Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980917103921.00d393f8@popmail.mcs.net>
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 10:39:21 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk, memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
Subject: Re: Copying, imitation, transformation, replication
In-Reply-To: <3600ACB1.1CAE3124@rug.ac.be>
At 08:31 AM 9/17/98 +0200, Mario Vaneechoutte wrote:
>Quick reply. That is not the issue. I am concerned with how replication
can occur,
>which is not the same as how meaning is extracted. Biology and culture use
>differences which make differences (information). How one difference leads to
>another difference (how a stretch of nucleotides leads to a protein) is
not my
>point here. My point is that replication of some differences (like different
>texts, different nucleotide strands) can be 'digital', i.e. happen without
>transformation (without a series of extracting meaning and transforming it
into
>other presentations, etc.). This kind of replication is only possible with
e.g.
>texts and nucleotide strands.Digital replication means that you do not
need to
>interpret the informational content of a message. Polymerases and presses
do not
>look at the content. When people are copying a book through writing, they
need a
>lot of additional information to reproduce the same potential of
information (OK,
>rewriting without understanding at least the words is probably possible
but much
>more difficult) and several transformations of the information have to
take place.
>
Mario,
I should be clear that what I am saying is not at all conditional on
extracting "meaning." To call one poly-nucleotide "the same" as another is
only possible with respect to a system of abstractions, whether you are
explicitly aware of this fact or not. The same for texts. I discuss
"digital" abstractions in section 15 of my paper.
--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