Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA28859 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 26 Jan 2002 13:24:26 GMT From: <salice@gmx.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 14:18:35 +0100 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: sex and the single meme Message-ID: <3C52BABB.30986.946240@localhost> In-reply-to: <5.1.0.14.0.20020125191624.03547540@pop.cogeco.ca> References: <3C51E984.23852.2165D1@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 25 Jan 2002, at 19:25, Keith Henson wrote:
> Short term, I can give you all kind of examples
> where memes and genes were at odds.
I think one shouldn't be to fast with deciding whether memes are
working against genes in some example. Take the suicide attacks
as an example. I think there are mostly used to gain attention for
some situation.
Anyway let's just consider that a sucide attack helps a certain
culture to survive. Okay, so one person gets killed and his genes
won't survive too. Really? Is the person who committed suicide the
only person who carried these genes? When you look at
populations there are quite a high number of genes which are
shared by most of its members. If someone commits suicide then
this one instance of dna won't spread but if he saves the life of
people who share 99,9% of genes with him, then his at first glance
memetic-driven behavior also makes sense on a genetic level.
This all works because memes indeed select genes, but we can
define which memes become widely spread in culture. And suicide
attacks are quite efficient so to speak. A suicide meme is not only
that - it also has sourrounding memes which referr to some
cultural/social problem which might have to be changed. And if it
gets changed then some people (genetically) benefit from that.
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