From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Sat 28 Jun 2003 - 19:45:49 GMT
From: "Van oost Kenneth"
<kennethvanoost@belgacom.net>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Encoding:- (was Re: Cultural Imperialism as
Idea & Meme)
Date sent: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 21:32:19 +0200
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> ----- 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......
>
If you truly understood my resistance to this model, you would have to
acknowledge that that resistance is based (not biased) upon logic,
evidence and actual observable characteristics transpiring in the
referent world for which the memeisthemotion model has no explanation
whatsoever (such as my encoding example - Wade's model contains no
provision for action being placed in the service of a meme-encoding
language system rather than that action being the meme itself, but we
know without a reasonable or rational doubt that a multiplicity of such
encoding systems are ubiquitously present and continuously use action,
such as speaking, writing, gesturing, etc. as encoding vehicles., and
concommitantly use parsing, reading, apprehending as decoding
mechanisms). The memeisthemotion model thus fails the second half
of Occam's Razor; it cannot explain or account for all observable
phenomena.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kenneth
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
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> 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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