Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA25987 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 15 Feb 2001 14:25:36 GMT Message-ID: <3A8BE660.AEEB6E24@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 14:23:28 +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: <20010215133415.AAA29040@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
> "Never attribute to intelligence that which may be explained by stupidity."
OK. It's a point well made, but I don't want to dwell too much on the
'where from' as much as the 'why still here'. Lots of stupid (and not so
stupid) people make these mistakes, but why do most fall away (like most
genetic mutations...)?
To take Vincent's two examples:
> Why cool people's phrases, but not their dress sense / mannerisms?
I think it's a matter of simplicity. At most, people shush the 's' of
Sam, other than that, the meme is very easily copied. Clothing is tricky
to obtain and maintain, also close imitation (of appearance) has all
sorts of problems and stigmas, even for kids. Behaviour more generally
is also much harder to copy. Suites of things such as these (coadapted
memeplex is, I think, the accepted bastardisation of population genetics
lingo) are harder to copy and maintain, therefore spread less well.
Essentially there is a simple niche for making the mundane "please
do/say/show that to me once more", assembled from several linguistic
concepts, into almost a meta-word, with some extra cache thrown in.
There is a reverse case of this with the Latin scholars who insist on
finding Latin expressions for the modern, and end up breaking down good
modern evolved concepts (usually single words) into bloody great phrases
of Latin.
> 'Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well'
I reckon in this case, chopping off the Horatio again simplifies it (one
guy's introspection on the pain of death, rather than a conversation
with all the implied extra detail about a scenario).
I'd add the '[For the love of] money is the root of all evil' - concrete
replaces abstract as the focus of the statement, simplifying it. These
are viral. Small, totally reliant on a rich environment. Like viruses
though, they enrich us by moving information around (viruses help genes
jump species) increasing variety.
As for whether memetics (at least as I see it, where the ones in your
head or physically manifested in the world are just as much memes as the
ones that are in the process of spreading through a culture) has more
explanatory power than psychology/sociology in some sense; I think it
does have, not because it covers new ground (as pointed out by Robin),
but because its explanation is more compact, more generic and more
consistent with other things we know about the way the world is
(basically a load of systems which locally disobey the law that entropy
increases, manifested as dynamic patterns, in matter, minds whatever).
Phew. Chris.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
===============================================================
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 : Thu Feb 15 2001 - 14:28:27 GMT