Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA07271 (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 21:19:40 +0100 Message-Id: <200009192017.QAA00422@mail6.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 15:21:52 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: First Appearances In-reply-to: <003c01c0227a$b6e52940$5321e7d8@proftim> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: "Tim Rhodes" <proftim@speakeasy.org>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: First Appearances
Date sent: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 13:45:14 -0700
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Joe wrote:
>
> <<< In what works do Aaron Lynch's L-meme and Derek Gatherer's
> g-meme first appear? >>>
>
> Hi, Joe! I first used the terms L- and G-memes over a year ago in the posts
> I've copied for you at the bottom of this one.
>
> To my knowledge neither Derek or Aaron have yet to adopt the g-meme/l-meme
> terminology in there work. Lynch's "Thought Contagion" outlines his
> arguments for what I've labeled the "L-meme" and Gatherer's paper "Why the
> Thought Contagion Metaphor is Retarding the Progress of Memetics" [JoM-EMIT
> vol. 2] covers why he sees what I call the "G-meme" approach as being more
> constructive for data collection.
>
> Meanwhile, I continue to see increasing utility in viewing memetic evolution
> and diffusion as a twofold process. I've begun gathering stories of
> situations in which the G-meme has become disconnected from its original
> L-meme but continues to spread and flourish regardless.
>
> The most interesting among these are cases to me are ones where the G-meme
> shows great fecundity but only a tenuous connection to the original L-meme
> for which it was intended to serve as a vehicle. Often in these cases the
> original L-meme will fail to be passed down regardless of the successful
> replication of the behavior (the G-meme). Moreover, we find that quite
> often a new L-meme will be grafted onto the original behavior retroactively,
> as an explanation for the now replicating behavior. In cases were the
> G-meme shows high fidelity but the L-meme is unstable, we often get several
> different variations of the meme coexisting in the environment, each with
> different "explanations" reported as a justification for the replicated
> behavior.
>
> For memes transmitted linguistically I've lately been viewing the narrative
> structures and forms in which the idea (the L-meme) is conveyed as the
> corresponding G-meme. I find it fascinating reflecting on how the selection
> pressures that act on the G-meme -- what it is that makes for good story
> that gets itself retold again and again -- effects the L-meme riding along
> with it. The nature of the packaging effects the content that can be passed
> down through it.
>
> I see a feedback loop where the shape and tone of the story effects the
> content conveyed by it. The structure the G-meme is forced into by the
> selection pressures of the narrative becomes itself a selection pressure on
> the L-meme and the ideas conveyed. Overall successful linguistically
> transmitted memes are those for which the G-meme and L-meme feedback into
> one another in such a way as to create an overall stable, mutually
> supporting structure.
>
> The nature of the narrative form in large part dictates where these basins
> of attraction will fall and, I believe, predicts in large part what overall
> memes /can/ be successful when moving through these particular mediums.
>
> -Tim Rhodes
>
>
> p.s. First appearances of the terms "L-meme" & "G-meme" reposted:
>
Thanks, Tim; I'm doing a master's level seminar on "memetics and
Culture" this coming spring, to include the evolution of the
discipline and its relation to semiotics, existential and hermeneutic
phenomenology, and genetic epistemology, and am getting my
reference ducks in a row in preparation. Thanxabunch for your
assistance.
===============================================================
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