Re: Memes and Emergent Properties

From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Feb 12 2002 - 15:05:19 GMT

  • Next message: Price, Ilfryn: "Re; Memes and Emergent Properties" 

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From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Memes and Emergent Properties
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 07:05:19 -0800
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    >
    >Looking at the replication of memes, mimetic systems
    >which accumulate memes are likely to be selected for
    >as it contributes to the perpetuation of all memes.
    >Thus a city with a wide divergence of craft
    >specialists, including the appearance of a "cultured"
    >leisured upper class, when conditions permit, would be
    >selected for over the simpler tribal organisation
    >found in hunter gatherer or nomadic pastoral society.
    >The accumulation of people in a city, of adherents in
    >a faith, or of profits in a corporation create systems
    >of positive feedback loops that eventually run into
    >previously determined limits. Sustainability then
    >becomes a question of negative feedback loops, the
    >avoidance of overshoot and collapse "catastrophistic"
    >structures. (Thom's work on catastrophes as ruptures
    >in a topological surface is relevant here).
    >
    >Interested in your thoughts
    >
    >Regards
    >
    >John

    I have been talking about culture as an emergent property for a while now.
    It seems like a logical conclusion to me. Have you read John Holland's
    book, EMERGENCE? I think he was the one who brought the idea to the Santa
    Fe Institute, along with Stuart A. Kauffman's THE ORIGINS OF ORDER:
    Self-organization and Selection in Evolution.

    Grant

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