From: Vincent Campbell (VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 15 Mar 2005 - 16:49:17 GMT
Ooh, I like the idea that memes are representational.
I did mean artefacts as in media forms, art, sculpture etc. so it sounds
like I'm going to like your book.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Kate Distin
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 4:10 PM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: New Memes Book
>
> Vincent Campbell wrote:
>
> >You should check out the archives of the list for some lambasting of
> >Aunger's book. I must admit it quite put me off reading it- as most of
> the
> >criticism was very neuroscience, and beyond me, so I thought I couldn't
> read
> >it without worrying that it sounded ok to me, but probably wasn't.
> >
> >Actually if you go further back into the archives you'll find lambasting
> of
> >Blackmore's and Lynch's books too.
> >
> >
> I suppose I should brace myself!
>
> >So where are you in the 'what are memes?' war- memes in the mind? memes
> in
> >behaviour? memes in artefacts? some combination of the lot? memes as
> merely
> >a metaphor? memes as a crazy, silly idea thought up by people with
> nothing
> >better to do in their lives?
> >
> >
> Not crazy, not silly and probably not merely a metaphor. Having started
> out as a memes-agnostic, exploring the idea as an intellectual exercise
> more than anything, I am now much more of a realist about them.
>
> Memes in the mind - yes. Memes in behaviour and/or artefacts - it
> depends what you mean by "behaviour" and "artefacts": memes in artefacts
> like books and CDs - definitely; memes in spoked wheels (to use one of
> Dennett's examples) - no. Memes, on my view, are fundamentally
> representational, so anything that isn't a representation can't be a
> meme. This turns out to be a key point on which I disagree with Dennett
> and Blackmore in particular, both of whom use a lot of examples based on
> things that I don't see as memes at all. The other major point at which
> our views diverge is their claim that the mind is a meme-complex. I
> think we can have our cake and eat it: that memetics is compatible with
> a conventional view of the conscious human mind.
>
> Kate
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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>
>
===============================================================
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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