Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA12415 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 17 Aug 2001 11:29:06 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101746014@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Logic Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 11:00:30 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain X-Filter-Info: UoS MailScan 0.1 [D 1] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
<In the physicalist model, memes must be transmitted to us
externally from
> other people. But memetics has always been more than just imitation.
> Memes
> spring up from within. If you're at a football game, and the home team
> scores, when you rise to your feet, it's not because you feel like you
> really
> ought to do what everyone else is doing. It's because you're on the same
> "wavelength" with the rest of the crowd. The meme in your head is simply
> the particle aspect of the cultural morphic field embracing all the fans
> in
> the stadium.>
>
What if it's the opposing team that scores? This is a spurious
example that again needs no mad MR idea to explain it. Crowd behaviours,
social psychology, not to mention individual emotional engagement with
whatever sport is being played all feature in such behaviour.
<Memes commonly spread without any possible mode of physical
transmission.>
Well, this is one wing of the memetics community, but some argue
that memes can_only_ transmit in physical forms, cultural artefacts
(including things like, ooh... e-mails?).
<For instance, not only agriculture but similar building designs
appeared
> independently in several locations around the earth.>
>
At very different times. One of the basic problems with the
pyramids, instance is that Egyptian and Mayan pyramids emerged centuries
apart (not to mention that they served completely different purposes- tombs
for the former, and temples for the latter). And how come lots of other
peoples around the world didn't start building pyramids? (never seen in
Europe, or south of the Nubian versions in Africa, or in Asia etc.).
> Morphogenic fields and resonance are just not needed in any way to
> explain these kinds of things.
>
Vincent
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