Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA05345 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 9 Jan 2002 17:19:27 GMT Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 12:14:46 -0500 Subject: Re: playing at suicide Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed From: Wade Smith <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <LAW2-F130KvPEkGhAj50001bfa0@hotmail.com> Message-Id: <615BC014-0524-11D6-BE9A-003065A0F24C@harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.480) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Wednesday, January 9, 2002, at 10:47 , Grant Callaghan wrote:
> The ones that get him what he wants are kept and the less
> successful discarded.
When does a baby know what it wants? I'm serious.
> On the one hand, that song was inherited from the parents but
> on the other hand it is learned behavior. What evidence do you
> have that the birdsong was not fixed in the bird's mind in the
> same way?
I have no argument with that at all. I think language and
birdsong have many of the same developmental mechanisms. It's
when we start to discuss interactivity with the cultural
environment that I stop short with birds. Their song is only a
reaction to their genetically developed natural environment. And
we (supposedly) have memes as a value-add. If we _don't_ have
memes as a value-add, if what we do is also just a reaction to
our genetically developed natural environment, then memes are
useless, (in that I think they are non-parsimonious), and we all
just really sing like birds, regardless if it's a Bach chorale
or a shriek.
And I don't think Bach is a shriek.
> God does not design the song for them and hand it down like the
> ten commandments.
No god does that for anything and never has.
- Wade
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