Tradition Without End
In A Companion to Folklore, ed. Regina F. Bendix and Galit Hasan-Rokem, pp. 40–54. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
This discussion follows the etymological clue, and envisions tradition as a dynamic process of transmission. This... more This discussion follows the etymological clue, and envisions tradition as a dynamic process of transmission. This entails laying out three major ideas. First, the popular view of tradition as a static, past state of things is arguably a fable. Second, when examining the dynamics of traditional processes it is advisable to consider the matter of symbolic equivalences. Third, traditions are arguably shaped by the interplay between individually-generated variations and community-enacted selection mechanisms. Overall, this essay examines some things narrative scholars have to say on tradition, and it submits that tradition pervades some of the things scholars have to say.
Global Citizenship in 2040: Six Scenarios
1- Placeless Brains Triumph, 2-Planetary Second Life, 3-Multicultural City Islands, 4-Cherished Mental Model, 5-Lagging Global Education, 6-Tribal Towers Tremble
After listening to a presentation that reviewed the scientific discoveries and technological developments,... more After listening to a presentation that reviewed the scientific discoveries and technological developments, participants in the workshop titled Global Placeless Brains at the conference Reconciling Babel – Education for cosmopolitanism were directed in a brief method based scenario planning exercise that was designed and run by the author.They were encouraged to do some “disciplined imagination” about the alternative futures of the global citizenship in 2040. One week after the workshop was concluded their written inputs were analyzed and subsequently six scenarios were developed and named. For more detail about how the tacit knowledge of the participants was tapped and thus documented as explicit knowledge see the Method section below
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Seen by: and 39 moreMemetics: Memes and the Science of Cultural Evolution
by Tim Tyler
Memetics is the name commonly given to the study of memes - a term originally coined by Richard Dawkins to describe... more
Memetics is the name commonly given to the study of memes - a term originally coined by Richard Dawkins to describe small inherited elements of human culture. Memes are the cultural equivalent of DNA genes - and memetics is the cultural equivalent of genetics.
Memes have become ubiquitous in the modern world - but there has been relatively little proper scientific study of how they arise, spread and change - apparently due to turf wars within the social sciences and misguided resistance to Darwinian explanations being applied to human behaviour.
However, with the modern explosion of internet memes, I think this is bound to change. With memes penetrating into every mass media channel, and with major companies riding on their coat tails for marketing purposes, social scientists will surely not be able to keep the subject at arm's length for much longer.
This will be good - because an understanding of memes is important. Memes are important for marketing and advertising. They are important for defending against marketing and advertising. They are important for understanding and managing your own mind. They are important for understanding science, politics, religion, causes, propaganda and popular culture.
Memetics is important for understanding the origin and evolution of modern humans. It provides insight into the rise of farming, science, industry, technology and machines. It is important for understanding the future of technological change and human evolution.
This book covers the basic concepts of memetics, giving an overview of its history, development, applications and the controversy that has been associated with it.
Design Is/Is Not the Problem: Disciplinary and Ethological Considerations
For a panel on "Design as a Wicked Problem" at University Art Association Canada annual conference in Ottawa, October 28, 2011
A Letter on: The Fork and the Paperclip: A memetic perspective
by Brad Duthie
Duthie, A. B. (2003). A Letter on: The Fork and the Paperclip: A Memetic Perspective. Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 8. http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/2004/vol8/duthie_ab.html
Recently, there has been much debate on what should and what should not be considered part of the science of memetics.... more Recently, there has been much debate on what should and what should not be considered part of the science of memetics. Aunger (2002) notes the familiar fault line between "those who advocate the contagion-like or viral metaphor and those who prefer the gene metaphor" with both groups appearing to claim that the other is retarding progress in memetics. Perhaps, however, it is not so much the metaphor that is retarding the progress in memetics, but the debate itself. If memetics were to focus on real-world examples of supposed memetic phenomena, then we might move beyond metaphor debates, and begin providing people with insight and understanding about the world around us.
Memy – pasożyty w naszych umysłach
published in 'Granice nauki' (The Limits of Science), in cooperation with 'Interia.pl' (08.12.2011) [scientific article for the general public]
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Seen by:El origen biológico de la cultura, una mirada desde la antropología
Neofronteras: science and society
El debate sobre origen y evolución de (una) la (determinada) cultura y el conocimiento, su producción y transmisión... more
El debate sobre origen y evolución de (una) la (determinada) cultura y el conocimiento, su producción y transmisión -por medio del lenguaje- en técnica y tecnología, han sido la piedra de toque de estudios multidisciplinarios que se encuentran hoy en día renovados, haciéndonos reflexionar sobre el replanteamiento de nuevas ontologías respecto a la dicotomía Naturaleza/Cultura por la que se rige el quehacer de las ciencias, ya que el objeto(a investigar) es uno solo pero es conocido por medio de dos maneras: por la generalización, si uno se sitúa en el punto de vista de las ciencias de la naturaleza y por la individualización, si se opta por las ciencias de la cultura.
