Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA00915 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 4 Oct 2001 23:06:33 +0100 From: "salice" <salice@gmx.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 00:00:57 +0000 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Memes inside brain In-reply-to: <3BBCC61E.3EC879B3@pacbell.net> Message-Id: <E15pGaG-0005YI-00@dryctnath.mmu.ac.uk> Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Such a state of affairs would be more analogous to memetics than actual
> genetics is, particularly if we assume that memes reside in brains.
> Memory is not a process of copying. In the 19th century psychologists
> and neurologists believed that, but by the time of Bartlett's classic,
> "Remembering", we knew better. Memory is a process of reconstruction.
> Any memory based theory of memes has to meet that fact head on.
How human memory works sure has an influence on memes storage in
brains. Because people remember things differently. But i don't think
that there is any research on this. Especially interesting is that
people kind of forget or change words in the same "style".
So you could argue that artists remember memes not correctly but the
thing is that they remember them wrongly in a certain way! Some
people use basically the language they learned, others come up with
new 'adjusted' words all the time. So this process of reconstruction
must be different in their head. Why this is so and how this does
happen has to be researched.
> Dawkins conceived of memes as residing in the brain and as reproducing
> by imitation, i. e., by copying. He's a biologist, not a psychologist.
> That view of memory is naive, passe.
I think Dawkin also knows that memes aren't a fixed structure in the
brain. And memes get reproduced by imitation, copying. What else?
When the brain of a person reconstructs a meme in memory differently
it has a reason which might even be evolutionary caused. And this
reconstruction happens differently among people.
I think that's the whole point about arts and science, to take the
given meme/culture structure and change it a bit, to reconstruct it a
bit 'wrong'.
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