Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id AAA27328 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 17 Jan 2002 00:50:23 GMT To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-Id: <AA-C3B0A0964B28A4C5F49BDE9C849857DD-ZZ@maillink1.prodigy.net> Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 19:46:27 -0500 From: "Philip Jonkers" <PHILIPJONKERS@prodigy.net> Subject: Re: the earth revolves around the sun Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Ray:
>Which of these phrases memetically is closest to when
you say "The earth
>revolves around the sun."
>
>a. Terra circles Sol
>b. the planet next inside of Mars spins around a G
type star.
>c. the large body with the humans on it orbits the
gravity based fusion
>energy generator.
>d. The berth devolves around the bun.
>
>If we adopt behavior based meme approach then
since "the berth devolves
>around the bun" involves using the mouth in a similar
way then you would
>have to pick d.
>
>Actually though it is a trick question. The real
answer is none of the
>above. The key is 'say'. These are written phrases
and under a behavior
>based memetics you would be unable to relate any of
them to a spoken "The
>earth revolves around the sun because the behavior
involved in writing is
>not the same as the behavior involved in speaking.
>
>There are clearly problems that a behaviorally based
memetics has in
>dealing with language and knowledge based memes. A
memetics that is
>incapable of looking examining and recognizing the
similarities between
>differently worded written statements, statements
made in different
>languages, and written statements and spoken words is
of limited
>value. When dealing with memes that can be
transmitted easily through
>imitation a behavioral memetics might be a more
accurate method of
>collecting data but otherwise I see no reason to
unnecessarily impose a
>filter this limited on the field.
>
>Ray Recchia
When one speaker of one language informs an ignorant
speaker of that same language that the earth
evolves around the sun he/she conveys the same
message as when a speaker of another language would
say the same thing to a recipient of that other
language. The same message, the same meme is
transmitted.
The key issue here is the speakers of different
nationalities use different language memes to
convey the meme (earth evolving around sun in Ray's
example). Let's face it, every element in language is
memetic by definition as it can be communicated.
Most words of any language aren't
that flashy nowadays since everyone has mastered
`em, but for each word there was a time when they
were trendy and had to be disseminated across the
population by language imitation. Also, if
they weren't `hot' the entire population of that
language would never learn the existence of those
words and those words would die a silent death or
would got stuck at a dialectical level.
But I'm dwelling I guess...
Philip.
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