Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA15116 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 11 Dec 2001 14:02:12 GMT Message-Id: <200112111357.fBBDvPX28113@sherri.harvard.edu> Subject: Re: Definition please Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 08:57:17 -0500 x-sender: wsmith1@camail.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T. Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "memetics 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
On 12/10/01 23:31, Ray Recchia said this-
>Personally, the thing that I have always had trouble with is how a
>sophisticated organ like the brain has so much trouble adding two three
>digit numbers together.
If that were a necessary survival adaptation within this environment, it
would have been selected for, but, it ain't. Some need for this function
was seen, socially (memetically, if you will), and so mathematics and
calculators, abacuses and the like, were invented, in that lamarckian
process we call creative design. But, since lamarckian processes don't
enter at gene level (and I still think there is no evidence that they
have or do), we still don't come into this world with an innate ease of
adding, or subtracting, large quantities.
We can make damn good guesses, though.
>As I have said before though in the study of memes we should concern
>ourselves with the existence of a non-genetic evolutionary system. There
>is nothing about evolution that requires consciousness.
But, IMHO, memetics does require consciousness. I think it is pointless,
and non-parsimonious, since genetics gets everything else done, to talk
about memetic processes without consciousness.
And since we have become a species that designs our environment (and
designing our environment is memetic, yes?), memetics really does need to
look at the human species as uniquely unique, and (face/model
recognition) consciousness looks like a good divide, since memes are not
a good divide, if those insipid tweety-lovers are wanting to give memes
to anything....
- Wade
===============================================================
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 : Tue Dec 11 2001 - 14:08:31 GMT