Re: Is there any meme left to talk about !?

From: derek gatherer (dgatherer2002@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Fri 21 Nov 2003 - 13:05:40 GMT

  • Next message: Lawrence DeBivort: "RE: Is there any meme left to talk about !?"

     --- Bpmatt1@aol.com wrote:

    > I don't understand your logic, why does internalism
    > imply that memes cannot be quantified?

    So how would you quantify them? For instance, it's easy enough to count the number of murders, but rather more difficult to count the number with murderous thoughts.

    > Viewing this paper through the
    > lense of memetics, we can devolp a mathematical
    > framework for analysing the spread, and probable
    > growth of memes.

    But we already have several competing methematical frameworks for that (Cavalli-Sforza/Feldman/Laland, Lumsden/Wilson, Boyd/Richerson and a few lesser ones) Why develop another one unless those are lacking in some way?

    > I would say that Geertz's paper does not necessarily
    > have to be interpreted as internalism. If we take
    > his definition of ideology or science, as a symbolic
    > system, we can see that meme's can easily exist
    > outside of the mind. They exist in computers, a
    > computer program fits this definition perfectly.

    Szathmary and Maynard-Smith have argued that this is digital evolution and therefore an evolutionary transition beyond the analogue evolution of human culture.

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