Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA24587 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 18 Oct 2000 14:36:13 +0100 User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.0 (1513) Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 09:35:54 -0400 Subject: Re: memetics-digest V1 #413 From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B6131F76.5192%bbenzon@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: <00c801c038f0$24730c80$1000000a@w95002> 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: "Wendy" <wcreed@bigsilver.win-uk.net>
> Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 11:42:41 +0100
> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Subject: Fw: memetics-digest V1 #413
>
>
> My exposure to memetics is through Dawkins and Blackmore and it seems to me
> that in applying their hypotheses to C18 culture and beyond, that they do
> have exactly that - a very good grasp of culture, and perhaps more
> importantly the organisms, which create a culture.
But one source of knowledge about those individuals, and their social
groups, is knowledge of their cultural products and artifacts. This is what
William Wimsat was addressing in the abstract that prompted my response.
There don't seem to be any memeticists who work from an intimate knowledge
of say, art history, or the history of technology. Memeticists don't seem
interested in the detailed history and distribution of cultural artifacts.
In the early days of this list one Alex Brown would talk about architectual
history, but never got any response. Mostly because memeticists aren't
really interested in the actual stuff of culture. There's a great deal of
talk about the mind and ideas on this list, some talk of religion & cults &
superstition, but that's it. Most memeticists seem content to talk theory
and to make big statements about the human mind without bothering to learn
much psychology or neuroscience.
Folks have talked about the diffusion of ideas for years and years. It's
not at all clear to me that memetics has said or done anything that goes
beyond that work. To be sure, memetics implies that it's going to use the
theoretical equipment of evolutionary biology to do new and interesting
things. But it hasn't delivered anything along those lines yet.
What specifically from memetics have you found useful in your research?
> As with every theory,
> whether it be in the sciences or the Humanities, the problem of
> interpretation resides within the feedback loop of the individual, or the
> group to which an individual may contribute.
This seems rather at variance with orthodox mentalist memetics, which denies
autonomy and choice to individuals. All action resides in the memes, which
insinuate themselves into the minds/brains of individuals and then get the
host individual to pass them on to yet another individual.
>
> the very fact that Memetics is here, and is already part of our culture is
> largely due to these self-involved chatterers, who have made a contribution
> to the arrest the progress of blinkered thinking - even though you may feel
> that their theory is just that, and serves no purpose in cultural evolution.
> I on the other hand prefer to acknowledge their contribution.
>
When Dawkins first coined the term he meant it to indicate both material
things of culture, from furniture you sit on to the sounds of music, etc.,
and the inner representation of those things. He subsequently narrowed the
definition to internal mental things. I, however, find it more useful to
think of memes -- the genes of culture -- as the external things out there
in the world where they can be imitated. As for the stuff inside the head,
that's where I place culture's phenotypes. As long timers to this list
know, I've argued this position in some detail:
Culture as an Evolutionary Arena. Journal of Social and Evolutionary
Systems, 19(4), 321-362, 1996.
Culture's Evolutionary Landscape: A Reply to Hans-Cees Speel. Journal of
Social and Evolutionary Systems, 20(3), 314-322, 1997.
I'm currently working on a book about music in the mind and in culture and
will be elaborating on this notion in that book. I've also published a
number of articles on cultural evolution from a somewhat different point of
view:
Principles and Development of Natural Intelligence. Journal of Social and
Biological Structures 11, 293 - 322, 1988. (with David G. Hays)
A Note on Why Natural Selection Leads to Complexity. Journal of Social and
Biological Structures 13, 33-40, 1990. (with David G. Hays)
The Evolution of Cognition. Journal of Social and Biological Structures 13,
297-320, 1990. (with David G. Hays)
The Evolution of Narrative and the Self. Journal of Social and Evolutionary
Systems, 16(2): 129-155, 1993
Stages in the Evolution of Music. Journal of Social and Evolutionary
Systems, 16(3): 283-296, 1993.
You might want to take a look at Colin Martindale's _The Clockwork Muse_.
Martidale advances a selectionist model of long-term cultural process and
presents empirical evidence from the histories of French, British, and
American poetry, the short story, music lyrics, European and American
painting, Gothic architecture, classical music, and others. He doesn't talk
memetics though I suppose you could restate his work in memetic terms.
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