Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA02402 (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 21:22:20 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 15:24:35 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: The Status of Memetics as a Science Message-ID: <3AE6EC33.23589.40F7C6@localhost> In-reply-to: <B70C3C28.8DC7%bbenzon@mindspring.com> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745DE9@inchna.stir.ac.uk> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 25 Apr 2001, at 8:32, William Benzon wrote:
In fact, some people assert that the memetic environment is itself
composed entirely of memes, rather than being a collection of
individual self-conscious awarenesses, each with its own
memories, experiences, and both genetically influenced and
learned attitudes and predispositions, within which different
memetic species must compete for niches. The situation is a bit
reversed from terrestrial ecology, with one environment and many
members of each species; there are six billion cognitive
environments, but each distinguishable meme is its own sui
generis species, rather than being a token of a class type. Of
course, a particular species of meme may have many members,
one inhabiting each conducive cognitive environment.
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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