Re: Giving a presentation on memetics

From: Kate Distin (memes@distin.co.uk)
Date: Mon 28 Nov 2005 - 10:02:17 GMT

  • Next message: Kate Distin: "Re: "Abstract" Memes?"

    Scott Chase wrote:
    >> From: Ray Recchia <rrecchia@frontiernet.net>
    >> Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >> Subject: Re: Giving a presentation on memetics
    >> Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 15:28:55 -0500
    >>
    >> Depending on the size of the group maybe you could try the copying
    >> experiment to demonstrate differences in transmission
    >>
    >> 1) Whisper a short sentence in the ear of one student, have them
    >> repeat to the another and pass it around. Have the last person repeat
    >> what the sentence has become
    >>
    >> 2) Draw a series of random squiggles, give it to the first student,
    >> have him copy it, pass to the next student, have that student copy it
    >>
    >> 3) Draw a star, repeat
    >>
    >> The star should come out the most accurate, because it is stored as a
    >> concept, and because it is being transmitted through a permanent medium.
    >>
    > If instead of coming up with a sentence at random, as it seems you're
    > saying in your #1, if you were to use a well worn phrase (Bartlett's
    > familiar quotations or a popular lyric) that most people are familiar
    > with, wouldn't this be analagous to using the star in your #3? People
    > are familar with pentagram stars and the hexagram Magen David, so if
    > either was the starting point, you wouldn't expect much variation. But,
    > if you were to pick a familar quotation as opposed to some sentence you
    > constructed on your own, you'd probably not expect the outcome to be too
    > divergent, given that each person in the series is familiar with the
    > quote. Familiarity with a well known phrase would allow for
    > self-correction. If one person garbled the phrase along the series and a
    > subsequent person recognized enough of it to correct for errors the
    > outcome could be similar to what we'd see with the star.
    >
    > A long quotation would be more difficult to faithfully reproduce, such
    > as the entire Gettysburg Address. But so would a complex, but familiar
    > visual representation, such as a drawing of a 20 dollar bill. In both
    > cases there's a standard one can compare to for correction, but these
    > aren't as easily recollected as a simpler visual representation (a star)
    > or a short but familar quote, commercial catch-phrase, or song lyric.
    >
    > Trying to recreate a random squiggle would be like trying to recreate
    > several lines of word salad, kinda like remembering my present post ;-)
    >
    > It's kinda funny that I should mention _Bartlett's Familiar Quotations_
    > since another Bartlett (Frederic) did some work along the lines of how
    > stuff passes through a series of people.
    >
    > Plus word strings such as titles of movies or books would probably go
    > through a series of people without too much divergence as long as most
    > of the people involved are up on pop culture. If I were to say "Richard
    > Dawkins coined the term meme in his book _The Selfish Gene_" to the
    > first person in a series of 30 memeticists, how much variation would you
    > expect? If I were to draw an accurate rendition of the face of a dime
    > and pass this through a series of people at a numismatics enthusiast
    > convention, how much variation would we expect in the outcome? If I drew
    > a picture of my live oak tree in my front yard, what would we end up
    > with at the end of the series of same coin collectors?
    >

    Doesn't all of this - especially your final paragraph - reveal that in none of these cases is any information actually being copied?

    Dawkins says that the random squiggles are not actually copied because it's what Blackmore would call copying-the-product (and presumably they'd say the same about your word salad too). But Dawkins says copying the star (and by implication copying your well-known phrase) is true replication because it's based on Blackmore's copying-the-instructions.

    But then as Sperber points out this ignores the crucial test of whether something is truly a copy of an original item: from where does the copy inherit its similarity to the original? From the original itself or from somewhere else? In the star and well-known phrase examples it seems that the copies inherit their similarities to the original from information in the copiers' minds, not from the original itself. A star is only different from a squiggle if you recognise it. Some things look like random squiggles to me that are easily-copied letters to readers of different alphabets. This is brought out very clearly in your examples involving memeticists and numismatics: the reason why they'd manage the tasks so ably is that they have a store of relevant information in their heads.

    When we see or hear something that we recognise, our reproduction of it does not inherit its relevant similarities from the original, but from instructions in our own minds. We're not really copying-the-instructions. We're acting on instructions we already have.

    Kate

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