RE: point of memetic saturation

From: Vincent Campbell (v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Jul 17 2000 - 13:18:36 BST

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    From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
    To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    Subject: RE: point of memetic saturation 
    Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:18:36 +0100
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    The problem comes for them when other people tell them that the poodle with
    a yellow collar is a dog. To them a dog is a poodle with a red collar, so
    for every different collar and dog a new word is needed for them, so there
    is a kind of information overload (All this is within the analogy of
    course). In fact the 'normal' human capacity to categorise things is quite
    remarkable, and of course absolutely essential for our survival (i.e. if we
    didn't know the difference between a lion and a mouse we wouldn't last very
    long!).

    Autism has varying degrees, so that some sufferers can hold down jobs in
    universities, others however suffer so severly that interpersonal
    communication for them is extremely painful psychologically and emotionally.

    Vincent

    > ----------
    > From: Kenneth Van Oost
    > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2000 11:29 am
    > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Subject: Re: point of memetic saturation
    >
    >
    > ----- Original Message -----
    > From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
    > To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    > Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2000 1:03 PM
    > Subject: RE: point of memetic saturation
    >
    >
    > > The author said one of the problems of people with autism is how they
    > define
    > > things. So, for example, if they encounter a poodle with a red collar
    > on,
    > > and someone tells them that is a dog, then they accept a poodle with a
    > red
    > > collar as a dog, but only a poodle with a red collar. If they then see
    > > another breed of dog, or even a poodle with a different colour collar
    > on,
    > > they will not recognise it as a dog. The author made an analogy to a
    > tree,
    > > and how normal people can associate and collate lots of variation within
    > a
    > > category like 'dog', resulting in large central branches with offshoots,
    > > whereas autistic people cannot do this, and as such have multitudes of
    > very
    > > thing branches. In this sense, then perhaps autistic people do indeed
    > have
    > > some kind of information overload- either that or they are allergic to
    > other
    > > people's memes!
    >
    > << Describing autism as an allergy to info of other people !!
    > Far out a good idea !!
    >
    > But some kind of information-overload !?
    > Strange, is that not wrong put !?
    > If they see a poodle with a red collar as a dog and a poodle with a yellow
    > collar as ' no- dog ' is that an overload of information !?
    > It seems to me a very simple way of communication, one idea >< one word !
    >
    > The language of an autistic would be quit ' direct ', there would be no
    > place for telling stories, no place to lie, not really place for '
    > communication '
    > either but they seem very happy to me, though !
    >
    > Regards,
    >
    > Kenneth
    >
    > (I am, because we are)
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > 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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