En este sentido, el discurso de recientes disciplinas como la sociobiología, si bien pretenden dar válida cuenta de la evolución biocultural de la especie, frente al “diseño inteligente”, se vuelve extremadamente reduccionista en rigurosidad científica, pues trata de dar una explicación al origen de todas las culturas humanas, por medio de un esquema de pensamiento a partir de la observación de una parte y no del todo en interacción, ya que, aún sabiendo las limitaciones de sus verdades, la sociobiología las predica como si fueran cuasi únicas, al estilo spenceriano, avalando de paso sistemas de conocimiento convenientemente hegemónicos, sustentados por especialistas de la ciencia.
Así interpretada, la Teoría de evolución no iría más lejos que explicar las mutaciones o cambios bajo causas ya dadas, sin preguntarse el por qué del proceso evolutivo/selectivo. Con ello, parte de la comunidad científica es susceptible de sentirse satisfecha con dominar sus áreas bajo lo que ella consideraría las reglas del método científico, tratando de universalizarlas hacia la sociedad en general, pues a nuestro parecer, la memética podría y solo podría, considerarse un método de análisis científico de la evolución cultural.
En este contexto la propuesta memética se presenta como el estudio de una segunda forma de evolución que en contrapunto con los descubrimientos en materia de genética y evolución biológica, pues pretende hacer de la Teoría de la evolución y su interpretación sobre el origen de la cultura, el paradigma social neo spenceriano para la investigación de la simbología socioindividual humana consciente e inconsciente que valga para todas las culturas.
Me parece pertinente entonces, en este breve ensayo y desde la antropología periférica, formar parte de, lo que Pierre Bourdieu llamó, una vigilancia epistemológica en constante provocación demostrativa de los hechos y las verdades respecto a los estudios de base empírica, para evitar mezclar sin saber, opinión y discurso, dando así una simple lectura de lo real.
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Seen by: and 2 moreThe misunderstanding of memes: Biography of an unscientific object, 1976-1999.
Published in Perspectives on Science, 20(1), 75-104. Made available for free by MIT Press through open access. The link provided here will take you there.
When the ‘meme’ was introduced in 1976, it was as a metaphor intended to illuminate an evolutionary argument. By the... more When the ‘meme’ was introduced in 1976, it was as a metaphor intended to illuminate an evolutionary argument. By the late-1980s, however, we see from its use in major US newspapers that this original meaning had become obscured. The meme became a virus of the mind. (In the UK, this occurred slightly later.) It is also now clear that this becoming involved complex sustained interactions between scholars, journalists, and the letter-writing public. We must therefore read the ‘meme’ through lenses provided by its popularization. The results are in turn suggestive of the processes of meaning-construction in scholarly communication more generally.
A Formal Approach for the Interpretation of Cultural Contents
by Mark Whiting
Coauthored with: Ji-Hyun Lee, Hyoung-June Park, Sungwoo Lim, Sung-Joong Kim, Haelee Jung
Published in the Proceedings of CAADRIA 2010.
This paper develops a formal approach to investigate theevolution of a Korean traditional pattern, Bosangwhamun. The... more This paper develops a formal approach to investigate theevolution of a Korean traditional pattern, Bosangwhamun. The approachemploys the structure of symbolic memes embedded in the pattern asa framework of hierarchical decomposition of a pattern to describe anevolutionary development process of a given pattern with a set of rulesin shape grammar as style changes. Further, the formal descriptions ofthe given pattern become the basis for generating its variations. Withthis process, the validity of the rules and their appropriateness in therepresentation of Bosangwhamun are examined.
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Seen by:É todo tradución? Elementos socioculturais, neurocientíficos e meméticos para unha teoría holística da para/tradución
Viceversa: revista galega de tradución, Vigo: ATG – Universidade de Vigo, ISSN 1135-8920, Nº 12, 9-38
This paper starts from the concept of para/translation and its holistic applicability, exploring some of its... more This paper starts from the concept of para/translation and its holistic applicability, exploring some of its potentialities from different perspectives: socio-cultural (instituted and instituting identities), neuroscientifi c (mirror neurons), socio-biological (memetics) and philosophical (unicity of languages). In order to settle some episthemological premises for a would-be theory of para/translation, a relationship is established between certain phenomena and conceptualizations from the traditionally opposed ideographic and nomotetic perspectives: the idea of identifi cations through translation working from a translational thread —the dialectics of traditions and translations— is established as a principle of translation relativity. In analogy to neural net processing a hypothesis is proposed that a translation conscience exists in which translation and interpreting instances —together with universals such as I, subject, etc.— work as user versions. The potentialities of memetics as writing or deconstructive translation are proposed within a conception of cultural evolution as translation evolution.
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