Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA00823 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 3 Dec 2001 22:17:41 GMT From: <AaronLynch@aol.com> Message-ID: <92.1e36227b.293d52da@aol.com> Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 17:12:42 EST Subject: Re: Wilkins on the meme:engram relation To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 113 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
In a message dated 12/3/2001 10:35:03 AM Central Standard Time, If Price
<I.Price@shu.ac.uk> writes:
>
> Nobel laureates find it easier to cross boundaries, though Murray
Gell-Mann
> does also have the Santa Fe Institute to fall back on. Here once
> again is his take on the issue, with societies as a sub class of Complex
> Systems: i.e., for Murray, systems where order is enabled by
> replicating 'schemata'
>
> "In the case of societal evolution, the schemata consist of laws, customs,
> myths, traditions, and so forth. The pieces of such a schema are
> often called memes"
>
> Gell-Mann, M. (1996) Address to the US National Defence University http://
> www.dodccrp.org/comch01.html
>
> I read that as support for 'memetics' as short hand for 'evolutionary
> societal schematics' and as Jojh pointed out a few messages back,
> there is more future in trying to design and apply various approaches to
> such a science than worrying now about the precise definition of
> 'meme'. When (if) we knwo more we will find the right "neologisms".
Hi If.
I am not sure that Gell-Mann was trying to settle a definition issue for
memetics. If he was, his use of the terms "schema" and "schemata" become
important. His popular-level book "The Quark and the Jaguar" (W. H. Freeman,
1994) treats those as internal information. Nevertheless, Dawkins is really
the one who should have given the word "meme" an explicit starting definition
and then changed it only in explicit ways and for well-stated reasons. If he
had defined it as a replicating artifact, for instance, I would have known
exactly how to use the term even as I specialised in replicating ideas.
That said, I will add that if Gell-Mann had made a mess of the word "quark,"
quantum chromodynamics would most likely still have developed, even if under
a different name. One can think of all sorts of vague ways that Gell-Mann
might have coined a word, perhaps referring to almost any subnuclear
particle, for instance. But if he had, then physicists would have probably
ignored the term and some other term would have emerged in connection with
very similar theoretical constructs.
There may be areas of cultural evolution research that really need a
neologism corresponding to a specific theoretical construct or concept. If
the word "meme" is used in those lines of research, I think it will be
important for readers to be able to see that a neologism is needed or at
least extremely useful for communication. Reactions such as the quote Scott
Chase gave us from Ernst Mayr suggest that many readers do not see how the
word "meme" is necessary for good communication. That, in turn, leads readers
into the whole distracting subject of "why coin this new word?", which is
only a part of the distraction that has arisen around the word.
Perhaps, however, works that really need the word "meme" for good
communication will convince people of the value of the term. So even as I
produce works that do not use the term, I do not want to personally urge
everyone else to stop using the term. If any works are well suited to
demonstrating the utility of the word "meme," it will be those whose works
that would be hard to discuss without it.
--Aaron Lynch
http://www.thoughtcontagion.com
===============================================================
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 archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Dec 03 2001 - 22:27:30 GMT