Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA07592 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 10 Jan 2002 14:27:40 GMT Message-ID: <3C3DA3EC.9050600@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 14:23:40 +0000 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-GB; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20011019 Netscape6/6.2 X-Accept-Language: en-gb To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Knowledge, Memes and Sensory Perception References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3102A6D1CE@inchna.stir.ac.uk> <5.0.2.1.0.20020110034617.00a39130@mail.clarityconnect.com> <00ab01c199dc$4eab7980$509cef9b@intekom.co.za> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> I did not formulate question 3 properly. I am referring to a
> hypothetical case where somebody allegedly receives knowledge
> 'intuitively'. The behaviour resulting from that experience
> looks like a meme, although there is no other organism involved
> in the transmission process. The following could serve as an
> example: Say for instance somebody is totally in the dark as to
> what he/she is to do with regard to the future. He/she goes to
> bed and on awakening the next morning says that he/she
> 'intuitively' received an 'answer' during the night. This
> person then acts according to the 'message'. What he/she does
> is in all respects concurrent with something that looks like a
> meme, although there was no organism present in the transmission
> of the meme. One normally observe this kind of behaviour in
> people heavily influenced by religion and/or cult activities.
> It was not a dream, because in a dream there would have been a
> virtual organism communicating with the recipient. The client
> will normally say he/she intuitively 'knew' that it was the
> right thing to do.
I think this is like hybridisation in the wild between species - a new
species may arise by combining parts of pre-existing ones. This new
species is just as valid. I think the 'new' meme is indistinguishable
from learned ones (in terms of it's representation in your head). This
is why I don't like the transmission restriction in the current meme
definition. Meme currently refers to the transmitted version of the
thing I really need a (non-crap) name for.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
===============================================================
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 : Thu Jan 10 2002 - 14:54:19 GMT