From: Chris Taylor (Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 20 Jun 2003 - 22:57:02 GMT
Evolutionary psychology holds that the brain affects behaviour to a
meaningful degree (different practitioners draw the line differently,
pinker is a sneaky smiling man who talks a lot of sense but insists on
polluting it with caveman twaddle). Memetics doesn't need that. It is
not inconceivable that we could demarcate the tiny basal bits of innate
behaviour, then we know where we are with the rest.
Richard Brodie wrote:
> Scott wrote:
>
> <<Chris could think evolutionary psychology is bunk, yet still hold that the
> mindbrain is a product of evolution (including the process of selection).>>
>
> No... I don't think so. That's what evolutionary psychology is.
>
> Perhaps he disagrees only with certain wacko nutcases who write nonsense
> under the rubric of evo-psych, much as some do under our own roof.
>
> <<I think Chris's point is that his belief in memetics as an explanation of
> human culture supercedes evolutionary psychological explanations, which tend
> to root human behavior pretty deeply in some hypothesized environment of
> evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) and discount the importance of socifacts in
> their own right. An emphasis on the efficacy of cultural factors is not an
> advocacy of an intelligent designer.>>
>
> Psychology is fundamental to memetics. Viewing the mind as having evolved
> through genetic evolution is a good idea, I think, but other models are also
> possible. Obviously a memeticist will not discount the influence of culture
> on behavior.
>
> Interestingly, you used "supercede," a word spelled in the dictionary as
> "supersede." It is in fact the only English word ending in "sede." The
> "cede" meme won in your mind and you propagated it.
>
> Richard Brodie
> www.memecentral.com
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
>
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk) http://pedro.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ =============================================================== 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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