Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA28565 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 2 Feb 2001 12:17:29 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745C2C@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Labels for memes Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 11:58:40 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
<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.>
>
I'm not disputing that one basic conception is of one person seeing
another person doing something, thinks "hey that's neat" and then does it
themselves. What I was disputing, which wasn't your point as I
acknowledged, was the notion that the medium through which someone sees
another person doing something is irrelevant. It quite clearly isn't
irrelevant, and that's what makes the memes solely in minds idea problematic
for me, but again, I know that's not what you're saying.
> > (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.>
OK, but again one's talking here about the external expression of
something- the behaviour is copied, not necessarily the mental state of the
person from whom the behaviour was copied.
<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!>
>
Well, actually that's not what I'm doing any more than you. But
others do claim beliefs to be memetic, and base their claims on peoples'
behaviours.
<I hope you don't think I think memes are supernatural! Have you
noticed
> the word "information" occuring now and again in my posts?>
>
Yes, but information stored where and how, and how does the form of
storage affect it?
<Unfortunately, you're not alone in having little or no idea about
the
> relationship between information and physical phenomena.>
>
Well, I think that's incorrect, but I think this stems from a
misunderstanding about the point I was trying to make which wasn't directed
at your position. All I was saying was that different forms of
communication illict very different kinds of responses from people, so much
so that the nature of imitation in interpersonal communication, is likely to
be significantly different from telecommunication or mass communication. I
was doing so in order to raise my concerns about the idea that memes exist
only in minds, which again I acknowledge, is not your position.
Vincent
> --
> 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
>
===============================================================
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 Feb 02 2001 - 12:21:36 GMT