Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 20:45:54 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <v01520d00afb24938570d@[205.177.25.158]>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: jack@his.com (jack hirschfeld)
Subject: Re: Meme Extinction
Peter Bentley wrote:
>
>This is more interesting. Memes describing behaviours or 'what it's like',
>(for example: what it's like to see the colour red, or to smell coffee) seem
>to be tricky things. Certainly, they seem to be lost when using the written
>word. I can't write down a copy of my belief in Zeus (should I have one).
>I can't write down exactly what it's like for me when I see the colour red.
>Perhaps music is a better form of transmittal for these memes, but even so...
>What I'm getting at, is that your belief in a deity is a personal thing.
>I'm not sure it gets 'transmitted', more 'recreated' with help from others.
>
>So these memes seem to only exist within humans, not in any form of written
>storage. And there seems to be no *direct* transmittal (I can't give you a
>copy of my faith in Zeus). So can such 'behavioural memes' become extinct or
>be revived?
>
Accepting this point of view, it seems to me, negates any notion of
memetics, since it can be handily demonstrated that our knowledge of memes
is restricted to the (individually "recreated") personal construction we
place on the mediated "transmission".
--Jack Hirschfeld How does it feel to be on your own, with no direction jack@his.com home, like a complete unknown?
=============================================================== 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