From: David McFadzean (david@lucifer.com)
Date: Fri Nov 14 2003 - 08:51:07 MST
Keith Henson wrote:
> The reason for adding this qualification was to distinguish memes from
> ideas. If you can think of a better way to distinguish between these
> two words, please let me know. (Tight definitions aren't really
> needed if you have a deep understanding of the topic.)
To answer that we will first have to clarify what is meant by idea.
Can all ideas be communicated, at least theoretically? Any idea that
can be translated into language can be, but can all ideas be translated?
What about qualia? Are they a type of idea, or a separate class of
mental phenomena?
If not all ideas can be communicated, then the word meme would refer
to that subclass of ideas that can (or more obviously, have been)
communicated. If all ideas can be communicated, then my proposed
definition of meme would include all ideas, but add the connotation
of replicator, which alters the meaning enough to warrant a new term
perhaps.
>> New genes are created through recombination and mutation.
>
> Recombination is part of the replication (and repair) process.
> Mutation is sometimes an error in replication or damage and failure
> to repair properly before the next replication. Typically there is
> one or a small number of base pair substitutions. You can call this
> a new gene if you like--sometimes a single base pair substitution
> makes a life or death difference--but it is just as legitimate to
> consider it the kind of variation one typo makes in a few paragraphs
> when it is copied.
I would call it a new gene when the change makes a sufficient difference.
We have the same problem with memes. When a meme is replicated, it is
unlikely to be a perfect copy because it is the phenotype of the
meme that is copied, and has to be reverse engineered for each
new system. In other words, it goes through a behavior-based channel,
and the destination mind has to create a new internal pattern that
will generate what (it perceives to be) the same behaviour. It would
seem that this process would necessarily have less accuracy than
the analagous genetic process.
>> The analogy with genetics will be more intuitive and useful if
>> we keep the models as similar as possible. Genes don't become
>> genes only when they are replicated.
>
> No, but with the exception of a small amount of human made DNA, all
> strings of DNA base pairs come from a very long line of replication.
> That includes the well over 90% of our genome that is just junk and
> is never transcribed. Is this stuff that is getting a free ride
> (since we lack a methods to get rid of it) genes? If you require a
> gene to be transcribed, no. So what do you call it?
Good question. Maybe some Virians with more biology knowledge
can comment?
> To have real world effects a meme has to be in a human brain/mind, a
> computer virus in the right kind of computer. But I doubt this
> distinction is going to survived more than a few decades. When you
> get human minds mapped into computers, the computer minds (if they
> are accurate maps of the original humans) are going to be just as
> subject to being infected by memes as the humans were in biological
> minds.
I suspect the same will be true for artificial minds. In fact I am
hoping that AI will shed some much need light on memetics by providing
a relative simple and accessible computational laboratory for
studying meme trasmission. I think Liane Gabora has already done
some exploratory work in this area. If a computational agent is
able to learn a new behaviour by observing the behaviour of a
similar agent, would you call that a meme?
>
>> Memes are also created
>> through recombination and mutation. Isn't that simpler and more
>> powerful?
>
> While these are the only way to get changes in genes, I am not sure
> "recombination and mutation" are that important in memes. I don't
> believe that any amount of recombination and mutation could have
> generated the world shaking technological memes that have so strongly
> shaped our world. You might differ in this assessment, but to think
> about some examples, consider Watt's "separate condenser" meme,
> Pasteur's germ theory meme and Darwin's evolution meme. Insight
> seems to me to have played a larger role.
Insight surely played a large role, but that would in now way show
that recombination and mutation of memes didn't take place in the
mind of the originator of the new meme. The theories you mention
certainly were composed of memes that were already in existence
put together in a new configuration (recombination) with some
changes or additions (mutation).
>> The "I" meme is the meme associated with the word "I". Animals don't
>> have it because they don't have any words for "I". People with the
>> "I" meme reveal themselves by using the word "I" correctly in
>> context. Independent observers can make judgments in good agreement
>> that the usage of the word is correct and the users understand the
>> meaning of the word.
>
> "The "the" meme is the meme associated with the word "the". Animals
> don't have it
> because they don't have any words for "the". People with the "the"
> meme reveal themselves by using the word "the" correctly in context.
> Independent observers can make judgments in good agreement that the
> usage of the word is correct and the users understand the meaning of
> the word."
>
> Considering every word to be a meme might be true, but it is not a
> very interesting use of the term, especially when common words are
> learned very early and there is little variation over the population.
I don't find the concept of words as memes nearly as uninteresting
as you do, they may be the simplest of memes and the building blocks
of more complex memes. Do you agree that some memes are composed
of simpler memes?
Anyway I will concede your point in this case and try a different tack
for the "I" meme. The interpretation I mentioned before was that the
"I" meme refers to the stream of consciousness. Since it requires
language by definition, it can not be innate (though the capacity
to learn it is certainly innate, like the capacity to learn language).
Is it possible that stream of consciousness is learned by mimicing
the speech acts of others and internalizing it? Would that make it
a meme, the "I" meme?
David
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