient from the one used by the originator. I call
>that mutation. Clearly something is being transmitted, and it is likely that
>in several generations of transmission the set of internal rules (he uses
>the example of how to position the mouth to make the "pf" sound in the
>German word "apfel") will settle down to a small set.
This is the reason that Robert Aunger would not refer to anything outside
the mind as a meme. He called these 'signals' that would trigger
replication when a mind with a similar background was reached. E=mc2 means
something very different to a trained physicist than it does to the average
Joe on the street. For Joe on the street, E=mc2 is that famous equation
Einstein came up with that has something to do with how energy is gotten
out of nuclear reactions. To a trained physicist E=mc2 fits into a network
of other equations and observations and has a much different
meaning. Either average Joe or the physicist could pass on E=mc2 with
different mental memes resulting depending on the recipient.
'A zygote is just a gamete's way of making another gamete' is an old inside
joke for biologists but could be applicable here. Put another way 'A human
is just a sperm's method of making more sperm'. Human gametes can be
viewed as organisms with 24 chromosomes, while zygotes can be viewed as
organisms with 48. Each is very different from the other and each depends
on the other's existence in a chain of reproduction.
The expression of a mental meme is both phenotype and potentially an
element in a chain of reproduction. In this sense expression and mental
state are like gamete and zygote, each alternating over cycles and each
using to manifest themselves. Each though is potentially capable of
reproducing using a variety of different manifestations in other
media. The physicist's concept of E=mc2 can be reproduced in a variety of
different languages, in either written language or spoken language. E=mc2
the expression is also capable of being reproduced in a variety of
different mental manifestations, either that of average Joe, or the trained
physicist. As long as there is eventual replication, memetic transfer has
occurred.
Ray Recchia
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