From: Ben Dawson (dawson.derbys@clara.net)
Date: Sun 27 Nov 2005 - 19:47:29 GMT
Ray, Chris and Kate -
Many thanks for the replies and suggestions.
Ray - I'm liking the idea of the copying experiment a lot. The number
of students attending (30 or so) should make it feasible, and it's
fairly simple, so the probability of something going wrong would be
minimal! It could certainly help to explain the ways in which memes
are transmitted.
Kate - it was only yesterday that I was reading your book so I feel
quite privileged to get a personal reply!
Your suggestion of audio and visual props sounds like a good way to
go. In terms of Derby, there seems to be a bit of a goth phase going
round at the minute amongst the first years that could be worth
mentioning. Also, one thing that you hear practically every day at
Derby uni (although it's definitely a nationwide thing) is the word
"chav". This word is a striking example of a rapidly spreading meme,
because merely 3 years ago, I doubt anyone would have had the faintest
idea what it meant!
Thanks again all.
Ben
On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 13:16:05 +0000, you wrote:
>Given a similar task a few years ago - different audience, but memetics
>similarly novel to them - I just took along lots of props that
>demonstrated what I meant by "culture". This seemed to me the first
>hurdle: if you're proposing memes as an explanation of how culture
>evolves then you first have to give your audience a flavour of what's
>involved in human culture and how we can see it changing all around us.
>
>Obviously you'd target it to your particular audience. I like the
>annoying ring tone and the neighbours accent ideas - to appeal to
>students. It seemed to work well for me to take along concrete props
>that you can actually show your audience, whether to listen to or look
>at. You just need to pick other examples of things that as students you
>do in fact see all around you: clothing fashions, songs, styles of
>advertising on posters or flyers, popular drinks, "in" places to go.
>Especially particularly popular or annoying ones, which will make your
>audience go "AAAAhh - yes - I recognize that." Teacher trainers will
>tell you that it's always good to start with your audience's existing
>knowledge and work forwards from that. It gets them on your side from
>the start, apart from anything else!
>
>Or is there anything that you've observed in your time at Derby that's
>noticeably changed while you've been there? Which again your audience
>would recognize if you drew their attention to how it has changed? Maybe
>changing fashions in drinks, venues, clothing, hair styles, societies,
>TV programmes, accepted political views or whatever?
>
>Hope it goes well!
>
>Kate
>
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm an undergraduate University student in Derby, England. As part of
>> my coursework for the Philosophy of AI module I am studying, I am
>> giving a presentation on memetics, which is an area of great interest
>> to me.
>>
>> The presentation is to a group of students who don't have the first
>> idea about memes, so I have to keep it basic. I'll be talking about
>> Dawkins's introduction of the concept, giving views from various
>> people including Blackmore, Dennett and Kate Distin, and giving
>> viewpoints opposing the theory (Steven Rose, Mary Midgeley).
>>
>> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how I could jazz-up this
>> presentation, in order to put the topic across in a novel way?
>>
>> For example, I had thought of playing one of those annoying mobile
>> ringtones at the start in order to demonstrate a clear example of what
>> a meme could be. However, I'm after something a bit more novel -
>> something that will really add sparkle to the talk.
>>
>> Does anyone have any ideas? Or any advice about the talk in general?
>>
>> Ben
>>
>> ===============================================================
>> 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 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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