[MD] Value of copying

[plattholden at gmail.com]

All:

Those with a scientific bent will enjoy the article in today's NYTimes that 
posits digital information as the "third replicator" -- the first being genes 
and the second being memes. The third is called "temes." 

Tow Wolfe put memes in their place. "There turns out to be one serious problem 
with memes. A neurophysiologist can use the most powerful and sophisticated 
brain imagining now available -- and still not find a meme. So (Darwinian) 
fundamentalists find themselves in the awkward position of being like those 
Englishmen in the year 1000 who believed quite literally in the little people, 
the fairies, trolls and elves."

But for those looking for a way to distinguish humans from animals (and 
evidence of society limited to humans a la MOQ), the author provides an answer. 
Human "copied sounds, skills, and habits from one another . . . and this, I 
suggest, is what makes humans unique." 

Apparently the value of replication (the big, impressive word for copying) is 
intrinsic in nature. Values in nature? Maybe science will come around to that  
MOQ view some day. Seems obvious. But, don't hold your breath. Wolfe's critique 
of memes applies to values, too. Still, if scientists buy memes as objectively 
real without hard evidence, why not values? 

The article referred here is at:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/the-third-replicator/?hp

Platt