Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA06800 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 19 Sep 2000 19:23:36 +0100 User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.0 (1513) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 14:23:16 -0400 Subject: Re: empirical "memetics" From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B5ED2745.4992%bbenzon@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: <20000919175642.AAA24091@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
> Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 13:55:16 -0400
> To: "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Subject: Re: empirical "memetics"
>
> On 09/19/00 13:41, William Benzon said this-
>
>> While Martindale nowhere uses the term or concept of "meme" he more than
>> makes up for that "deficiency" by providing a great deal of data on the
>> evolution of art, mainly poetry and music, but also painting.
>
> Which brings up my very basic, oft-wondered, never answered, query-
>
> Just because something cultural (in this case artistic) changes (changes
> from what to what, I wonder internally as subset), can we really say it
> is 'evolving'? Again, compared to what? (in the eternal plea of Eddie
> Harris and Les McCann....)
>
> Granting the wheel, is the automobile an 'evolution' of the horse
> carriage?
>
> Where is the analog of speciation within culture?
Yes. Read this:
Culture as an Evolutionary Arena. Journal of Social and Evolutionary
Systems, 19(4), 321-362, 1996.
ABSTRACT
Culture is an evolutionary domain in which paradigms evolve through the
replication and variation of memes and psychological traits. In biology
genes flow in such a restricted way that there is a relatively transparent
relationship between genealogy and taxonomy. In culture memes are borrowed
freely between lineages so that a given paradigm may have contributions from
many cultures. Further, under certain conditions cultures come into such
intimate contact that the process of creolization produces new paradigms
within a relatively few generations. Consequently cultural taxonomy is
inherently more complex than biological taxonomy. Dynamically, over the long
term culture exhibits an S-shaped growth curve which reflects the
proliferation of memes within cultures. Perhaps the deepest issue in
cultural evolution is the Gestalt switch which happens between the highest
level of one cultural rank and the beginning of the next rank.
>
> And I ask this because, dammit, I don't see it. Improvements and
> alterations are not necessarily evolutions, IMHO.
>
> Had Martindale shown that the _reason_ man creates art has evolved over
> the eons?
>
Why should it?
> - Wade
>
> ===============================================================
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>
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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
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