Jonas’s Comments (group member since Aug 22, 2008)

Jonas’s comments from the Brights group.

We had to read some of Susan Blackmore's articles in college if I remember. My general memory of it is that the concept is good because it conveys the ability of cultures to pass along and develop ideas. The general interests and tastes of a culture do get generalized and passed on as somewhat discreet, sometimes contradictory, units and a genetic model is good to represent the culture as a life-form.

The problem is that on some level the analogy kind of breaks down when the theorists (like Blackmore) try to expand it to a larger explanation. There aren't the same kind of evolutionary pressures that affected genetic evolution and also. With the excessive amounts of information movement in our culture developing lots of memes, there doesn't seem to be an actual fight for superior memes that help us deal with the world...

Vee, of anyone, should appreciate the Wittgenstein argument in Wikipedia's article, but I really like the concept and the discussion of how the interworking of those memes could be used to show a cultural map. And I really like the discussion of how far you can push the concept of genetic transmission of cultural ideas.