From: "Aaron Agassi" <agassi@erols.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: The information theoretic view Was: JOM
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 16:29:29 -0400
In-Reply-To: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJEEIPDJAA.richard@brodietech.com>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Richard Brodie
> Sent: Thursday, September 02, 1999 10:51 AM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: The information theoretic view Was: JOM
>
>
> James McComb:
>
> <<The problem with this conception of the meme is that it stretches the
> genetics analogy too far. Memes are not like genes. They are not
> limited to
> a single physical form, like genes are with DNA.>>
>
> Neither are genes. For years, researchers have been writing down genes as
> strings of characters on paper. Soon genetic engineers will use those
> strings of characters on paper to construct new organisms.
>
> <<Strictly speaking, a meme is not a brain pattern, artifact or behavior,
> but
> the information it carries. On the information-theoretic view,
> memes are not
> physical objects. Instead, memes should be regarded as 'information' or
> 'instructions' that is 'encoded' in physical objects.>>
>
> Correct. And the word "meme" means such information in a mind, whose
> existence influences events such that more copies of itself get created in
> other minds. Information outside of minds that causes replicas of
> itself to
> be created is galled, generically, a "replicator." replicators include
> genes, memes, and anything else.
But, with the exception of genes, they are not actually replicators.
Artifacts are replicated templates. Behaviors are durational four
dimensionally replicated templates. We do all the replication on both ends.
>
> <<Memes are, in Robin's words, 'peripatetic'. Memetic information
> is encoded
> in brains (i-form), and it is also encoded in behaviors and artifacts
> (m-form). This view dissolves the genotype/phenotype distinction (and with
> it any Lamarckian worries). It also solves Derek Gatherer's problem about
> the location of mutations. Mutations can occur in both the i-form and the
> m-form of a meme.>>
>
> The problem is that it's not just ENCODED in the mind---it actually is
> active and influencing the future when it is in the mind. That's
> what makes
> memes special. Information that is encoded outside of minds can
> only effect
> change through its interaction with human minds (although this is changing
> as electronic minds become more powerful).
>
> <<P.S. Sorry to be argumentative, Richard. I don't really
> disagree with your
> viewpoint as such. I just think that memetics must inevitably
> progress to an
> information-theoretic view.>>
>
> And Marx thought economies must inevitably progress to communism. Look,
> there is no conflict between memetics and information theory any more than
> there is between bridge-building and physics. But a more specific model
> helps if you want to build something specific. People are
> building memes and
> mid viruses right now, and all the talk in the world about how
> all pieces of
> information are brothers under the sun isn't going to help understand it.
Au contraire, special cases are often better understood in the light of the
class as a whole.
> What helps is knowledge of human psychology and the special
> relationship the
> human mind has with information.
What, information theory as part of Transactional Analysis? Why not...
>
> What is an example of how an information-theoretic view would help
> understand some facet of culture or build a self-replicating organism?
>
> Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com
> Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
> Free newsletter! http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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