Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA27466 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 17 Mar 2001 15:19:33 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.240.221.86] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Lesser genes than expected Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 10:15:50 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F63IIZS2TRqf69aZbLA00000015@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 17 Mar 2001 15:15:50.0907 (UTC) FILETIME=[26E3FCB0:01C0AEF5] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Lesser genes than expected
>Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 20:15:17 -0500
>
>
>
>
>
>>From: wilkins <wilkins@wehi.EDU.AU>
>>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>>Subject: Re: Lesser genes than expected
>>Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 12:06:55 +1100
>>
>>Scott Chase wrote:
>> >
>> > >From: <Zylogy@aol.com>
>> > >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>> > >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>> > >CC: Zylogy@aol.com
>> > >Subject: Re: Lesser genes than expected
>> > >Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 14:08:38 EST
>> > >
>> > >Ah, but might it be that we ARE born with enhanced ability to learn
>>certain
>> > >classes of structures within language, certain types of vocabulary
>>before
>> > >others, and certain memes similarly? Consider the face-recognizer in
>>the
>> > >cortex. Nobody had to be taught the importance of a face. Imprinting
>>in
>> > >birds? Learning and decision tasks put into formats compatible with an
>> > >animal's normal activities will be better executed than those which in
>> > >alien
>> > >ones.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > So maybe we're born with a bunch of riverbeds needing only some water
>>to
>> > course through them?
>> >
>>
>>More like we're born with a geology of hard and soft substrates, and
>>where and how long the water flows determines where the riverbeds are...
>>
>>
>OK, maybe that sounds better.
>
>
Giving this another whirl, while sorting through old messages awaiting
deletion, perhaps we are born with some potential riverbeds already in place
yet awaiting actualization by relevant stimili (the rainy season?).
On another note I'm again pondering Semon's terms of engraphy and ecphory,
stimulated by reading Eugenio Rignano's bittersweet book _Biological Memory_
(1999/1926. reprinted by Routledge, but originally published by Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner, and Co., Ltd., translated by EW McBride). Engraphy and
ecphory could perhaps parallel encoding and decoding (sensu Robin?). If I'm
not mistaken, engraphy is putting an imprint into material where ecphory is
based on relevant context reawaking this trace. The latter process might be
cue-dependent.
I'm still trying to unravel the historic and theoretic issues of the mnemic
analogy between memory and heredity. Rignano's book touches on ideas of
Semon, but also Hering, Haeckel and Francis Darwin. He uses an interesting
word "centro-epigenesis".
This mnemic analogy could overlap to a point with memetics, but the latter
has less to do perhaps with organic memory and neo-Lamarckian undertones.
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