From: <MemeLab@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 20:11:16 EST
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: On 'information transmission'
In a message dated 3/4/99 7:10:46 AM Central Standard Time, aaron@mcs.net
writes:
<< What is important about
"replication" in that very broad sense is that it constitutes a minimum
condition for recursion, (what Dennett calls an "algorithm," is more
exactly a _recursive algorithm_ or _recursive process_), and this is a
minimum condition for evolution by natural selection. >>
I would say that replication broadly speaking, both transmission and
representation (see my other EM on this topic), is a minimum condition for
evolution by natural selection, but that phemotypical expression that occurs
in actual representation, is where the selection takes place, though the
expression itself is more fleeting than the memotype whose actual replication
is differentially altered due to the selection that occurs in phemotypical
expression.
Once again it is the actual representation that is important in cultural
terms, and concentrating too much on a mere transmission, or the information
contained therin can lead to myopia in terms of understanding cultural/memetic
evolution. This is why I think it is important to seek out opinions that are
more sensitive to cultural issues in bringing the biological/computer metaphor
to life as a complete working cultural concept. Thus a better fusion of
"transmission" informational understandings and "representational"
cultural/meaning understandings will produce a more fully focussed picture.
-Jake
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