Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id JAA09051 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 20 Sep 2000 09:15:51 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 01:12:49 -0700 From: "Scott Chase" <hemidactylus@my-Deja.com> Message-ID: <DHPHAFNOGEDMEAAA@my-deja.com> X-Sent-Mail: off X-Mailer: MailCity Service Subject: Re: empirical "memetics" X-Sender-Ip: 209.240.200.115 Organization: My Deja Email (http://www.my-deja.com:80) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Language: en Content-Length: 2250 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
--On Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:24:07 John Wilkins wrote: > (snip) > >>>Human "nature" (ie, biology) is the background to cultural >>>evolution. >>> >>> >>And "human nature" *may* channel cultural evolution along biased >>directions, though the depths of the various "canals" may vary and some >>sorts of cultural phenomena may not have a deep correpondence to >>discrete epigenetic biasings. These balls may roll quite freely. Maybe >>an analogy with a magnet in a pinball machine would suffice (off the >>top off my head). > >EO Wilson and Lumsden refer to this as "culture on a genetic leash", but >I think that memes can exceed the normal biases of genes so long as the >overall configuration is still viable (ie, things that are biologically >inviable may suceed in a culture of, for instance, medical technology). > I can't cough up all the particular details right now, but from _Consilience_ I remember Wilson's contrast of Freud's Oedipus complex with the Westermarck effect, something like an innate bias against inbreeding. Somehow inbreeding depression and the deleterious unmasking of recessive lethals could tie into this, but my command of the specifics is virtually non-existent. If anything qualifies, though, for an epigenetic rule, maybe this tendency toward incest avoidance is it. Would this be akin to a ball rolling down a rather deep gulley or becoming ensnared by the effects of a strong magnet a la the pinball machine analogy? I haven't read Freud for many years, so I'm hazy on the Oedipus/Electra particulars or how this would compare/contrast with the incest avoidance or Westermarck effect arguments.
On an unrelated memetic front, one of Nietzsche's aphorisms from _Beyond Good and Evil_ is rather close to the Freudian conception of repression. See aphorism 68 from Epigrams and Interludes. One of these days I might be compelled to read some Freud again. It's all biogenetic anyway. > >Genes do not rigidly determine developmental outcomes (and memes do not >rigidly determine behavioural outcomes neither). > > Uh oh, a developmentalist monster has been unleashed...
Instead of epigenetics...epimemetics?
Scott
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