At 03:12 PM 11/16/01 , Eric Weeks wrote:
>I recall some
>clever person quite a while ago invented the idea of "memes",
>in analogy with genes. Memes are ideas which, as side effects,
>tend to propagate themselves. For example, I play bridge,
>and part of the bridge meme is that I go out and teach other
>people to play bridge. The religion memes are fairly powerful.
>(Who invented memes? Was it Gould? Marvin Minsky?)

If I recall correctly, I think the credit for coining the term "meme" is generally given to the writer Richard Brodie, based on his 1995 book "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme".

> > 3. sense of purpose. for example, the work week is 40+ hours, but we
> > could feed and clothe everyone with much less work than that. where
> > does our work ethic come from?

Here is a book that I recommend, which will answer that question much more comprehensively. "Selling The Work Ethic: From Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR", by Sharon Beder. (Publisher: Scribe Publications, Australia)

>I read the book "How the Mind Works" by Steven Pinker a while ago,
>I recall he is a big fan of evolution and discussed how many simple
>traits of humans can be sensibly tied to evolution. I really
>enjoyed the book. I think it focused more on simpler things than
>morals & personality.

I've read Pinker's book as well, and I'm afraid I wasn't very impressed. Pinker's work in cognitive science is based on the strange field of "evolutionary psychology", a successor to E.O. Wilson's sociobiology of the 1970's, which is extremely controversial. I think the theories in evo-psych are given far more attention than they deserve, perhaps because they endorse long-standing prejudices about human nature that many people feel are "intuitive" (e.g., innate, pronounced biological differences between the sexes). This is problematic, to say the very least.

For more on this, see: Angier, Natalie. (1999). "Of Hoggamus and Hogwash: Putting Evolutionary Psychology on the Couch". In Angier, Natalie, "Woman: An Intimate Geography". New York: Anchor Books, Ch. 8, pp. 352 - 388. Dusek, Val. "Sociobiology Sanitized: The Evolutionary Psychology and Genic Selectionism Debates." Available at: http://www.human-nature.com/science-as-culture/dusek.html

Guess that's enough reading recommendations for the holidays, eh? :)
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-Danyeke J. Swanson http://www.bogon.net/dswanson

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."
--Ernest Hemingway, "A Farewell To Arms"