Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 09:15:55 +0200
From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl>
Subject: RE: Memetics not tautological or circular
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Derek wrote:
<<Sorry, I was being unclear in my use of the word 'memetic'. What I should
<<have said is that learning to drive is not memetic in the Dawkins
B/thought
<<contagionist sense - because the internal mental construct in the
<<experienced driver is different to that of the learner.>>
Richard:
In what way is it different? Why would you assert that?
Derek:
I'll try to find some more precise references for the car driving - it's to
do with cerebral vs. cerebellar control of motor activity, the experienced
driver having more of the latter. The stuff about chess is in Doug. Hof.
'Goedel Escher Bach'. Basically an experienced chess player sees postions
in terms of overall configuration, whereas the learner tends to see
positions as agglomerations of individual pieces in individual positions.
Richard:
The functional
definition of (Dawkins B) meme is that it is in fact the same, is it not?
Derek:
As 'a unit of information in the brain'? Not unless you think that brain
units are independent of brain circuitry. Is this the 'software' argument
you are using again?
Richard:
Where does this behavior come from if not from mentally stored information?
How are learned behaviors retained? When someone learns a behavior from
someone else, why can you see the behavior itself as a meme but not the
information in the mind that causes the behavior?
Derek:
Because there is replication of behaviour but not replication of any
internal neural configuration of activity. I think that memes have to be
replicators of some kind.
Richard:
Where does the behavior come from if not the mind?
Derek:
It does come form the mind, but there is no one-to-one correspondence
between mental unit and behaviour. So the mental units are not the things
that are replicated.
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