Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA07877 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 23 Oct 2000 23:43:22 +0100 User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.0 (1513) Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 18:42:41 -0400 Subject: Re: Wimsatt on memes at the Uni Pittsburgh From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B61A2AE4.52D6%bbenzon@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.4.21.0010210913050.185-100000@marlowe.umd.edu> 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: "Lawrence H. de Bivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
> Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 10:20:45 -0400 (EDT)
> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: Wimsatt on memes at the Uni Pittsburgh
>
> Greetings,
>
>>> Like I said, it's not the "knowledge" I'm concerned about. It's
>> the raw
>>> data. Memetics seems to be mostly a coffee-klatcsh for theorists
>> who wish
>>> to remain unsullied by observations. Orthodox memetics is a genre
>> of
>>> science fiction.
>
> Keep in mind that this list is an academic one, and not broadly
> representative of all the work that is being done on and with
> memetics. The 'engineering' and ethnographical sides of memetics are not
> addressed, for example. But that does not mean that these are not being
> pursued elsewhere.
>
> IMO, the academic fora have bogged down a bit on definitional issues:
> memes, culture, transmission are still being wrestled with definitionally.
That's because people aren't intellectually serious. If you don't have a
grasp of the data to be accounted for nor of the causal processes and
mechanisms, then you just haggle over definitions. In my experience, serious
thinkers don't waste time over definitions. Where the issues are well
understood, thinkers may give definitions by way of indicating which (among
several well-known) position they take. Where the issues are not well
understood, more extensive investigations are undertaken.
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