Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA04122 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 28 Jan 2002 14:54:49 GMT Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:50:19 -0500 Subject: Re: Fw: sex and the single meme 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: <006f01c1a7a1$e93ac280$5e2ffea9@oemcomputer> Message-Id: <59716B92-13FE-11D6-8CCE-003065A0F24C@harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.480) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Sunday, January 27, 2002, at 09:17 , Philip Jonkers wrote:
>> Could you give me a (behaviorist) definition of what
>> you consider a meme.
Memes are behaviors of culture that are replicated, in some
fashion, after perception, by another.
They are external activities. Artefacts are products of memes.
Spoor, if you will. Written passages are products of memes.
And that's it.
And it's _not_ a behaviorist definition at all. It's a
definition that attempts to isolate the meme to its only
_verifiable_ and _studiable_ location.
Thus, we don't talk, memetically, about what Picasso _could_
have done, we talk about what he did.
We don't drive the parts of the car or the processes of
manufacturing in the factory, we drive the car produced by the
these things.
We don't put our cereal in the clay on the potter's wheel, we
put it in the finished product fired in the kiln- and we can't
analyze or 'see' memes in the brain, or use them, in the same
way, although we can see the processes and the parts, or we will
be able to, with more and increased fMRI and other studies.
It is a practical, locational, definition, separate from
instinctual or autonomic behaviors, although, yes, instinct is
also a process in the meme factory.
- Wade
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