Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id DAA13428 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 26 Oct 2000 03:18:41 +0100 User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.0 (1513) Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 22:18:06 -0400 Subject: Re: Defining and moving on From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B61D0C9E.5395%bbenzon@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: <000a01c03eef$c8d9d9c0$25d910ac@oemcomputer> Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary="MS_Mac_OE_3055357087_1873182_MIME_Part" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
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From: Brent Silby <phil066@it.canterbury.ac.nz>
Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 14:54:00 +1300
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Defining and moving on
>>William Benzon wrote "It's like adopting a Ptolemaic model of the solar system
and arguing over whether to call themoon Fritz or Freddie. Who cares?" <<
Brent Silby:
Do you really think that terminology is unimportant? To take your
astronomical example, how could people debate whether a Ptolemaic view was
correct if they did not have a common terminology?
Bill Benzon:
Well, in that case it's pretty obvious what the referent of the debated
terms is, so the debate is just over some silly irrelevancy. Given that
orthodox is without any substantive way of talking or thinking about what
determines memetic success, the terminology debates of orthdox memeticists
are without any real substance. You explain absolutely nothing by talking
about the ability of a replicator to replicate. So, yeah, we can say this
meme replicated and that one didn't. And maybe even that the successful one
replicated at this rate. But you haven't the foggiest notion of what forces
determine those rates (other than, e.g. the appropriate parameters in Aaron
Lynche's equations or someone else's equations).
Brent Silby:
I agree, however, with your point about needing to identify "species" and
some sort of "memecosystem" (there's a useful word) in memetics.
Bill Benzon:
There you go. Now you have another word whose definition you can debate.
It would be more useful to take a look at the world and try to see what's
happening.
My general impression of orthodox memetics is that it doesn't actually look
at the world. It starts with a desire to take a predetermined handfull of
terms and ideas and see how it can batter the world into a shape where those
terms and ideas apply.
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