From: Robin Wood <robinwood@genesys.co.uk>
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: When is a meme not a meme?
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 19:08:20 +0100
If- your metaphor echoes De Bono's "Mechanisms of Mind" (1973 Penguin)
jellymould analogy of a landscape being riven by information/patterns.
Any further thoughts on the SPG gig songsheet?
Kind regards
Robin
P.S. We've thoroughly checked the options around 6 and 7 August-
unfortunately, two people can only make those dates. The good news is
we now have seven confirmed participants.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dr I Price [SMTP:PEWLEYFORT@compuserve.com]
Sent: 08 June 1997 19:55
To: INTERNET:memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: When is a meme not a meme?
Timothy/Martha ask, picking up on the end of a post of mine
>>They replicate through phemotypes which include
>language, rituals, and various cultural artefacts. Most books are
probably
>better thought of as phemotype than memotype.
How does such a view differ from Platonic idealism? I asked this
before,
to deafening silence as an answer, but sooner or later the issue must
be
addressed: what do you mean when you, or any memeticist, says that a
meme
"replicates" and that it "induces" structures of thought, perception,
and
behavior?<
My understanding of Platonic idealism is limited to the synopsis T/M
provided in an earlier post. May be it does not differ what, but so?
If the
meme hypothesis 'explains' Platonic idealism [and the various people
who
have made the same point since], as well as school of evolutionary
economics [see for example Hodgson 1993], the role of language in
crafting
meaning in social organisations and, the numerous observations of the
role
of mental models in shaping individual and organisational learning
[dare I
say see my papers for references] then, even if it is Platonic
idealism so
what?. You could equally say Mendelian genetics was simply updated
practical pig breeding.
T/M go on to say [and yes I have not yet addressed their second
question]
>In my own view, memes are simply packages of information that are
circulated in a society. Knowing a piece of information -- a meme --
does
nothing to you. Thus: "To make fried potatoes, take boiled
potatoes,
slice them, and fry them until yellow-brown." Has any reader leapt
up,
driven like a robot, to perform these instructions? In what precise
sense
is it alleged that "memes" cause or induce behavior? Until that issue
has
been addressed, memetics is silliness -- pure verbalism claiming to
be
significant understanding.>
Given the original definition of the proposed 'meme' as "literally
parasitising a brain turning it into a vehicle for the meme's
replication"
it seems to me presumptous to re define a meme thus. The fried
potatoe
recipe, for the reason given, would probably not qualify as a meme
[sensu
Dawkins]. Those who seek to redefine the meme as simply a package of
informationconfuse the issue. Memetics may or may not be silliness. If
you
wish a separate dialog based on a different definition of the meme it
might
be easier if you used a different term.
Quite what "replicates" or * "induces" structures of thought,
perception,
and
behavior* mean, I confess to not knowing. There is a vast set of
neouroscience observation there that, so far as I know, is not yet
understood. The work of Maturana and Varela on autopoietic systems
seems to
me to be a start, as do Neurolinguistic Programming and various
school's of
counselling/ therapy/ change management. Dennet also strikes me as
reasonably convincing on the subject and the Complex Adaptive Systems
folk
are adding to our understanding. Murray Gell-Manns 'The Quark and the
Jaguar' would for me be a better book if he had acknowledged schemata
as
memes.
There are people gathering on this list - and its cross disciplinary
appeal
is one of its main attractions - who know a lot more about
neuorscience
than I do. I can only answer your questions with a metaphor, one
which
stikes me as a logical hypothesis of how memes might work, and yes I
know
it does not have the neurobiological detail that is needed.
------------------------
A geological metaphor provides an image of the physiology and
psychology of
perception. Imagine a landscape, eroded over time to provide streams,
rivulets, and rivers interspersed between higher plateaux. It provides
a
simple example of a self-organising, locked-in, system. If one can
imagine
the virgin landscape as being relatively flat, perhaps gently
undulating,
then as rain falls so it tends to find the paths of least resistance -
the
soft rocks and minor depressions of the undulating territory. Over
time
accumulations of rainfall carve out stream and river beds and settle
into
pools and lakes. Any new rainfall will no longer find its own way but
will
rather take, and re-inforce, the already sculpted way. Though the
falling
rain may be evenly distributed across the landscape, in its collection
and
flow across the land it will tend towards a predetermined route, one
taken
by previous rainfalls.
Just as the rainfall follows established routes so perception follows
established ways of 'seeing'. Technically, even if the light sources
which
perturb the back of the retina are identical, what will be noticed
from all
that could be seen will depend on the perceptual lens through which we
view
the world. The optimist's half-full glass is the pessimists half-empty
one!
What is there is not independent of the viewer, as experts in quantum
physics will acknowledge. What is there is what we have been 'trained'
[or
conditioned or have learnt] to see. Our training in terms of our maps
and
our lenses means that we will not see certain other things which do
not fit
with the map or lens we carry. We may discard, indeed we can be blind
to,
anomalies that do not fit. The self-organised pattern which we call
our
thinking grants a particular perceptual blindness and rigidity to our
perceptions of the world - the very foundation of such things as
stereotypes and prejudices - common to all human experience and found,
for
example in the way one department in a company may view another.
What holds for light waves perturbing the retina hold equally for
acoustic
perturbances of the eardrum. Exploring the analogy further we could
say
that an idea, a single thought, an utterance, a meme in fact, is like
the
single raindrop. It falls with others upon a pre-formed perceptual
landscape. Isolated thoughts gather together in a string - a pattern
of
co-existing memes - which we might compare to a few drops
congregating
together in a splash of water. With sufficient mass the splash of
water
starts to flow into streams and rivers which are, if we like. the
connectors between the raindrops and the pools and lakes, if not the
oceans, of our thoughts. The pools and lakes we may view as concept
pools
and theory lakes. Thus a self organising system is inherited and
developed
in which the flow of perception takes a certain course, it follows a
certain pattern, a largely given paradigm.
Patterns in the brain influence 'seeing' [or more accurately
perceiving].
Patterns, and seeing influence behaviour so behaviour follows certain
patterns. It may be argued that we see the world less as it is and
more as
we are and we act perfectly consistent with how we see the world.
There is
a certain alignment with our thinking, our perceptions and our actions
in
the world. Thinking, seeing, and behaving tend to follow pre-existing
patterns . The connections between thinking, seeing, acting, if not
our
very being, can be represented schematically:
Well established patterns become social and cultural norms and
preserve,
replicate, themselves through their influence on people's ongoing
perception of the world. The cultural tradition is passed on by the
language and perceptual habits acquired by succeeding generations and
by
that which we inherit through the cultural artefacts of previous
generations, for example their temples, books, theories, myths and
legends,
and through our own processes of informal and formal education. These
may
take the form of individual units of cultural transmission - 'memes' -
or
the broader patterns of thinking which Kuhn called paradigms.
What this amounts to is the assertion that our perceptions of the
world
provide for our very relatedness to the world before us - both in
terms of
what is seen or noticed and the meaning or interpretation we grant to
what
is noticed. Perception grants what may be termed our
Being-in-the-world
[An expression first coined by Heidegger in the term 'Dasein']. If we
can
interrupt the pattern of thinking, eschew our memetic and
paradigmatic
inheritance so as to think and see newly then behaviours may
naturally
follow. To achieve such a difference in thinking and seeing we may
need to
create a different language.
-----------------
If Price
Active Personal Learning, Guildford UK
http://members.aol.com/ifprice/ifresch.html
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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