From: "Paul Marsden" <PaulMarsden@email.msn.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: re Taking Memetics Forward
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 17:39:13 +0100
>Paul,
>
>Thank you for posting your notes on the Memetics symposium.
>
>>Our goal or aim is the establishment of memetics as a respected, funded,
>>and successful field of research.
>
>Wonderful.
>
>I didn't see any recommendation the journal focus on memetic processes
>within neural systems, both artificial and biological. Was that
>discussed at the meeting?
>
>Mark
Yes, it most certainly was, at least in the substance of the papers given
(especially Dave Hales stimulating paper on Artificial Societies). (I
believe the abstracts are already on the Web, and a selection of full papers
will be published in the JoM). The recommendations listed were simply
practical things that were suggested that might further our modest goal
(i.e. success (research activity and results), funding, and respect (and
maybe one day Nobel prizes, glory and riches.. ;-)) and NOT recommendations
for JoM focus per se (although they are of course linked, and the JoM is an
important vehicle for this).
Memetics presently suffers from an acute crisis of credibility in one of the
principal domains it is seeking to establish itself; explaining
socio-cultural phenomena - and getting beyond this will be important for our
future survival. (I suppose we could all go off and dedicate our lives to
the Church of Virus ;-( But you are right of course, the memetics project
might benefit from trying to get established, respected, and funded
researchers using the selectionist paradigm as an explanatory device for
information transfer in non social environments, to submit to the JoM. Do
you have any contacts the JoM could invite to submit?
Paul Marsden
Graduate Research Centre in the Social Sciences
University of Sussex
e-mail PaulMarsden@msn.com
tel/fax (44) (0) 117 974 1279
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission:
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/
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