Re: FW: virus: memetics and upbringing

Brett Robertson (BrettMan35@webtv.net)
Fri, 3 Apr 1998 23:41:18 -0500


Memetics defined the transmission of a cultural unit within a mind
through learning (or whatever) seems to back up what Nate says
(basically that "culture" names the memes and evolution the process).
However, this seems to limit memetics to human "culture" (which I think
is a shame).

I describe memetics as ordered recombination, cooperation, and survival
of the fittest (contrasting it from "genetics" as chance recombination,
competition, and destruction of the least fit). My criteria for a thing
being a meme is that it symbolically define evolution (within a memetic
"unit") as that which has survived rather than what is selected against
(as does darwinian theory, which ultimately suggests that a thing which
is not suited for the environment be destroyed). Thus, "genetics" as I
use the term focuses on environmental contingencies and memetics is
cross cultural (or even pre-cultural).

Brett Lane Robertson
Indiana, USA
www.window.to/mindrec
news:alt.pub.coffeehouse.amethyst