Re: phenotypic plasticity and ontogeny

From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Sat Jan 20 2001 - 05:00:47 GMT

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Subject: Re: phenotypic plasticity and ontogeny
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 00:00:47 -0500
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From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
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    Hi Mark Mills --

    Thanks for all of that. Highly interesting.

    >I don't think there is genetic versus memetic sex.

    Hmmm. I don't think I was looking for a versus- more a 'how can they be
    the same?' For me to get a gene distributed (replicated), I have to
    produce progeny, since I ain't just talking about the continuation of my
    single bodily life or the splitting of my cells, although, yes, in some
    ways the technology of genetics may one day provide me with another
    avenue. (For the sake of this definition, a sperm bank is 'sex', but
    gene-splicing is not.) For me to get a meme distributed, I have to
    convince someone else to 'birth' it. I have to have 'sex' with them to
    plant the meme, and hope that the progeny will be recognizable as part of
    my me(me). So, I'm more and more seeing the meme as a special functional
    unit of behavior- a tool of the neural system that develops from the
    phenotypic plastic. And I see it as a 'sexual' element (and, so far, only
    as the 'male' element) of communication.

    So, is it only my dirty mind?

    - Wade

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