Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 10:37:00 -0400
From: Dr I Price <PEWLEYFORT@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: Is Memetics Needed? [Was : A Drosophila etc]
To: "INTERNET:memetics@mmu.ac.uk" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Bill
>But in the rigorous analysis of attitude
and behavior, context looms large & memes seem less and less like
autonomous agents and more like components in a complex system.<
Yes of course. So are genes. I don't see myself asserting anything else,
nor do I see Dawkins asserting anything else, at least where genes are
concerned. Both systems are both complicated and complex [in the newer
specialised sense]. Yet for me a simple perspective is granted when one
adds the replicators eye view. I don't much care whether we call those
replicators memes or little green homunculi so long as we recognise the
property of replication. I do assert a fundamental difference between
replicator bearing and none replicator bearing complex systems. One group=
adapt and maintain complex order. The others don't. The replicators in
effect set the rules of the game.
I am going to get it written up some more one day, meanwhile the papers o=
n
my site are as far as I have got in terms of properly refereed,
attributable work.
If
p.s. Hans I hope this answers in passing your latest point about context
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