RE: Memetics basics

From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Fri 19 Dec 2003 - 04:44:31 GMT

  • Next message: Keith Henson: "DVD?"

    At 01:04 AM 17/12/03 -0600, Brad Jensen wrote:

    > > Science fiction aside,
    >
    >Sure, Harry Seldon.

    " . . . in projecting a science of social prediction, SF writers have been far ahead of the scientists. Isaac Asimov based the entire Foundation series on "Psychohistory." Robert Heinlein developed the theme of predicting social movement in his Future History stories, especially in Revolt in 2100, Methuselah's Children, and in the unwritten saga of Reverend Nehemiah Scudder."

    Heinlein is not as well known on this topic, but I think he did it better.

    There are two places in Methuselah's Children where Heinlein discussed
    "psychodynamics," the first I discussed in detail here almost two years ago in msg http://cfpm.org/~majordom/memetics/2000/9904.html.

    The second is in this post http://cfpm.org/~majordom/memetics/2000/9907.html

    Someone really should look through the Foundation books, post and comment on the most applicable bits. I am fairly sure if you asked you could get a scan of them or ask for particular pages to be scanned.

    If nobody else does this in the next month or two, I might find the time.

    Keith Henson

    =============================================================== 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 : Fri 19 Dec 2003 - 04:48:08 GMT