Re: Memetic Paradigms

From: Robin Faichney (robin@reborntechnology.co.uk)
Date: Sat Mar 31 2001 - 14:39:59 BST

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    Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 14:39:59 +0100
    To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    Subject: Re: Memetic Paradigms
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    In-Reply-To: <3AC48229.9444.16BB2D@localhost>; from joedees@bellsouth.net on Fri, Mar 30, 2001 at 12:55:05PM -0600
    From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk>
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    On Fri, Mar 30, 2001 at 12:55:05PM -0600, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
    > On 30 Mar 2001, at 11:36, Robin Faichney wrote:
    >
    > > > >> 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.
    > > > >
    > > > >Genes, generally, are highly interdependent too. What proportion
    > > > >of our genes, do you think, is *directly* concerned with
    > > > >replicating itself, rather than supporting a cluster, for which a
    > > > >few will arrange the replication of all?
    > > > >
    > > > None, actually. Since genes lack subjectivity, they cannot be said
    > > > to be concerned with anything.
    > >
    > > Deliberate obtuseness impresses nobody, Joe.
    > >
    > So why do you continuously employ it?

    Point to one instance.
     
    > > In other words, you agree that genes are just as interdependent as
    > > memes after all. You have done a complete about-face.
    > >
    > No, genes are NOT as interdependent as memes. The genes for
    > brown eyes are not connected whatsoever to male pattern
    > baldness, yet all meanings, as mutually correlatively defining, are
    > intertwined in the semiotic web, also referred to as the vicious
    > hermeneutic circle.

    That's just rhetoric. It's just as valid for me to say that all
    genes are connected as for you to say all meanings are connected.
    Both generalisations are so vast as to be almost meaningless. But I
    wouldn't claim that any meaning can stand alone, while you claimed that
    genes are "isolable atoms". Do you stand by that, or retract it?

    -- 
    Robin Faichney
    Get your Meta-Information from http://www.ii01.org
    (CAUTION: contains philosophy, may cause heads to spin)
    

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