Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA14318 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 14 Jan 2001 17:46:25 GMT From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Memes in the head Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 09:43:46 -0800 Message-ID: <JJEIIFOCALCJKOFDFAHBIECMCCAA.richard@brodietech.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <20010114165721.A508@reborntechnology.co.uk> X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Importance: Normal Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Here's a thought experiment. Transport the entire population of the earth to
another planet, one without any artifacts of any kind but with plenty of raw
materials... a kind of "Gilligan's Island" on a larger scale. People have
full memories of everything they used to do, the toys they used to play
with, scientific gadgets, and so on... certainly not a perfect memory but
just the level you'd expect.
Do you think people would eventually recreate some parts of their old
familiar culture? Speak the same language they used to speak? Play baseball?
Now take a population of people who have been cloned and kept in isolation
since birth with no access to any sensory input at all. Put them back on our
now-deserted earth amidst all the artifacts, etc. What would happen? Would
they set about replicating all the existing artifacts?
I think the answer to the first question is a clear yes, underscoring the
usefulness of the model of memes in the head. I would guess the answer to
the second question would also be yes, to a degree, although it's doubtful
they would end up speaking the "dead" languages of all our books even if
they succeeded in understanding them.
While it would be a grand eureka to find a physical manifestation of the
neural patterns in the brain that constitute a single meme, it is not the
main point of the model any more than computer scientists look for electron
patterns that represent a single line of code or variable. Mental memes are
software.
That being said, I agree with just about everyone here that studying an
individual meme is not the best bet for understanding cultural evolution.
Larger structures-memeplexes or viruses of the mind-are more interesting.
Memetic engineering is already being done. Viral marketing is a direct
offshoot of memetics. Memetics lets us understand the importance of fidelity
and fecundity in the question of which pieces of culture are likely to grow.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com www.memecentral.com
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