Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id DAA17079 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 13 Feb 2002 03:52:20 GMT Message-ID: <008e01c1b449$04461a80$5e2ffea9@oemcomputer> From: "Philip Jonkers" <philipjonkers@prodigy.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <200202120818.g1C8IYM8025393@mail25.bigmailbox.com> Subject: Re: Words and memes: criteria for acceptance of new belief or meme Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 19:43:42 -0900 Organization: Prodigy Internet Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Philip:
> >Exactly..
> >In my own words, I'd like to talk of a barrier
> >of skepsis that has to be overcome by the meme to get adopted. Some
people
> >have low barriers, others high. Indeed, the height of the barrier also
> >depends
> >on who offers the meme at hand (authority figures, `comedians', kids,
> >elders, etc...) and on the timedependent status of the host (is he
`sharp',
> >`susceptible', good mooded etc.) as well as whether the meme is
interesting
> >or appealing to
> >the host.
Joe:
> And some memes are hook-y, IOW, they contain elements that tend to
circumvent such barriers. Filters and hooks, since they are competing
evolutionary strategies (like perceptual discernment and camoflage), cannot
be considered in isolation from each other.
True. Memes that can persuade the host to adopt will outdo the ones who are
less adept in that. The nobility of the meme at hand, good/symbiotic or
bad/parasitic, is rather unimportant. If the memes were generally too bad
in the sense of killing off a large part of the human population for a long
enough period the people with high skeptical barriers would flourish. This
has
not happened yet, so people have low enough skeptical barriers for (evil)
memes to overcome and the nature of those memes are that they are not too
damaging to humanity.
Philip.
===============================================================
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 : Wed Feb 13 2002 - 04:04:56 GMT