Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 12:36:49 -0700
From: Arel Lucas <arel@pacbell.net>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Meme vs. meme-vehicle
Martti Nyman wrote:
>
> Dear all,
> I, for one, must thank Bill Benzon (Thu, 17 Jul 1997: The /doggie/ "meme")
> for an exceptionally well-thought presentation of how memes are acquired
> and what memes are all about.
> (snip)
> To use a memetic platitude: I couldn't agree more! Also the rest of
> Bill's posting is well worth giving heed to. The capacity for culture is
> a verbal formula for whatever genetic prerequisites there are for human
> culture. (snip)
I feel I haven't yet given as much attention to this discussion as I
should have, but it seems to me that one element in the meme-brain
equation has been left out.
First there is the genetic capacity for culture built into the brain. No
argument there--just discussion about the nature of this capacity and how
it is inherited.
Last there is the encoded (usually in language or pictures) meme which
awakens inherited capacities.
But in the middle are developmental and cultural factors which have not,
as I remember, been mentioned in this discussion. Memes/schemes build
not only on the genetically programmed substrate but on each other and by
taking advantage somehow of the emotional values imparted by the limbic
system and developmentally (I'm tempted to use the word) "imprinted."
Infantile/childhood experiences lend positive/negative values to
cognition; cognitive "substrates" or mind-molding/changing factors
(early-acquired memes/schemes) help determine which further ideas can be
accommodated. Susceptibility to memes/schemes will be determined as much
by this "middle layer" of conditioning as by genetic tendencies--and more
specifically.
A psychologist who introduced B. F. Skinner's concepts of conditioning to
his college class combined his presentation of Skinner's work with a
class discussion in which he listened for the students' tendency to
identify with Skinner's programmers or with the programmed. He found
that those who identified with the programmers liked Skinner's ideas.
Students who identified with the programmed were opposed to those ideas.
This identification is neither genetic nor (since it produced opposite
reactions in different people) inherent in the schemes Skinner advocated.
It has to have been determined by developmental and previously learned
memetic factors which differed in the students.
Arel Lucas
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