Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 18:50:08 -0400
From: "Robert G. Grimes" <grimes@fcol.com>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: To have a mnemon
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For your information, there is an excellent article in US News & World Report this
week on how we are equipped for language. It appears that Chomsky's theories are
being fulfilled by empirical findings. I was quite astounded as it sounded as if
they were quoting Chomsky when reporting what their empirical results have been
thus far.
To access the article, Baby Talk, on line here is the
URL:http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980615/15lang.htm
They commence by stating that in the first ten months of life "the infants can
perceive the entire range of phonemes and the the brains of four month old babies
respond to every phoneme utter in languages a diverse as Hindi and Nthlakampx, a
Northwest American Indian language containing numerous consonant combinations that
can sound to a nonnative speaker like a drop of water hitting an empty bucket. By
the time the babies are 10 months to a year old, however, thy have begun to focus
on the distinctions among phonemes of their native language and to ignore the
differences among foreign sounds. Children don't lose the ability to distinguish
the sounds of a foreign language; they simply don't pay attention to them. "
The more the mother talks to the child the more the child learns and the faster.
This also seems to justify my and my first wife's personal practice of reading to
my children "in the womb" and continuing it after childbirth until the later
years.
You will enjoy this article immensely and after reading it in my subscription copy
I was delighted to find it already on line and available! Let us know what you
think....
Cordially,
Bob
Aaron Lynch wrote:
> Bill Benzon wrote:
>
> >> I certainly have not claimed that anything like a full understanding of the
> >> human mind can result purely from the study of memes as Dawkins defines
> >> them. Neither has Dawkins.
> >
> >What's at stake is whether or not those sorts of mentalist memes have any
> >meaningful existence at all. If they don't, then trying to study them is
> >pointless.
> >
> >And I fail to see the cognency of quoting Dawkins' definitions. As far as
> I can
> >tell, Dawkins has never undertaken the sort of rigorous and systematic
> >investigation that would give his definitions real force. He coined a
> term, a
> >very good one, and has made some interesting but fairly casual statements
> about
> >these memes as replicators. That's it.
>
> Bill,
>
> I am aware of your longstanding position that memes cannot ever exist in
> brains, and I therefore could not have expected you to find any use for the
> quote from Dawkins.
>
> Dawkins has not made the study of memes his professional priority. Yet I at
> least hope you are not chagrined to have to spend valuable time on your
> above critique of Dawkins.
>
> As for Mr. Best, if he wanted to depart so radically from Dawkins's
> definition, then he should have at least offered some discussion as to
> why--rather than simply ignoring past art.
>
> --Aaron Lynch
>
> http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
-- Bob Grimeshttp://members.aol.com/bob5266/ http://www.hotwired.com/members/profile/bobinjax/ http://www.phonefree.com/Scripts/cgiParse.exe?sID=28788 Jacksonville, Florida Bob5266@aol.com robert.grimes@mailexcite.com Bobgrimes@zdnetmail.com
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore....."
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For your information, there is an excellent article in US News & World Report this week on how we are equipped for language. It appears that Chomsky's theories are being fulfilled by empirical findings. I was quite astounded as it sounded as if they were quoting Chomsky when reporting what their empirical results have been thus far.
To access the article, Baby Talk, on line here is the
URL:http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980615/15lang.htm
They commence by stating that in the first ten months of life "the infants can perceive the entire range of phonemes and the the brains of four month old babies respond to every phoneme utter in languages a diverse as Hindi and Nthlakampx, a Northwest American Indian language containing numerous consonant combinations that can sound to a nonnative speaker like a drop of water hitting an empty bucket. By the time the babies are 10 months to a year old, however, thy have begun to focus on the distinctions among phonemes of their native language and to ignore the differences among foreign sounds. Children don't lose the ability to distinguish the sounds of a foreign language; they simply don't pay attention to them. "
The more the mother talks to the child the more the child learns and the faster. This also seems to justify my and my first wife's personal practice of reading to my children "in the womb" and continuing it after childbirth until the later years.
You will enjoy this article immensely and after reading it in my subscription copy I was delighted to find it already on line and available! Let us know what you think....
Cordially,
Bob
Aaron Lynch wrote:
Bill Benzon wrote:>> I certainly have not claimed that anything like a full understanding of the
>> human mind can result purely from the study of memes as Dawkins defines
>> them. Neither has Dawkins.
>
>What's at stake is whether or not those sorts of mentalist memes have any
>meaningful existence at all. If they don't, then trying to study them is
>pointless.
>
>And I fail to see the cognency of quoting Dawkins' definitions. As far as
I can
>tell, Dawkins has never undertaken the sort of rigorous and systematic
>investigation that would give his definitions real force. He coined a
term, a
>very good one, and has made some interesting but fairly casual statements
about
>these memes as replicators. That's it.Bill,
I am aware of your longstanding position that memes cannot ever exist in
brains, and I therefore could not have expected you to find any use for the
quote from Dawkins.Dawkins has not made the study of memes his professional priority. Yet I at
least hope you are not chagrined to have to spend valuable time on your
above critique of Dawkins.As for Mr. Best, if he wanted to depart so radically from Dawkins's
definition, then he should have at least offered some discussion as to
why--rather than simply ignoring past art.--Aaron Lynch
http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html
===============================================================
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--
Bob Grimeshttp://members.aol.com/bob5266/
http://www.hotwired.com/members/profile/bobinjax/
http://www.phonefree.com/Scripts/cgiParse.exe?sID=28788
Jacksonville, Florida
Bob5266@aol.com robert.grimes@mailexcite.com Bobgrimes@zdnetmail.comQuoth the Raven, "Nevermore....."
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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