From: John Wilkins (wilkins@wehi.edu.au)
Date: Thu 06 May 2004 - 23:12:09 GMT
On 07/05/2004, at 2:22 AM, Liane Gabora wrote:
>
> 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.
I have been saying something similar since 1998, too - evolution of
scientific memes is the evolution of a "professional" facade, which I
refer elsewhere to as an "agent's profile". I don't go the whole hog
with your worldview account (I deny they exist in the traditional
sense) but you are clearly on the right path for my money (and I was
the referee for that paper too :-).
>
> Liane
>
> PS The paper can be obtained in reprint form from the Biology and
> Philosophy journal website (
> 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
> 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
>
>
-- Dr John S Wilkins Head, Communication Services The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Parkville, Victoria, Australia =============================================================== 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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