From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Mon 02 Jun 2003 - 07:55:57 GMT
> At 05:29 PM 01/06/03 -0700, you wrote:
> > > From: Gudmundur Ingi Markusson <gudmundurim@yahoo.com>
> > >
> > > As Boyer is very interested in the transmission of concepts, esp.
> >religious concepts, his ideas are certainly relevant to memetics.
> >Nevertheless, note how he introduces memes only to dismiss them
> >shortly afterwards. He does that with reference to Dan Sperber, on
> >not dissimilar grounds as Sperber himself does in "Darwinizing
> >Culture" (Aunger ed. 2000); in brief, concepts are not replicated but
> >recreated.
> > >
> > > gudmundur
> >
> >To understand a concept is indeed to recreate it in our minds. This
> >is how ordinary discourse operates. You say something on your mind,
> >and in the process of understanding it, I recreate the concept in my
> >mind. Memetics is the study of those concepts (or behaviors, etc.)
> >that *don't* depend on understanding to jump from mind to mind.
>
> For the life of me can't see why you warp the extremely simple
> definition of a meme (element of culture, replicating information)
> into such a twisted shape.
>
> I don't mind a bit if you want to split up memes into sub classes some
> of which don't require understanding because that is certainly true.
> Take Jabberwocky as an example. Lots and lots of people learn the
> poem without having the slightest understanding of why they should
> shun The frumious Bandersnatch.
>
> http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html
>
> Does that make Jaberwocky a meme where Sam Magee
>
> http://members.aol.com/pokey271/camp/campfires/mcgee.html
>
> is not? Neither one of them is plausible.
>
> >If you're a Scientologist, you
> >believe L. Ron Hubbard is a deity, not because it's reasonable and
> >you've come to understand it, but because everyone you hang out with
> >believes it, and you swallow the concept whole, so to speak, rather
> >than breaking it down and reconstructing it according to reason.
> >
> >There is a place for replication, but it's limited. We cannot claim
> >that all concepts are memes.
>
> Certainly not. Just the ones that are copied from mind to
> mind. Successful memes exist in a lot of minds.
>
> To give another example, some people understand the rule for
> multiplying by nine as multiplying by (10 - 1) Others just apply the
> rule of one less than the number being multiplied by nine and the sum
> of the two digits adding up to nine. Is this a meme in people who
> don't understand and not a meme in people who do understand why it
> works? In a person who does not understand the rule, and figures it
> out, is the method no longer a meme?
>
> Keith Henson
>
I think that we can properly consider widely distributed laws, rules,
maxims, slogans, parables, fables, analogues, metaphors, similes,
hermeneutics, paradigms, theories, formulas, parameters, schematics,
blueprints, designs, definitions, heueristics, and other more or less
formal holistic representations/characterizations or analytic rules of
thumb to be memes or memeplexes
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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