From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon 08 Sep 2003 - 23:44:24 GMT
>From: "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: RE: I find it sad yet hilarious...
>Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 19:14:22 -0400
>
>To Jeff Drabble and Brent Scofield,
>
>Welcome to the list. We are usually better than you see us these last days.
>
>The list is focused on memes as natural evolutionary actors, and there is
>close attention to the biology of genes and their (metaphorical) analogy to
>memes. There are several people on this list who have done solid and
>seminal work on these questions. There has also been considerable
>discussion of the taxonomy of memes and various types of memes.
>
>Memetic engineering has attracted less attention, and there is a general
>feeling that it isn't possible to engineer memes, or if it is, that it is
>nothing more than what advertisers already do.
>
I'm in the group that's critical of memetic engineeering, just as I'm a wee
bit cautious of social engineering, especially as social engineering may
overlap with memetic and/or genetic engineering for the aspiring technocrat.
Read Julian Huxley's sibling Aldous's book _Brave New World_ for a seminal
work on what could result when caste oriented cloning and behavioral
conditioning overlap. Ironic that _Brave New World_ was penned by the
grandson of "Darwin's bulldog" and the brother of a crafter of the "New
Synthesis". One can only wonder how much of Julian's work in embryology
influenced Aldous's thinking when writing his famous dystopian book.
Hypnopedia anyone? And how far off would hypnopedia be from NLP or memetic
engineering?
>
>My own personal view is that memetic engineering is possible, and that it
>is
>more than what advertisers do, but that this list, for reasons that you can
>anticipate from the caliber of the discussions you have witnessed here, not
>the place to do so.
>
A very teensy weensy minority of us are actually *critical* or *skeptical*
of memetics as a science *and* a tool for social engineering ("eumemics?").
We wouldn't want newbies exposed to that sort of low caliber thinking now
would we?
As for Dees's obligatory dwelling on the Middle East, don't respond to him.
I haven't. How many K are taken up by responses versus the posts eliciting
the responses.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> > Of Jeff Drabble
> > Sent: Mon, September 08, 2003 6:22 PM
> > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > Subject: Re: I find it sad yet hilarious...
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 8 Sep 2003 14:32:57 -0700, you:
> >
> > >
> > >I joined this mailing list about a week ago, hoping to first listen in
>on
> > >and then eventually join in discussions surrounding the concept
> > of memes and
> > >the development on memetics. My problem with your posts is not
> > the politics
> > >of them, but the vague and undeveloped ways in which you relate your
> > >interpretation of current issues to memetics. You do use words like
> > >"memebot" and "memeplex" in some of your posts, and while I think new
> > >vocabulary is super-fun, I also think you should at very least spend
>some
> > >time with each of your posts relating what makes it relevant to
> > this mailing
> > >list. The concept that ideas spread is not new to memetics, and if
>people
> > >post every article which contains in it something about the spread of a
> > >particular idea or the development of an idea, or the definition
> > of an idea,
> > >etc., then this list will be innundated with links to articles
> > and peices of
> > >articles.
> >
> > I also subscribed about a week ago and was about to unsubscribe for
> > these very reasons. I often look forward to a television show coming
> > that purports to further our understanding of some scientific issue
> > and am usually very disappointed by the hollow, surface-scratching,
> > results-rather-than-causes presentations which emerge (doesn't stop me
> > watching in hope for the odd gem, though).
> >
> > As I started to read what was posted to this list I was rapidly
> > getting the feeling that the same thing was happening here. I'll now
> > stay a little longer to see what emerges. So far, people just seem to
> > be taking positions, which, to me, is as far as you can get from
> > scientific discovery and the propagation of ideas from the results of
> > that discovery.
> >
> > There should be a lot more questions and fewer people who are adamant
> > that their take is the real deal. In my experience finding the answer
> > to a question opens up ten more, equally perplexing and interesting
> > questions. Those who just dish out the "answers" are as close-minded
> > as those who grasp at religion to steady their anxiety about the world
> > and their place in it.
> >
> > Jeff Drabble
> >
> >
> > ===============================================================
> > 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
> >
>
>
>===============================================================
>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
>
_________________________________________________________________
Need more e-mail storage? Get 10MB with Hotmail Extra Storage.
http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es
===============================================================
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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon 08 Sep 2003 - 23:47:13 GMT