Just about every non-physiological theory of how the mind works
is "philosophically untenable" because we don't even have a
decent definition of what "mind" is. I think memetics is an okay
*metaphor* for how ideas are transferred, but I certainly don't
think it's been shown to have any 'scientific' validity.
> I did a paper on it for my social theory course a month ago
Is it up on your web pages?
> In doing it I really did start with an open mind, but...
> well... I can't put my finger on it, but there's something that
strikes
> me as 'wrong' about the whole theory.
> Anyone out there have any comments? It just strikes me as
being so...
> 'pop-theory'ish.
I think it seems "pop-theory'-ish because it has been
appropriated *more* by cyberculture than by people who would
actually do scientific or social research that would elevate it
beyound the status of 'gee, neat idea.' Could be various reasons
for this, like it attained pop culture status too quickly for
academe to accept it as anything else, like the research is just
progressing far more slowly than the pop talk about it, etc. But,
I, like you, share the suspicion that it's so pop-theory-ish
because there's really very little good critical basis to it.
It's neat to think about ideas as if they were viruses, but
compared to genetic transfer of information, any memetic transfer
of information is so full of and affected by 'noise' that I think
it would be damn near impossible to empirically support memetics'
validity.
Still fun to talk and think about though.
-- Greg Ritter gritter@felix.vcu.edu ritter@urvax.urich.edu http://www.urich.edu/~ritter