Memetic transfer in non-humans

From: Brent Silby (phil066@it.canterbury.ac.nz)
Date: Tue Feb 20 2001 - 21:12:35 GMT

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From: "Brent Silby" <phil066@it.canterbury.ac.nz>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
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Subject: Memetic transfer in non-humans
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 10:12:35 +1300
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    Greetings all,
    I have not contributed for quite some time, but I am enjoying the exchanges taking place.

    I am currently reading Howard Bloom's "Global Brain". It is well written and is a fascinating hypothesis on the development of human society. He takes a holistic view of the development of society, which I am skeptical of -- I still think reductionism is the way to go. Nevertheless, his theory seems to be supported by the huge amount of evidence he has collected.

    One of the things I found most interesting was evidence of memetic transfer in animals. I have recently argued that memes were pretty much restricted to the domain of human minds (along with a few primate species and birds), but Bloom has pointed to evidence of memes in a number of other species. One of his examples was of an octopus that imitated the behavior of another octopus (a non-innate behavior) and assimilated it into its own behavioral repertoire.

    Has anyone else read the book (I know Richard Brodie has)?

    Brent.
    ------------------------
    Brent Silby 2001
    Memetics Research
    and Engineering Project

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