From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Fri 06 Jun 2003 - 14:11:44 GMT
On Friday, June 6, 2003, at 04:26 AM, Keith wrote:
> This is about memory, not memes.
Ah, if only he really listened to himself.
> Memetics is a way to view the spread and persistence of cultural
> information.
Bravo.
> At the definitional level is it just not concerned with details at
> this level.
This is the prime reason the performance model is not concerned with
placing the meme in the mind, because, the mind is only a quality of
two of the necessary and sufficient agents of the cultural process. The
simplist, very simple simplest, particle of the cultural process is the
performance, which is the observed action of at least one human in a
space which has to contain at least one observer. The meme in a mind is
not sufficient to process culture.
It is only memory, not memes, this 'memeinthemind' thingee.
Memetics is not about just minds. It is not concerned with details at
this level.
As Lawry said, what about _influence_? Even the influence of the chair
you are sitting in and the color of the walls around you, and the brand
name on the PC you use, and the socks you wear, or don't wear? The
cultural venue is the sum of all these influences, plus the actions of
the performers, plus the state and perception of your observations. The
mind is not enough to process or distribute culture. Thus, the
memeinthemind is inadequate to explain cultural evolution. For me, this
is a QED that the meme is not in the mind. In order to play baseball,
there is still a ball, and a bat, and a field, required. Not just a
mind, or even two, or even eighteen. The study of memetics is not
complete without the study of the venue, and the venue itself is the
source of the greatest influence. After all, when baseball is played on
a city street, it is called stickball, not baseball. The environment is
always an influence, and evolution is not possible without an
environment, and the memeinthemind denies this.
- Wade
===============================================================
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 archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri 06 Jun 2003 - 14:16:34 GMT