Re: _Religion Explained_ by Pascal Boyer

From: Ray Recchia (rrecchia@mail.clarityconnect.com)
Date: Tue 03 Jun 2003 - 19:35:46 GMT

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    Unfortunately your narrowed definition is even more confusing. Why not call it a T-meme? Or a sub-meme, or an P-meme. sub for subconscious. The problem you have is that the same objections you raise for consciously aware memes are raisable for those that are transmitted subconsciously. You've sited a "recreation" phenonoma. That a meme is not so much reproduced as created. That phenomena s present in both conscious and unconscious memes.

    In fact the article you site as authority for the notion that treating consciously transmitted memes from the Skeptic raises more objections to so called 'subconciously' transmitted memes. Something which you critize the author for.

    You are aren't alone in your criticism of the Skeptic article by the way. If you search the memetics list server archives prior to 2000, a professor from Indiana states that the article misstates or overlooks much of Lynch, Gabora, and Blackmore's ideas. So not only does the assertion that study of conscious memes differ from subconscious memes fail to coincide with the article, the article itself does not represent the consensus view of academia.

    In addition your example of religion points the necessarily arbritrary nature of the distinction you are making. "Darwin's Cathedral" points out that elements of Calvinism were intentionally created as a contrast to the Catholic church which the founders thought was bloated and corrupt.

    Acceptance of all ideas whether intentionally passed or not depends on psychological factors. People choose to believe because the factors they use have a psychological value to them. They choose to transmit whether intentionally or unintentionally, for personal reasons.

    Much of what I've been seeing from you has been of the nature of 'this is a subconscious meme' because the transmitters really don't know why they are transmitting it but you or someone else knows the real reason. I submit that such evaluations on your part are subjective and unnecesarily patronizing. Such evaluations suffer from the same flaws you use to label the beliefs of others. So for example I am among those who believe that your attachment to morphic fields is based upon a subconscious inability to accept material determinism (even while failing to recognize that morphic fields are just another version of it). Am I being subjective and arbitrary? You may indeed thinks so. Your analysis of religious belief may strike others in the same fashion.

    I think that examining the differences between conscious and subconscious cultural transmission is a potentially worthwhile endeavor. I suspect that there are distinctions in both means of transmission and methods of variation that may be worth highlighting. However, I see no reason to ignore a broader evolutionary study of both conscious and subconcious culture.

    (Whew! Trial over adrenaline high. Gotta love it.)

    Ray Recchia

    >
    > Hi Keith,
    >
    > I'm trying to narrow the definition of "meme" so that it doesn't apply
    > to
    > every piece of information that passes from one person to another.
    > There's
    > no reason to invoke the concept of self-replication for most such
    > information. Your approach flies in the face of standard social and
    > psychological analysis. Can you explain why decades of research are
    > wrong?
    > I don't think either of us is in a position to do that, which is why I
    > offer
    > a definition that doesn't conflict with established science.
    >
    > Ted
    >
    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > 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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