Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id KAA15530 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 29 Mar 2001 10:52:57 +0100 Message-ID: <3AC30545.56C14E2F@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 10:49:57 +0100 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: Memetic Paradigms References: <3AC259D1.30409.499F91@localhost> 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
joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> The gene paradigm fails because genes do not mutate as
> memes do; they are either transmitted, or they aren't, and either
> survive as they are, or die with their unsuccessful host as they are.
> The viral paradigm fails because, even though they mutate (there
> seems to be a different strain of flu every year) viral infections do
> not have to compete with many other differing viral types for their
> niches; it is as if only one form of life makes it, or doesn't, in its
> environing ecosphere. But the idea of an environing memetic
> ecosphere is a valid one. A third paradigm has been largely
> ignored - the species paradigm. Memes, like species, have to find
> niches in a surrounding ecosphere, along with other, different
> memes, and both themselves mutate and alter their environment to
> secure such niches. They are not isolable atoms, like genes,
> because their existence includes their relations; memes
> necessarily relate to other memes, and these relations is part and
> parcel of what constitutes the significances of the memes. It is as
> if memes are interplanetarily traveling species; their mutations
> adapting to and changing each cognitive ecology into which they
> journey, and coming to dynamically equilibrational terms with the
> differing already present species which they find from environment
> to environment, or, if they fail to do so, not being able to populate
> the new environment.
Truly a man after my own heart. The group selectionist stuff needs a
closer look in this context - there seems to be competition between
whole stuctures of memes/species in a way that is (I think) pretty rare
in the world of ecosystems.
Tangent: Is 'species' the only word which has no plural form, except in
abbreviation?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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