From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Wed 28 May 2003 - 13:38:13 GMT
On Wednesday, May 28, 2003, at 09:01 AM, memetics-digest wrote:
> What [the memeinthemind model] is capable of doing is analyzing mental
> processes by which memes are altered.
That is a remarkable claim, and as such requires remarkable evidence,
and because you have no such evidence, this claim is suppositional, I
certainly think it is specious, and it may be downright ridiculous.
What the performance model _claims_ to do is model the effective means
and methods of cultural evolution. It is _not_ concerned with the deep
'how' of cognitive processes, only that such processes are a quality of
some of the members of the model and that we can see effects from them.
Indexing, analyzing, or defining the pieces of cognitive causes is, as
yet, beyond our knowledge.
Furthermore, there is no reason whatsoever to explain the workings of
consciousness or unconsciousness or cognition or perception or memory
or sensation with memes. Again, this is facetious definitional
hand-waving.
There is no reliable method of analyzing mental processes, and no-one
seriously involved with such work is using the word 'meme' in their
investigations.
And, what the memeinthemind model does _not_ do is explain cultural
evolution, which, gee, is what I thought memetics was supposed to be
doing.
Pretty weak model, ain't it, one that fails to manage to work in the
mechanisms of the cultural propagation it seeks to explain?
The memeinthemind goes nowhere, starts nothing, and stays hidden. The
mechanisms of performance and the parameters of the venue are equally
as important, if not more so, than the individual cognition of one of
the players on the cultural stage.
- Wade
PS- but for all of this, I'm happy to let this all rest, as Reed says,
until we actually _know_ something. He guesses three years, I'm more
thinking about five, but, maybe we'll all get a xmas present.
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