Subject: Re: applied memetics (ignore last)
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 98 13:44:07 -0600
From: Mark Mills <mmills@fastlane.net>
To: "Memetics List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Message-Id: <E0zEeJw-0005w7-00@dryctnath.mmu.ac.uk>
>"More money" is not a universal scheme to make people work for you,
>although in "our" part of the world it's pretty effective :-)
Exactly. Thank you for clarifying my comment.
This brings up something of a joke around my house. Let's hypothesize
there is a Chomsky like 'universal story engine' in the brain. A child
is born with a 'story acquistion devise,' and synthesizes experience
during childhood to give particular stories power. Every individual is
different, but the raw material providing form for our 'identity stories'
is much biased by the cultural mileu.
Motivations are produced by the stories we tell ourselves. The
forms/symbols for the story come from our culture, but the energy and
capacity to tell stories come from the 'universal story engine.'
The 'universal story engine' is hypothesized to have a broad, but limited
set of options for cultures to develop, something analogous to the
'universal language acquisition devise.'
To define the characteristics of the 'universal story engine,' one would
look at the variartions in seduction procedures around the globe. One
would also look at the developmental stages leading to particular
seductions.
If there is a universal scheme to make people work for you, it is not a
specific behavior or ritual, but the 'universal story engine' will still
provides a broad unversal framework to understand human choices.
Without getting into details, memes are the biological basis of stories.
Sorry to digress.
Mark
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