Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 09:14:35 +0200
From: Mario Vaneechoutte <Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.be>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: The Replicators or the Replicated
Tim Rhodes wrote:
> At the risk of starting another memes inside/outside war, what are your
> general thoughts on the question of whether memes are themselves
> self-replicating or the products of another replication agency?
>
> -Tim Rhodes
Tim,
It is unclear to whom this question is addressed, but I'll give you my
brief ideas
(by the way this replicator/replicate discussion is just another war which
many - who have broadly adopted the replicator terminology and ideology -
do not wish to restart again).
Genes and memes (whatever: ideas, texts, pottery, behaviour) are unable to
replicate.
One needs replicators to do so (and now I am using the word 'replicator' in
its correct manner, that is as an active processor, an agent which can DO
things.
(IMNHO (in my non honest opinion :-) ))
Minds, copy machines, computers are replicators for memes, and polymerases
replicate genes.
Of course, the replicates (genes, memes) may have characteristics which
makes the replicators act upon them preferentially. Take a joke. It has
characteristics which will make people want to reproduce it: you can make
others laugh with it, which will make you a sympathetic person, which
reinforces your self esteem (psychologial certainty). Or a chain letter:
makes promesses in case you do replicate it and threatens you in case you
would not replicate it (and even if you don't believe the treat, you can
better play 'certain', also because the effort you have to make is usually
neglectable compared to the possible dangers which await you when not
replicating it.).
The joke or the letter theirselves doenot replicate, but have
characteristics which motivate people to replicate them.
Is it really that difficult to see the obvious correctness and usefulness
of this approach, instead of pursuing the nonexisting 'self-replicative'
properties of memes?
The idea (belief, conviction, ...) that genes and memes are replicators, an
idea which was launched by Dawkins, is in my opinion an excellent example
of a completely erroneous suggestion, which is so appealing (and so wide
spread in the meantime) that it is ineradicable anyway. This kind of
erroneous but successful idea is what I first defined for myself as a
'meme', before I discovered that many others were thinking about this word
(in a more broad and very different manner). 'Meme' to me was some kind of
successful idea (like 'God exists', 'Belgium is the best country in the
world', ...) for which there was no direct logical - scientific reason to
explain its success.
'Genes/memes are replicators' is such an example as well.
This is more than an academic discussion about the correct usage of a word,
but I can only explain the multiple consequences for memetics once this
idea gets better accepted.
Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.be
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> ===============================================================
> 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
===============================================================
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