Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA03690 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 27 Oct 2000 23:12:00 +0100 Message-Id: <200010272205.SAA15270@mail2.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 17:10:49 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Defining and moving on In-reply-to: <B61CE58B.538C%bbenzon@mindspring.com> References: <035f01c03ec0$5413ca80$a921e7d8@proftim> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date sent: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 19:31:23 -0400
Subject: Re: Defining and moving on
From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>
> > From: "Tim Rhodes" <proftim@speakeasy.org>
> > Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 13:15:27 -0700
> > To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> > Subject: Defining and moving on
> >
> > William Benzon wrote:
> >
> > <<<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.>>>
> >
> > I have the sense that most of us are using the same concepts, but under
> > different names. There are many reasons for this (and too many of them
> > are surprisingly petty or political), but I think it could be a useful
> > exercise to lay out all the differing terms and compare them. I suspect
> > we'll find we share more concepts more in common than we disagree.
>
> Well, I do think you're somewhat right in this. For a number of you it's
> just a matter of terminological squabbles with no really substantive
> differences. However your A, B, C below is not at all adequate to my
> conception of these matters, no matter what terms you use.
> >
> > So here's a start, I call:
> >
> > A) the external vehicle by which memetic information is passed: the
> > G-meme.
> > B) the internal information necessary for propagating the cultural
> > information: the L-meme.
> > C) the combination of internal and external that results in
> > replication: the meme
>
> There's nothing in here that corresponds to the cultural correlate of the
> biological species, and nothing really that corrsponds to the environment in
> which species must compete for survival. As far as I'm concerned, without
> those entities in your model, it's an absolute non-starter.
>
Well, the meme is not the same as its cognitive or sociocultural
environment (the second being composed of other memes with
which it must coexist and coevolve in niche competition), or the
genetic and ecological environments generally; these must also be
included as necessary for memetic transmission to occur, yet they
are not themselves the memes under discussion (although our
conceptions of them are).
>
> Therefore, from my POV any and all discussion toward straightening out the
> terms for that set of items is just a waste of time. It's like adopting a
> Ptolemaic model of the solar system and arguing over whether to call the
> moon Fritz or Freddie. Who cares?
>
> Now, my verison of these things isn't something that I can readily pack into
> email-sized snippits, so I won't bother. If you're curious, you can find an
> exposition here:
>
> 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.
>
>
> My book on music will have rather more to say on the issue, though it won't
> be out until next year.
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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