From: Price, Ilfryn (I.Price@shu.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 19 Apr 2005 - 17:47:16 GMT
Kate wrote
>
I don't think it's off the topic: I'm pretty sure it is a root to memes.
As you say, the capacity to represent, to carry the idea from one
context to another, is crucial. I believe that humans' (almost
certainly unique) ability to metarepresent - or in other words to carry
the idea from one representational system to another; to reflect on
*how* it is represented - is the key to memes themselves. But there
seem to be degrees/types of representation, with some creatures capable
of much simpler types than others, and I'm sure there's a spectrum here.>
Yes, we can verbalise a greater range of sounds and make artefacts - the naked, talking, tool making ape. Those abilities may be
exaptions but they created an environment for memetic replication not apparently matched elsewhere in our planet's biosphere. The
rest is history (or pre history).
If
===============================================================
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
===============================================================
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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue 19 Apr 2005 - 18:09:49 GMT