Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA07976 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 12 Jan 2001 13:45:04 GMT Subject: Re: DNA Culture .... Trivia? Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 08:41:54 -0500 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20010112134022.AAA27394@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 01/12/01 08:19, William Benzon said this-
>I'm interested in
>a strong empirical model that says "here's a meme in the nervous system and
>here's how it replicates from one nervous system to another."
>
>That's what's missing from all orthodox internalist memetics, that and some
>account of the EEA for the phenotypic expression of those memes.
Yes, indeedy. Because regardless of all the hand-waving that goes on
about how genes are 'kind of mildly defined and sort of a descriptional
model', the plain fact is that right now we can say 'here's a gene in the
cell and here's how it replicates', and, if the genetic/memetic model is
ever going to fly, (and I, for one, would _like_ it to, but wishes ain't
been horses yet), then some identification, on a similar level, has to
happen.
And I'm willing to think, at this point, and with my far from extensive
and admittedly layman's grasp of things, that, yes, there _should_ be a
pattern of activity in the brain that can be shown to be a unit of a
cultural behavior- I think that such patterns have been shown for
perceptual and autonomic actions- and that an empirical science of
behavioral cultural systems could be forthcoming that is not just a
gameplaying and narrow analysis of data, but an experimental and
predictive clinical tool.
But, who knows...?
- Wade
===============================================================
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 archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jan 12 2001 - 13:46:46 GMT