From: Bill Spight (bspight@pacbell.net)
Date: Fri 18 Mar 2005 - 23:52:11 GMT
Bill Spight 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.
>>
>>
>>
>> So a spoked wheel is not a meme because is a realization, not a
>> representation? Do I understand you correctly?
>>
>
> I want to say yes, but I'm hesitating because I'm not absolutely
> clear what you mean by "realization" in this context. In my book I
> have talked about memetic representations being realized in different
> media (these words can be realized on a computer screen, on a paper
> print-out, orally, etc.) - so it feels a bit odd for me to say that
> realizations aren't memes.
>
> I suspect that this is just a symptom of Philosopher's Pedantry, but
> to clarify: I would say a spoked wheel is a phenotypic effect of a
> meme - it is a thing rather than a representation of a thing. I
> think that does make my answer "yes", but let me know!
OK. I meant that the spoked wheel is the realization of an idea, not a
representation of an idea, per se. (BTW, I do not think that the
genotype-phenotype distinction works well with memes, as there is no
segregated germ line.)
Is a blueprint, being a representation, a meme, by your definition?
Thanks,
Bill
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