Re: Encoding:- (was Re: Cultural Imperialism as Idea & Meme)

From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sat 28 Jun 2003 - 19:32:19 GMT

  • Next message: joedees@bellsouth.net: "Re: Encoding:- (was Re: Cultural Imperialism as Idea & Meme)"

    ----- Original Message ----- From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
    > You completely miss my point. If memes ARE the actions, instead of
    > being ENCODED by them, then small action changes should reflect into
    > small memetic changes, and large action changes should translate into
    > large memetic changes. But this is manifestly NOT the case. Speaking,
    > writing, signing and showing, although they are widely divergent
    > performances, can communicate the selfsame meme, while the change
    > of a single gesture, letter, or phoneme can completely alter, and even
    > reverse, the communicated meme. This being the actual case, this
    > reality itself gives continuous and perpetual lie to the proposed
    > memeisthemotion model.

    Probably I did ! But anyway, is the above so problematic !? Is the translating of a small action change into a large memetic change so dramatic !? Evolution is not a smooth ride, there are bumps to be taken........!

    Is this not an analogy for species- selection versa individualistic- selec- tion in genetics !? If tiny action changes only can result into tiny memetic changes than IMO, even the eons of time wouldn 't be sufficient to come where we are today.

    If, like C. Wills suggests in his book (1989, the Wisdom of the Genes) evolution itself can speed up the possibility to evolve than it would add a power of a higher order into the process of evolution and it should make more probable that complex forms of life should evolve faster.

    That is not to say, that the evolution of performances are due to this kind of system, but IMO yes indeed speed would be of the essence. Big memetic changes would be ' remerbered ' more easily, if every little bit of any performance has to wait eons to be selected for, even the billions of years wouldn 't be enough..... Maybe in order to keep the performances of expected performances going any venue is obliged to adapt/ evolve beyond the common rate. It is only in specific circumstances, like in biology, when the times aren 't that favoural that fast evolution has its benefit. Maybe we ought to look there to find an analogy for action changes.

    I do understand your resistence towards this model, but still I think your view is biased upon prejudice...... not very scientific this......

    Regards,

    Kenneth

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