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