From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Sat 05 Jul 2003 - 20:25:17 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, 5 Jul 2003 21:17:17 +0200
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
> > A person could go to a library to write and be writing a scientific
> > treatise, a suicide note, a love letter, or a pornographic poem,
> > just as the same person could do on a sunlit grassy hillside. WHAT
> > is being written, the MESSAGE that is being ENCODED, is the meme.
>
> < I agree of course, but the message could be just a performance and
> it evolves too, it is being selected for or against_ or do you
> consider the fact that solely the informaion is of importance to the
> observer and not the form/ container by /in which the info is
> distributed as the truth !?
>
You're still missing the point that all of the DIFFERENT methods
(performances0 which I have enumnerated (writing, speaking,
deminstrating, etc.) can communicate the SELFSAME MEME. Thus,
the ENCODED MESSAGE is the meme, and NOT simply the action in
which it is encoded. The meme must be encoded in and communicated
by SOME action, but what that action is is unimportant, so long as the
encoding language, be it verbal, written or gestural, is understood by
the receiver.
>
> That thus the ways by which the selfsame memes are communicated
> are of no importance_ while the information itself is manisfestly so
> !? In such a manner you completely ignore the environment out of which
> memes originate ! The interaction by which anew memes are formu- lated
> is stipulated outside the actual environment of the mind_ spea- king/
> writing/ signing/ etc. are although part of the cognitive environ-
> ment_ not made up as of being a piece of that puzzle.
>
The knowledges of how to speak/parse, write/read, sign/comprehend,
etc. are taught, learned and cognitively internalized. They are indeed
metamemes, in the sense that they facilitate the transmission/reception
of a massive number of possible memes, the overwhelming majority of
which do not refer to the communicating code or its modality at all.
>
> The interaction/ the intertwining of memes/ words/ writing/ signing/
> symbols...are made in the ' outside ' environment_ in the reality of
> our daily routine. Performances/ gestures, the changing of one letter
> provoke others to change and it is within such a contex that our
> cognitive abilities make us understand what is going on.
>
Unless your name is Lou, the messages "I like you" and "I like Lou"
specify vastly different objects, just as "I like you" and "I bike you"
specify vastly different actions, and there is no exigency for further
letters (or morphemes) to change.
>
> Once one learns how to speak or write, and memorizes a sufficient >
> vocabulary, an indefinite number of memes may be communicated via >
> the common code. Memetics is an irreduceably SEMANTIC enterprize, >
> inextricably intertwined with signification. Memes have individual >
> communicable MEANINGS; otherwise they could not compete with one >
> another for replication in a cognitive environment, for they would be
> > indistinguishable.
>
> < I don 't deny this, but IMO there are 2 ' memes '_ writing as such,
> learning it, learning to speak is only the first part of a 2 way-
> model. If you learn to write, you begin with abc up to z, mostly done
> in calli- graphic writing, but is there already syntax or meaning !?
> Oh, a can stand for ape or for apple, and z for zebra but this holds
> thus the semantic enterprise within you talk about !? I doubt that the
> human mind at that age, at that rate, is capable of giving meaning/ of
> semantic doing in the real sense of the word to understand the
> connection made between a and ape.
>
> The ape is in this solely a tool to remerber ' a ' more easily, the
> kids need such a kind of association to memorize. Making the
> connection beween a and ape and understanding it, is IMO the second
> mode. You have a primair group ( writing ) and the secondary group
> consist out of the ' what '. Writing a letter is the first meme,
> what you write is the second...
>
> And that information comprises the meme, no doubt, but a
> performance can just do the same. That meaning is of impor-
> tance for meme survival and propagation, no doubt, but like
> Keith acknowledged but not in such words, memes don 't have
> to be expressed in words, performances can do that trick too.
> That Wade, makes of the performance the motor behind cul-
> tural evolution is his prerogative in his own right.
>
WHICH type of encoding performance is still unimportant, so long as
the encoding type is commonly understood by both transmitter and
recipient. It is only necessary THAT there be SOME commonly
understood encoding type. And where is knowledge of it stored
between transmission or reception performances? Why, cognitively
and internally, of course.
>
> 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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