Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA26676 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 1 Feb 2001 18:57:09 GMT Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 18:28:19 +0000 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Labels for memes Message-ID: <20010201182819.A540@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745C2A@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.12i In-Reply-To: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745C2A@inchna.stir.ac.uk>; from v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk on Thu, Feb 01, 2001 at 02:33:31PM -0000 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, Feb 01, 2001 at 02:33:31PM -0000, Vincent Campbell wrote:
> <You think maybe my emphasis is internal? Haven't you seen any of
> my
> > messages in this very thread???>
> >
> Sorry, my mistake, I thought I was replying to Richard.
>
> <Imitation need not be direct. The word can be used wherever there
> is
> > a similarity between stimulus and response. Again, this is broad brush
> > stuff, and I'm deliberately avoiding the detail.>
> >
> But in social behaviour similarity between stimulus and response is
> often not due to the stimulus but to other factors. This is the basic
> fallacy of advertising, marketing and PR
Your mass-communication-orientation is getting in the way again.
Think of one person, who sees another person doing something, thinks
"Hey, that's neat" and does the same thing herself. That is the model
I'm working with. I very firmly believe in starting nice and simple,
and moving on to more complex scenarios only when we know how to deal
with the simple ones.
> (and why they all get paid far too
> much money)- if sales go up after an ad campaign the assumption is that the
> cause was the ad campaign, when all sorts of other environmental factors
> play a part. Besides, surely for memetics, there needs to be more than just
> similarity, there needs to be replication?
Similarity with causation is replication.
> >> When a
> > >> child prays before going to bed at night do they pray to the same God
> > as
> > >> their parents?
> >
> <The fact there may be differences is irrelevant. All we need for
> memetics
> > is that there are also similarities.>
> >
> Well in the specific area of religious beliefs I think those
> differences are very significant. The claim is surely that it's the belief
> that is being replicated.
Sorry, I'm not interested in defending that claim. What you're up against
there is the fundamental problem of inferring subjective phenomena
given objective ones, eg a person's beliefs from their behaviour.
I wish you luck!
> I suppose my problem with belief as memetic, is indeed the idea that
> memes aren't physical things (which I think you said in a recent post)
> whereas belief, as far as I understand it, does have a physiological basis.
I hope you don't think I think memes are supernatural! Have you noticed
the word "information" occuring now and again in my posts?
Unfortunately, you're not alone in having little or no idea about the
relationship between information and physical phenomena. Trouble is,
memetics is right up against that interface. (As is genetics, but
there are ways around that, avoiding informational concepts, such
as pretending that genes are just DNA sequences.)
-- Robin Faichney robin@reborntechnology.co.uk=============================================================== 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
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