RE: Online Paper: "Ideas are Not Replicators but Minds Are" by Liane Gabora

From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Wed 15 Oct 2003 - 14:00:52 GMT

  • Next message: Keo Ormsby: "Re: Online Paper: "Ideas are Not Replicators but Minds Are" by Liane Gabora"

    Thanks for posting this, Bruce.

    Gabora misses the key point about meme. She says: "An idea is not a replicator because it does not consist of coded self-assembly instructions."

    To the contrary, ideas CAN have such instructions, and thus be self-disseminating. Not all ideas do, and not all ideas are memes. But some can and do, and to the extent that they have these instruction sets, they are memes.

    Further, I would not consider the mind a meme. I do view the 'mind' (defined broadly!) as the place where memes are received, held, used, and modified, and from where memes are disseminated. But the mind itself, while integral to the process of memetic dissemination, is not a meme.

    Lawrence de Bivort The Memetic Group

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
    > Of Bruce Edmonds
    > Sent: Wed, October 15, 2003 6:59 AM
    > To: Memetics Discussion List
    > Subject: Online Paper: "Ideas are Not Replicators but Minds Are" by
    > Liane Gabora
    >
    >
    > Ideas are Not Replicators but Minds Are
    > by Liane Gabora
    >
    > To appear in Biology and Philosophy, BIPH264-02
    >
    > CONTENTS
    > 1 Does Culture Evolve like Biological Lineages Do? *
    > 2 Two Kinds of Replicators *
    > 2.1 Coded Replicators *
    > 2.2 Primitive Replicators *
    > 3 Does Anything in Culture Constitute a Replicator? *
    > 3.1 Ideas and Artifacts are not Coded Replicators *
    > 3.1.1 Are Cultural Entities Interpreted? *
    > 3.1.2 Are Cultural Entities Copied (without Interpretation)? *
    > 3.2 Interconnected Worldview as Primitive Replicator *
    > 3.2.1 Conceptual Closure *
    > 4 Implications for the Evolution of Culture *
    > 4.1 What Evolves is Worldviews, Not Ideas *
    > 4.2 Evolving without Copying from a Code *
    > 4.3 Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics *
    > 5 Conclusions *
    >
    > Abstract.
    >
    > An idea is not a replicator because it does not consist of coded
    > self-assembly instructions. It may retain structure as it passes from
    > one individual to another, but does not replicate it. The cultural
    > replicator is not an idea but an associatively-structured network of
    > them that together form an internal model of the world, or worldview. A
    > worldview is a primitive, uncoded replicator, like the autocatalytic
    > sets of polymers widely believed to be the earliest form of life.
    > Primitive replicators generate self-similar structure, but because the
    > process happens in a piecemeal manner, through bottom-up interactions
    > rather than a top-down code, they replicate with low fidelity, and
    > acquired characteristics are inherited. Just as polymers catalyze
    > reactions that generate other polymers, the retrieval of an item from
    > memory can in turn trigger other items, thus cross-linking memories,
    > ideas, and concepts into an integrated conceptual structure. Worldviews
    > evolve idea by idea, largely through social exchange. An idea
    > participates in the evolution of culture by revealing certain aspects of
    > the worldview that generated it, thereby affecting the worldviews of
    > those exposed to it. If an idea influences seemingly unrelated fields
    > this does not mean that separate cultural lineages are contaminating one
    > another, because it is worldviews, not ideas, that are the basic unit of
    > cultural evolution.
    >
    > Keywords: associative network, acquired characteristics, autocatalytic
    > closure, conceptual closure, culture, evolution, idea, origin of life,
    > replicator, self-replication, worldview.
    >
    > Available for the moment at:
    > http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/liane/papers/replicator.html
    >
    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > 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

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