Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA27172 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 2 Dec 2001 05:08:15 GMT Message-Id: <200112020503.fB253KM28278@sherri.harvard.edu> Subject: Re: circular logic Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 00:03:22 -0500 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T. Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi Kenneth Van Oost -
>So, in a kind of circular logic, are you saying here that, if we in memetics
>apply the use of imitation we pursue a more Lamarckian way than the
>pre- supposed Darwinian- way !?
Yes, in a few words.
To make some remark upon your 'should've' comments- lamarckianism (or
neo-lamarckianism, don't matter much) marches from the 'need'
perspective- as if it isn't so much an accidental process, this
evolution, but somehow forced by some collective will- the cold starting
to come in requiring the need for warmer woolens, and the tribe somehow
selecting (the females selecting to mate, perhaps, with hairier, furrier
males) for thicker coats. Or something.... At any rate, there is somehow
a goal in lamarckianism, and, so far, nothing about evolution admits of
goals.
Imitation, being a mimicking process, is unknown in evolution.
Evolutionary forces are mutating forces, sometimes copying correctly,
sometimes incorrectly, sometimes sexually, but it doesn't stamp out
things (although with enough stability of environment it can sure look
like it does), and it doesn't design in any way.
This was, certainly to his era, Darwin's dangerousness- we were not made
in anything's image, after all.
>You just have become a friend of mine, if so !
But, it is also wise to know thy foe.
If all neo-lamarckianism is is the application of design criteria to
future generations, we will be there soon enough with life, and we were
always there with artefacts.
- Wade
- Wade
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