Message-Id: <199706101049.GAA09440@brickbat8.mindspring.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 06:52:59 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: bbenzon@mindspring.com (Bill Benzon)
Subject: Re: Replicators
>writing: it goes much faster). This is what scientists are doing all of
>the time, and science itself is only possible because there is something
>like written or printed language which provides with a material
>instantiation of thoughts and perceptions (neuronal interactions), just
>like genes are material instantiations of the information for chemical
>processes.
>
Reasoning something like this led my colleague, the late David Hays, to
think of scientific papers, and laboratory instruments, etc. of all the
materially embodied information as the "genes" of cultural evolution
(http://www.newsavanna.com/wlb/CE/Tech/CHAPTER8.shtml#8.2. THE EVOLUTION).
So, whatever you call this cultural genetic material, it isn't in people's
heads. Of course, all the action in cultural evolution takes place in
people's heads. So orthodox memetics is looking in the right place, but
thinking about what goes on there in the wrong way.
William L. Benzon 201.217.1010
708 Jersey Ave. Apt. 2A bbenzon@mindspring.com
Jersey City, NJ 07302 USA http://www.newsavanna.com/wlb/
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