RE: the conscious universe

From: Richard Brodie (richard@brodietech.com)
Date: Fri Oct 06 2000 - 15:08:48 BST

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From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: the conscious universe
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 07:08:48 -0700
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    Vincent wrote:

    <<your designation of memes as cultural
    artefacts best suits me, because it allows for social scientific research
    methodologies (i.e. testing of manifest social phenomena, be it pokemon, or
    particular news stories that run and run).>>

    While there are strong methodological arguments for creating definitions
    that support easy research, there are two problems with defining "meme" as
    cultural artifact. In the first place, that's not the definition that the
    coiners of the term had in mind and so it causes confusion versus using a
    different word (like artifacts) to refer to such artifacts. Secondly, many
    have seen the value in examining the meme per its Dawkins/Dennett/Brodie
    definition, as mental information, even though it may be much more difficult
    to acquire data, because they think that definition is closer to how memetic
    evolution really works. Mental programming influences behavior, which in
    turn influences the mental programming of others. The subset of cultural
    evolution that is determined by the inverse-artifact influences mind, which
    goes out and creates another copy of the artifact-seems to be a small
    subset.

    Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com www.memecentral.com

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