From: Liane Gabora (liane@berkeley.edu)
Date: Thu 06 May 2004 - 16:22:02 GMT
I'd like to say a few words regarding the discussion of my paper which came
up recently on this list. I have been sympathetic to the memetic
perspective for a long time, and in some ways still am. The paper was not
something I dashed off quickly, but the result of nearly 20 years of
reading, writing, and computer modeling devoted to really getting to the
bottom of the question: how does culture *really* evolve?
Clearly ideas or memes do not consist of, as part of their information
content, self-assembly instructions (akin to genetic material), which get
carried out to form new copies. If they did, then for one thing,
inheritance of acquired characteristics would be prohibited. But we all
know that ideas or memes can inherit changes as they pass from one person
to another. If you read this email, you will accommodate it to your own way
of thinking, if you tell someone about it you will put your own slant on
it, perhaps garnish it with your own insights&.. It acquires
characteristics along the way. But that doesn't mean it isn't *evolving*;
it is undergoing descent with modification after all. So what is going on
here?
In fact, inheritance through a self assembly code came about in biological
evolution only after millions of years of inheritance through a more
primitive, self-organized form of replication, which is more akin to the
form through which culture evolves. I argue that it is worldviews or minds
evolving, not discrete ideas or memes, because a worldview constitutes an
integrated, self-modifying, self-healing structure, and that ideas or memes
are how a worldview *reveals* or manifests its (ever-changing) structure
(like a slice through a log reveals something of the internal structure of
the wood, slicing at a different angle reveals something different&). I
wont go on to re-write the whole paper here, but just mention that it is
not a line of reasoning that can be quickly dismissed after light reading
of the title or abstract, and it is better to read the whole paper before
leaping to quick assumptions about what it is saying.
Liane
PS The paper can be obtained in reprint form from the Biology and
Philosophy journal website (
<http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0169-3867>http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0169-3867
)
or in html form from my website (below).
Liane
Gabora liane@berkeley.edu
<http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/liane>http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/liane
Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, VUB, Brussels Ph:
(32)2.644.26.77
Psychology Department, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 Ph: 510-642-1080
===============================================================
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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