Wednesday, March 15, 2006
This is a short remark to some statements and an example used by Dawkins with which I absolutely cannot agree. My explanation can you find below.
Genetics, memetics, semiotics, replicators, sheet of paper
Dawkins, Extended phenotype, the active germ-line replicator, page 83
Dawkins takes here a Xeroxed sheet of paper as an example for active replicator, as he says it might appear as a passive replicator but some could argue against that. Well, this is a huge mistake of Dawkins, a sheet of paper, surely might be copied many times and these copies might be again copied many times, but a sheet of paper can never be a replicator. That what is on the sheet is the replicator, but coded. I will explain later. What about an empty sheet of paper, where there is absolutely nothing on it, no text, no picture, just really empty. No one would feel the necessity to copy such a paper.
It is not the paper which is xeroxed, it is the message on the paper, and be it a text or any kind of graphics or picture. So the sheet of paper is only a carrier of the message, it is the vehicle, exactly as the humans are vehicles for the genes. I really am strongly surprised that Dawkins has made such a logical mistake. The comparison, the example with the sheet of paper is absolutely wrong.
Here I would like to show how important it is to link memetics and semiotics together, one cannot exist without the other. Memes are the immaterial contents and signs are the carrier of the memetic messages. This to understand seems so simple and self-explanatory that I cannot understand the opposition against this truth started by many promoters of memetics. I had an email quarrel about the link between semiotics and memetics with Susan Blackmore. Some of our emails are posted on my blog.
A sheet of paper is only a carrier of a message as a CD or a video tape or a book, it is not the book which is copied, it is the ideas printed in the book which are copied. No one would even try to copy and empty CD or empty video tape, this seems absolutely obvious to me. The reason for humans to go and copy some message carrier is the message not the carrier itself.
Actually this logical “misprint” of Dawkins brought me again to the idea to write about memetics and related subjects. Extremely interesting becomes to me epigenetics, as it shows some new discoveries and tries to explain them. I will try to write about epigenetics, genetics, semiotics, memetics, and linguistics as related together in some next article.
Genetics, memetics, semiotics, replicators, sheet of paper
Dawkins, Extended phenotype, the active germ-line replicator, page 83
Dawkins takes here a Xeroxed sheet of paper as an example for active replicator, as he says it might appear as a passive replicator but some could argue against that. Well, this is a huge mistake of Dawkins, a sheet of paper, surely might be copied many times and these copies might be again copied many times, but a sheet of paper can never be a replicator. That what is on the sheet is the replicator, but coded. I will explain later. What about an empty sheet of paper, where there is absolutely nothing on it, no text, no picture, just really empty. No one would feel the necessity to copy such a paper.
It is not the paper which is xeroxed, it is the message on the paper, and be it a text or any kind of graphics or picture. So the sheet of paper is only a carrier of the message, it is the vehicle, exactly as the humans are vehicles for the genes. I really am strongly surprised that Dawkins has made such a logical mistake. The comparison, the example with the sheet of paper is absolutely wrong.
Here I would like to show how important it is to link memetics and semiotics together, one cannot exist without the other. Memes are the immaterial contents and signs are the carrier of the memetic messages. This to understand seems so simple and self-explanatory that I cannot understand the opposition against this truth started by many promoters of memetics. I had an email quarrel about the link between semiotics and memetics with Susan Blackmore. Some of our emails are posted on my blog.
A sheet of paper is only a carrier of a message as a CD or a video tape or a book, it is not the book which is copied, it is the ideas printed in the book which are copied. No one would even try to copy and empty CD or empty video tape, this seems absolutely obvious to me. The reason for humans to go and copy some message carrier is the message not the carrier itself.
Actually this logical “misprint” of Dawkins brought me again to the idea to write about memetics and related subjects. Extremely interesting becomes to me epigenetics, as it shows some new discoveries and tries to explain them. I will try to write about epigenetics, genetics, semiotics, memetics, and linguistics as related together in some next article.
# posted by Dalibor @ 3:24 AM 
