From: Robin Wood <robinwood@genesys.co.uk>
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Cultural Evolution & History
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 18:35:36 +0100
Bill
This links very well with Stu Kauffman's (Santa Fe Institute) work on
diversity in ecosystems (supported by John Holland- Hidden Order
1995). Why does diversity correlate with success in ecosystems?
Creativity plus robustness under unpredictable environmental
conditions. When we work with executives to produce scenarios of the
future, we are simultaneously increasing the diversity of the
repertoire of mental models they use, and increasing their ability to
see new things out in their world which could be useful or harmful to
them. This definitely requires increased memetic diversity, as new
words, concepts and patterns are needed, often generated through
recombination of existing patterns plus some new stuff scanned from
their environment.
How can memetics help us do a better job with corporate "big shots" in
getting them to make more sustainable business judgements?
Dr Robin Wood
Genetic Systems Ltd
-----Original Message-----
From: bbenzon@mindspring.com [SMTP:bbenzon@mindspring.com]
Sent: 11 June 1997 13:53
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Cultural Evolution & History
What ultimately interests me is the large-scale pattern of cultural
evolution. What is the role of cultural evolution in human history?
Here's
examples of the sorts of questions I want to be able to address.
GOLDEN AGES
At various times and places we've had "Golden Ages" -- Athenian
Greece,
Elizabethan England, and so forth. Why those places at those times?
Almost by definition a Golden Age implies proliferation of memes.
What
conditions are conducive fo such proliferation.
This issue is related to Liane Gabora's interest in creativity.
THE AGE OF EUROPE
Why Europe? From the 15th century CE on, Europe went into a period of
extraordinary cultural growth and creativity. Why?
I can't help but think that part of the answer to this question has to
do
with meme flow though and around the eastern Mediterranean. I can
almost
imagine that we had a greater variety of memes flowing though that
area
over a longer period of time than any other area of comparable size.
What kind of work has to be done to determine whether or not this is
so?
How does one estimate meme variety & meme flow for times & places
past?
WHY NOT THE AMERICAS
By the time Columbus had arrived in the New World, those cultures had
not
produced a single civilization of size and sophistication comparable
to
those which existed in China, India, the Near East & Europe. Why
not?
Could it be that cultures of N & S America simply didn't have the
meme
variety and flow that existed in the old world?
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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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