Sperber's An Objection To The Memetic Approach To

Lynsy Howard
PHI 447: Philosophy of Evolution and Human Nature
Journal Entry 5: Sperbers An Objection to the Memetic Approach to Culture
There are many possible evolutionary approaches to the study of culture. One much(prenominal) approach is memetics which is based on the idea that culture is be of memes, or distinct units of heathen inheritance, that continuously try to be sick themselves. One dilemma of this approach is whether or non heathenish traits are actually replicators. In the article An objection to the memetic approach to culture, Sperber proposes that cultural items are not replicators in the sense that they are literally copied from one another. Instead, Sperber suggests that cultural reproduction is rarely meme-like, because square(a) replication would require at least three conditions: 1) head B mustiness be caused by item A, 2) degree B must be similar in applicable respects to item A, and 3) The process that creates item B must contain the information that makes B similar to item A from A (pg. 7). According to Sperber, cultural traits are passed through a population by culturally shared types of thought that hold ideas to be transmitted without literally replicating, and therefore, the mechanism responsible for cultural evolution is in part genetic, in part culturally inherited.



To demonstrate this concept, Sperber explains that when people copy a random lottery from memory, they do so poorly and no stable pattern from version one of the drawing to the final reproduced drawing is maintained. However, when an single(a) copies an image from memory in which the shape is recognizable much(prenominal) as a five-branched star drawn without lifting the pencil, the individual performs actually well. Sperber asserts that the second group performs so well because the drawing was recognizable, and therefore, individuals were soft able to produce a star of the same type. In this case, condition 3 of his definition for true replication is not satisfied, because the new drawings...If you want to get a full essay, tell it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com



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