Re: New Memes Book

From: Kenneth Van Oost (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Thu 17 Mar 2005 - 20:50:33 GMT

  • Next message: Scott Chase: "Re: New Memes Book"

    ----- Original Message ----- From: Kate Distin <memes@distin.co.uk> You wrote,
    > 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.

    Hi there,

    Maybe you are better off with the performance- model of Wade T.Smith, although most list members would disagree.

    Memes in books and CD's ok, but what Smith proposed ain 't stupid either. By reading a ( certain) book in a specific surrounding you express each time a different meme. The meme is in the performance of reading the book. Every different meme would in that case be represented by a / its different performance.

    Shooting the arrow is meaningless unless the performance of shooting is set in a specific place/ time and for a purpose. And each time an arrow has been shot for any purpose in any place and time possible a different meme is added in the memepool. Even in the different ways the bow has been stretched (different ) memes sprung to the light.

    Memes in spoked wheels, no... but you can ' draw ' memes from it, by talking about them; by taking pictures of it; in trying to figure out how they are fabricated; etc...! Spoked wheels can be representational for a certain sub- cultural group, for a certain social class and in that case they are
    ' memes '. Is this clear enough !?

    Regards,

    Kenneth

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