Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA07594 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 22 Nov 2000 13:42:54 GMT Message-ID: <A4400389479FD3118C9400508B0FF230041108@DELTA.newhouse.akzonobel.nl> From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: religion/spirituality Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 14:37:59 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Wade:
Assuming correlates between virology and culture, why do we then have to
demand mutation? Just because we see certain things in culture 'change'
rapidly, mostly among teenage fashions and romantic interests, why are we
thinking everything in culture must breakneck at the same rate?
Derek:
It needn't be 'breakneck' at all, just one change in several millenia. Is
that too much to ask?
Wade:
In many ways, judaism has _built-in_ barriers to mutation- this is
analogous to preventing change in the nutrient mix of a virus, and, if
the environment don't change, the organism don't change.
Derek:
But the cultural environment of Judaism has changed tremendously. From
Exilic Babylon to Roman colony to Polish shtetl to Brooklyn to modern
Israel. All very different. And yet none of them triggered the simplest of
changes that would have had major propagative benefits.
Wade:
I don't see any reason to remove judaism, or religion in general, based
upon judaism's example, from the realm of mind viruses.
Derek:
Well, there is another argument based on selection at the level of the
individual, which I dealt with in my Zygon article a couple of years ago.
But that isn't the point here. What I'm driving at is, a theory that
purports to explain religions in terms of the propagative forces within
them, should be able to account for the extreme variabilty in such
propagative forces in terms which go beyond 'some are slow, some are fast,
where's the problem?'.
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