Re: Encoding

From: Chris Taylor (Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 11 Jul 2003 - 08:56:23 GMT

  • Next message: Keith Henson: "Progress understanding Hox genes"

    joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
    >>>exactly the same message can convey different meanings to different
    >>>people
    >>
    >> Just wanted to make a quick comment on this statement. Even if a
    >> message is transferred
    >>with 100% accuracy, it still does not carry the same meaning to
    >>everyone. That is to say, that even if the physical pattern
    >>representing a meme is transferred perfectly from one mind to the
    >>next, this does not neccessarily entail agreement on the signifigance
    >>of the idea. It is important to distinguish between errors in
    >>communication, and differences in interpretation. It is common to see
    >>these two things confused. It all comes down to the memetic
    >>interpretation of the two fundamental types of disagreements:
    >>disagreement in attitude and disagreement in belief. With disagreement
    >>in belief being an instance in which you do not share a meme(plex)
    >>with someone, and disagreement in attitude being an instance when you
    >>share a meme(plex), but do not share the interpretation of it. I think
    >>for the most part when an effective communicator attempts to transfer
    >>a meme the recipient(s) are given the meme, with only negligible
    >>errors. The interesting part is observing how the interpretation of
    >>the meme changes depending upon the prior conditioning of each
    >>learner. Perhaps my interpretation is flawed, or maybe I'm putting to
    >>much stress on this idea, but to me, it's important to include the
    >>recognition of this in any commentary on memetics. If you think I'm
    >>wrong feel free to educate me, I'm merely a humble high school
    >>graduate, yet to attend my first year of college. -matt
    >>
    >
    > Sounds like the difference between a hermeneutics of memetics, and a
    > memetic pragmatics (along with syntactics and semantics, one of the
    > three divisions of semiotics)

    Oh put them away ;)

    I have to say that I can't see how 'a meme' (which is a _shorthand_ for an _awfully_ complex set of things) can ever be truly copied - you make the 'copy' out of whatever stuff you have in your head - witness kiddie/primitive versions of objects, mimicking form but not function
    (where function is less than completely obvious) - the 'stuff' being your perceived-digested-recombined experiences of the world. This has much more in common with convergent evolution than anything else (there are, for example, forty plus kinds of eye, all similar in form yet different in origin). You observe something, then try to build an internal representation of it.

    Cheers, Chris.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
      http://pedro.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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