From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Fri 20 Jun 2003 - 12:46:35 GMT
Ok, Muller's Ratchet, while not eradicating replicators _immediately_
based upon their fidelity of replication, nevertheless will, over time,
rend them useless.
But, hmmm. Since I'm not hide-bound to any memetic model, let's look at
Ratcheted replicators in minds. If they are of 100% fidelity, as
Richard insists, definitionally, then they are marked for uselessness,
over time.
And, I can support that, empirically. Several, if not the majority, of
memes (no matter where you put them), have become extinct. More, of
course, then we will ever know. I have a personal experience with a
contemporary example of this with the Tlingit artifact. The meme for
that baby was Ratcheted. It's gone, or useless, not even vestigial,
except as historical remnant.
So, if all memes are at 100% fidelity, they are all both culturally and
cognitively temporary, and, is this true? Yeah, it is. No meme will
endure throughout time, and, we have at least one example of a meme
that could not even survive within its tribe.
(Now, the performance model doesn't prance about too much concerning
the life-span of memes- definitionally in this model they are momentary
and not enduring and never achieve 100% fidelity in replication. Like I
said, very different model. But, the venue _attempts_ to achieve 100%
fidelity, although it's physically allowed only to fail, as nothing
gets replicated at 100%, and never has. But, this attempt by the venue
to achieve fidelity is a seed of its own Ratcheting, and, yes, venues
have failed and will continue to fail. This is what happened with the
Tlingit's venue, by the performance model- a necessary parameter for
the making of this particular artifact was not in place, and the
eliciting vectors no longer had any influence upon the observers or the
performers. Like I've always said, this model works, too.)
So, if Richard will not deny the Ratchet (as he cannot,
definitionally), the model of 100% fidelity of memes in a mind would
seem to hold, at least as a reasonably _explanatory_ theory. (But we
all know the caveat inherent there....) There's still the problem of
actually _finding_ something in the 'mind', but, since we now know with
absolute certainty that what is in my mind is 100% the same as what is
in someone else's, then, it should simply be a matter of time to find
through empirical methods. On with the search!
- Wade
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