Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA00647 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 9 Feb 2001 14:59:25 GMT Message-ID: <3A840551.CF978719@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 14:57:21 +0000 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Darwinian evolution vs memetic evolution References: <20010209133238.AAA11665@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> <3A83F3FF.A777EA2E@bioinf.man.ac.uk> <20010209141740.A1677@reborntechnology.co.uk> 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
> most memetic mutations must occur not within a mind but between minds
I'm not so sure - where do most 'new' ideas come from? I'd say those
that arise as a result of miscopying between actors are a minority (but
I wouldn't like to put a figure on it); it seems to me that the majority
of novel memes come from the interactions between resident memes in a
mind (or in a group 'think tank' style, 'bouncing' ideas around [a
metamind?]). Although the overwhelming bulk of these come originally
from outside, the change seems (to me) to occur within a mind rather
than in transfer. After all we have the old thing about whether two
people can ever have the 'same' meme, because if you break it down they
will have used different resident info to model the idea which is being
transferred.
I wouldn't want to deny a miscopying-in-transfer source of evolutionary
novelty though, as this is the twin of internal miscopying (as employed
by me in my last post!). BTW did Dan Dennett suggest the internal
copying idea first (I remember something about bluegrass and crabgrass
in his yard or something) or is it earlier?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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