Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA01078 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 25 Jan 2001 15:54:53 GMT Message-ID: <3A704B8D.AA6B722@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 15:51:41 +0000 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en-gb] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en,pdf To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Memes and emotions References: <20010125153625.AAA1246@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Do you see the important transition as the refinement of imitative ability, or the
facility to split memes into functional component parts to generate recombinant (in a
loose sense) pseudonovel memes, or both?
I'll go for both - it seems to me that as we go down the great chain of being
[(angels) -> us -> bonobos/dolphins -> other 'higher' mammals -> fluffy/feathered
stuff -> ... -> yeast etc.] recombination (of memes) disappears fairly quickly, good
imitation more slowly, then you're left with learning from own experience (oh dear),
and finally, hard-wired wood-burning genetically controlled stuff, including
'metabolic' rather than neural mechanisms).
Chris.
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Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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