Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA15371 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 11 Oct 2001 23:43:12 +0100 From: "salice" <salice@gmx.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 00:37:38 +0000 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: A Test Message-Id: <E15roUl-00050k-00@dryctnath.mmu.ac.uk> Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> I said context is all important. Socio-cultural factors are
>important in the decisions people make, and the cultural trends they
>follow, or don't follow.
Yes but people react differently to cultural trends.
And as i already wrote culture doesn't come from nowhere. People
invent cultural trends at some point and then they spread when
some people want it.
>I'm saying is that I don't think that memes reside in brains.
I don't see how you can think that. Look, when i read a meme
somewhere, whatever sentence which you would also agree to be a meme.
Some sentence. Now i read it, i walk into another room and write it
down on a clean sheet of paper. So it has to be in whatever way in my
brain how else could i remember it and write it down again?
> One way
>to dispute this simplistic reductionism is by questioning the
>presence of memes in brains. That's all I've been trying to do by
>making the case for the artefactual meme (or G-meme after Derek
>Gatherer's ideas).
I'm not against your and Dereks concept of artefactual memes!
I totally agree to that, but i also believe that memes get also
stored in the brain. And more importantly: SELECTED! A book can't
copy itself, it needs a human to do it.
>What made those memes begin to spread again and more widely than
>before was not a product of individual choice, but of social
>circumstances that made notions of democracy attractive.
In the end it was individualS choice because i mean someone had to
read the book, some people had to take the neccessary action after
reading. Cultural change doesn't happen automatically. It needs
people who get active.
> And that not everyone spreads the same memes can be seen quite
> easily in reality too, so what's my problem?>
>In seeing a simple line from genes to brains to memes to culture.
I don't see this simple line. I agree to co-evolution theory.
But not dna here, memes there.
>Part of the basic point of memetics is that culture is, at least to
>some extent, off the leash from being determined by the genes, and
>may operate by its own processes, which may in turn operate
>according to an evolutionary model akin to the replicator theory of
>natural selection.
Well if there's natural selection, there must be some selection.And
i think in most cases people do this. And here again, no other
examples could be given from you.
I can even think of a few others. Like internet 'agents', programs
who look for information and select which to present to the user.
That would be an example of a non-human selection. But still, this
program was programmed by a human and humans use it, if they want to.
> To refer back to the Greek example, it's also a bit like the
>differences between Athenian democracy and mass democracy.
It's sure different. But a mass is still a large amount of people.
You can abstract culture but in the end people live out cultural
trends, behaviours or decide to change culture.
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