Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 15:17:58 +0100
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Emotional memes?
In-Reply-To: <35E48C9E.80907577@fcol.com>
In message <35E48C9E.80907577@fcol.com>, Robert G. Grimes
<grimes@fcol.com> writes
[snip]
>So, I personally see nothing wrong with the concept of memes stimulating
>emotions (in fact I would be startled if they didn't) with a great range and
>impact.
I have no problem there either, but what motivated me to
post that quote was rather the question as to whether
memetics is quite up to dealing with such cases, where
the aspect of behaviour that is propagated is emotional
tone, rather than a concept, for instance. Of course,
all communication occurs via information, by definition,
but if we are focussing on propagation, and what passes
from person A to B and then on from B to C is not any
particular piece of information but rather a mood, then
does memetics attempt to model that, and if so, how?
I suspect that we might have to consider such phenomena
non-cultural and therefore non-memetic. Perhaps, as
Richard Brodie suggested, there are lots of replicators
around, only a subset of which are memes.
-- Robin Faichney=============================================================== 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