Re: Wilkins on combinatorial novelty

From: Steve Wallis (swallis@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Fri 08 Apr 2005 - 03:34:53 GMT

  • Next message: John S. Wilkins: "Re: Wilkins on combinatorial novelty"

    Scott,

    Interesting - reminds me of the economics concept of
    "externalities" (uncontroled and frequently unrecognized outputs from exchanges).

    I speculate that every interaction (be it money, man, or memes) results in both expected and unexpected outcomes. Anything which is unexpected would be novel
    (from someone's point of reference).

    This, in turn, suggests that memes might be generated accidently, during purposeful interactions. Eventually, enough un-noticed building-block-memes pile up until it is large enough to create a system that affects society. Then, it may be named and discussed by sociologists.

    Thanks,

    Steve

    --- Scott Chase <osteopilus@yahoo.com> wrote:
    > While attempting to read the book _Darwinism and
    > Evolutionary Economics_ (2001. Edward Elgar
    > Publishing
    > Limited. Northampton, Massachusetts) I started
    > reading
    > the contribution by a guy named John Wilkins. I was
    > slumbering after being lulled into a stupor by
    > continuing reference to abstract economic terms in
    > previous authors' contributions, with some momnents
    > of
    > brief excitement when Lamarckism and Steele's
    > immunological theories came up. The author previous
    > to
    > Wilkins cites Milton Friedman and I perked up and
    > said, hey that's a name I finally recognize. Anyway,
    > Wilkins's essay is a breath of fresh air since there
    > don't seem to be any airy economic terms and he
    > usually knows what he's talking about (sigh of
    > relief). This might be tangential to John's essay,
    > but
    > I couldn't help noticing his discussion of novelty
    > generation and delineation between combinatorial and
    > deep novelty citing someone named Margaret Boden.
    > For
    > combinatorial novelty John says: "Only the
    > combinations are different- the 'building blocks'
    > are
    > potentially available at all times." He uses the
    > analogy of always being dealt to from the same deck
    > of
    > cards. For deep novelty John says: "At its base, all
    > evolution ultimately depends upon deep novelty, but
    > mostly evolution proceeds through recombination of
    > existing alternatives in different contexts." and
    > "[d]eep novelty is rare." Based on the analogy to
    > the
    > cards he uses for deep novelty, I'm assuming this is
    > kinda like genetic mutation. He can clarify I hope.
    >
    >
    > Anyway, this makes me think of Jung's essay on
    > cryptomnesia and what he says about material or
    > elements remaining the same and only the
    > combinations
    > being responsible for generation of novelty. In
    > "Cryptomnesia" (CW1, Psychiatric Studies, para 178)
    > Jung said: "I said earlier that only the
    > combinations
    > are new, not the material, which hardly alters at
    > all,
    > or only very slowly and almost imperceptibly." This
    > slow and imperceptible alteration sounds like the
    > deep
    > novelty John talks about. It's amazing how Carl
    > Gustav's comments dovetail with John's. I'm sure
    > he's
    > more than thrilled that I'm using my memory to
    > recombine him with Jung :-) But in some ways the guy
    > was before his time, though we all know he had his
    > quirks (Jung not John).
    > Nothing new here. Just rehashing old stuff. Carry
    > on...
    >
    >
    >
    > __________________________________
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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
    >
    >

    Steve Wallis, PhD student at Fielding Graduate University (with a focus on human systems and complexity theory). Check out http://www.easygenius.net for an appreciative way to learn about yourself and others.

    =============================================================== 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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