Date: Thu, 02 Sep 1999 04:23:47 -0700
From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: i-memes and m-memes
Dear Richard,
Richard:
One quibble: It is certainly possible for a meme, residing in a mind, to be part of a mental state that generates some set of behaviors that in turn cause the original meme to be replicated in another mind WITHOUT calling those behaviors "memes."
Bill:
A behavior per se is not a meme. It occurs in a context and has meaning. The meme includes all three.
Richard:
While I agree with you about the interesting nature of information flow, I see no usefulness in diluting the word "meme" by using it to refer to ALL encodings of ALL information involved in cultural evolution.
Bill:
The point, I think, is in the major difference between memes and genes. For genes we can distinguish genotype from phenotype. The germ line carries genotype from generation to generation. But the replication of memes depends on publicly observable forms. The typical method of replication is imitation.
For memes, as opposed to genes, it is a matter of indifference whether we view memes as internal or external. A major advantage of viewing them as external is that we can describe them better. With genes we talk about a gene *for* some phenotypic effect. With memes we may as well call the observable manifestation the meme.
Richard:
"Ice," for example, is an interesting word meaning water in its frozen state. Ice melts and evaporates, or sublimates, forming water vapor, which may rise sufficiently high to the point that it condenses and freezes, once again forming ice. However, it wasn't ice during those intermediate stages nor would it be useful to call it "encoded ice" or anything like that.
Bill:
If we are talking about the preciptation cycle, it is useful to talk about water taking different forms.
Richard:
Similarly, although some meme transmission can be usefully seen as directly encoded and unencoded en route from mind to mind,
Bill:
Imitation.
Richard:
my suspicion is that most of it is not so direct,
Bill:
I think that a lot of it is indirect.
Richard:
that memes precipitate"
Bill:
Caught, not taught.
Richard:
into a new mind through a statistically predictable but chaotic process
Bill:
Human systems are chaotic, in the technical sense.
Richard:
in which one individual meme cannot really be said to be encoded in one specific behavior or artifact.
Bill:
Weber: No culture without meaning.
Earlier I talked about being better able to describe the external aspect of memes. That doesn't mean that we can always do it very well. Usually we are better at recognizing memes than describing them. "I know it when I see it," said Justice Potter Stewart.
The question then arises, how do we learn to recognize a meme? How do we know James Dean was cool?
I do not think that we need to invoke anything particularly mysterious (although mysteries remain). The chaotic process of trial and error with corrective feedback can account for a lot. As children we guess at what things mean, and through trial and error and feedback we get to be very good guessers. Furthermore, our guesses are similar to that of other children, not just because we engage in this process with them, but because the feedback we get from our parents is similar, and that is because our parents share a culture.
So when we first observe cool people engaging in cool behavior, -- we know because we are told -- we catch on pretty quickly. We are primed to do so, by our previous learning and current shared experience. We still may make embarrasing mistakes, but we learn from them.
As for specific memes not being encoded in specific behaviors or artifacts (cum context and meaning), there are memes which correspond to relations among other memes, and systems of such relations. (Another way in which memes differ from genes, I think. There are genes for complex behaviors, but the complexity lies in the phenotype, does it not? The genes just code for proteins. Perhaps I misinterpret.)
Best regards,
Bill
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