>At 10.09 -0500 98-05-22, (The Left Rev.) John Konopak asked in brackets
>whether there have been previous discussions about Activity Theory and
>Peircean semiotics.
(...)
>So as long as there isn't an xmca FAQ answering these kinds of questions we
>have to take questions from ONE new arrival as signs that there's probably
>more people lurking there with something similar on the tips of their
>tongues.
>Eva
>Breaking the US rule of never letting on...
Hi Eva--(Your secret's safe with me. As a licensed gatekeeper, I NEVER let
on...)
Thanks for the info.
Absent a FAQ file, is there an archive?
I haven't forgotten your curiousity about "memetics." P'raps others share
it. I do think their discourse could be pertinent, if not exactly relevant,
in xmca. I lurk on
a Usenet newgroup--alt.memetics, i think.
They also run a listserv at
>Return-Path: <b.edmonds who-is-at mmu.ac.uk>
>From: b.edmonds who-is-at mmu.ac.uk
>Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 09:01:51 +0100
>To: memetics-digest who-is-at alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: memetics-digest V1 #54
>Reply-To: memetics who-is-at mmu.ac.uk
or at least you can find out from Edmonds.
FYI, herewith a couple of paragraphs from a paper posted there today, from
the above digest, which recuperates the gene-meme theme:
(Sorry, this is a mite long and dense; if Dawkins, Hull and Lynch are
already known or if you don't care, you can trash this now.)
>E-mail hanss who-is-at sepa.tudelft.nl, hanscs@usa.net
>
>Summary
>Dawkins (1976) defined memes analogous to genes as replicators, and
>rightfully so. However, it is not generally mentioned and thus
>probably often overlooked that memes can also be interactors. Both
>interaction and replication is needed to explain natural selection
>(Hull, 1988b). Memes, but also genes are interactors if their direct
>characteristics count in selective events. Hull (1988a) mentions
>humans as interactors in memetic evolution, not memes. I argue (Speel,
>1997) that if we can and do judge memes by their merits without
>necessary interference of the physical world, which implies a kind of
>phemotype or conceptual phenotype, memes should count as interactors.
>If we take the definitions of Hull and Dawkins seriously we cannot
>deny this conclusion.
>
>Introduction
>Memes are replicators by definition, in analogy to genes. This is the
>common denominator in memetics, and it is recognized by about every
>writer on the subject. Dawkins (1976) started the definition of memes
>in this way, and where memeticists differ in opinion on what should
>count as phenotype-genotype distinction (see Hull, 1988a for some
>opinions), and even on what memes are (see Benzon (1998) versus Speel
>(1998)), they do agree that memes are replicators. A large part of
>memetics focuses mainly on the dissemination part of memetics that is
>directly related to replication. The meme as thought contagion is a
>well-known view that focuses mainly on memetic processes of
>dissemination. Aaron Lynch's Thought Contagion (1988) is perhaps the
>main work giving the meme such connotations. Of course memes may be
>rightfully seen as disseminating through human systems, but this view
>alone cannot account for natural or artificial selection involving
>memes. Any theory accounting for adaptations by natural or artificial
>selection must include processes of interaction (processes such as
>competition and predation in biology) and processes that account for
>new variation and possibly the re-combination of old variation. I have
>argued before (Speel, 1996) that memetic theory such as proposed by
>Dawkins (1976) leaves it unaccounted for if meme-complexes such as
>religions adapt. Worse, it does not provide us with possible
>mechanisms for such adaptations. The same can be said for the work of
>Lynch (1988) on religion that also lacks explanations on how religions
>as meme-plexes (co-adapted meme-complexes) somehow incorporate
>adaptations, by which they become more successfully disseminated than
>other religions. This lack of focus on adaptations and mechanisms
>perhaps explains why memetic theory has incorporated that memes are
>replicators, but not that memes are interactors.
>
>In the following pages I shall argue that memes are by definition
>replicators, but that they can be interactors as well in 'internal'
>selection. This view is consistent with the view that in RNA selection
>is possible where there is no translation steps like from DNA to RNA
>to enzymes (Calvin, 1997). Hull's (1988a) view that genes can be
>interactors as well is also consistent with this view. If memes are
>taken to be interactors, consequences follow for the discussion on
>what the phenotype must be in memetic evolution. I shall argue that
>memetic (sometimes vicarious) selection implies two kinds of
>phemotypes, contrary to Benzon (1998), Hull (1988a) and others.
>
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| John Konopak, EDUC/ILAC,820 VanVleet Oval,U.of OK.Norman,OK73019|
|E-mail: jkonopak who-is-at ou.edu; Fax: 4053254061; phone:4053251498 |
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| "You may not be able to change the world, but at least |
| you can embarrass the guilty." --Jessica Mitford (1917-1996) |
| "Those who can, must!" --Anonymous |
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