Genes, memes and the third replicator

[SW VandeCarr]

This article would seem to fit in the computer science forum, but the types of questions there has me thinking this is a better forum to post this article.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...cator-genes-memes-and-now-what.html?full=true

 

[junglebeast]

It's more like a combination of pseudo-scientific biology with philosophy, but not computer science. To be honest, I find the arguments in this report to be extremely weak, and there are so many points of contention I have with the article that I think it's overall validity is too low to make it worth my time to go over those issues specifically.

 

[Evo]

Their mistake, to call learning "copying". We do not "copy' information from one human to another, each person has to learn the information. The vehicle used to transport the information is neither here nor there. The amount of information is not of concern either, no human is capable of learning every bit of information available. This person sounds paranoid and a bit flaky.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Their mistake, to call learning "copying". We do not "copy' information from one human to another, each person has to learn the information. The vehicle used to transport the information is neither here nor there. The amount of information is not of concern either, no human is capable of learning every bit of information available. This person sounds paranoid and a bit flaky.

It seems you are critiquing Richard Dawkins' meme theory, not Blackmore's observations (which is all Blackmore can claim to be making). However, what she is talking about is real. Nanotechnology has the potential to create self-replicating entities. Although I don't believe it has happened yet, it's quite reasonable to expect it can happen.

http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRep.html

 

[kldickson]

The New Scientist magazine has a penchant for severely flawed articles.

 

[Evo]

It seems you are critiquing Richard Dawkin's meme theory, not Blackmore's observations (which is all Blackmore can claim to be making). However, what she is talking about is real. Nanotechnology has the potential to create self-replicating entities. Although I don't believe it has happened yet, it's quite reasonable to expect it can happen.

http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRep.html

No, Dawkins is talking about culture. This person is out in left field, without a mitt.