Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA00710 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 25 Apr 2001 13:36:42 +0100 User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.0 (1513) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 08:32:41 -0400 Subject: Re: The Status of Memetics as a Science From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B70C3C28.8DC7%bbenzon@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745DE9@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
on 4/25/01 7:07 AM, Vincent Campbell at v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk wrote:
>
> ... b)
> there are entire industries engaged in persuasive communication already who,
> despite the money paid to them by clients, have absolutely no way of
> predetermining the effectiveness of their efforts, and when they are
> successful its largely nothing to do with them, and everything to do with
> the attitudes of those they're trying to persuade).
It's really quite amazing isn't it?
Taken collectively, those attitudes are the environment in which these pesky
little meme thingys must survive. But memeticists give almost zero
attention to them.
Why? I suspect because it would seem to diminish the power of these memes,
making them seem less like self-propelled vehicles of mentation.
BB, the curmudgeon
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