Subject: Re: implied or inferred memes
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 99 11:29:45 -0000
From: "Mark M. Mills" <mmills@htcomp.net>
To: "Memetics List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Mark wrote:
>>Great. You have described a genotype/phenotype relationship between 'a
>>neural structure' and G-meme. I've been calling this neural structure an
>>L-meme.
Bill wrote:
>I know you have. I simply don't see any value in calling things in our
>heads memes of any sort. I don't deny the we have ideas in our heads, even
>ideas that we've learned from others in any of a number of possible ways,
>including imitation.
Maybe we are talking about different things. You mention 'ideas,' when
I'm talking about patterns of molecules.
When a person is revived after a minute of 'brain death', they sometimes
recover their identity and memories. There seems to be something
physical and static about memory that can be described in tangible terms,
just as DNA can be described. It seems to me that such a feature of our
anatomy would be of interest.
>As far as I'm concerned all you are doing is
>providing a new name for entities we already know about.
>But that new name does not bring with it any new explanatory mechanisms.
I don't know of any name being used to describe patterns of
autophosphorylating kinases across a network of synapses (see Koch,
Biophysics of Computing). If you know of one, please share it with me.
Koch goes no further than describing the autophosphorylating kinases
electrical performance characteristics.
I'm not talking about ideas. I'm talking about the molecular genotype
for cultural behavior.
I would understand if you said autophosphorylating kinases patterns were
unimportant, I may have the wrong molecular explanation for static memory
which survives 60 seconds of brain death. I don't see how we already
have names for such things, but I've often missed the obvious.
If you have a name, please share it with me.
Mark
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