Organizational Memetics?

On Modelling in Memetics

The field of memetics is characterised and two types of memetic model analysed: the a priori model and the ‘black-box’ model. These are used to motivate a picture of scientific modelling, where by chains of models are built from abstract models at the ‘top’ down to data models derived from measurement. These models are linked to each other by validation (where the structure of a model comes fro...

Embodiment vs. Memetics

Although the embodied approach to AI has lead to a large number of advances in the field, there has been no convincing demonstration of one of its earliest promises: that it would solve semantic grounding. In this article, I argue that although physical embodiment no doubt plays a major role in human intelligence, it may not be a necessary attribute for artificial agents capable of participatin...

Cultural Evolution and Memetics

Embodiment versus memetics

The term embodiment identifies a theory that meaning and semantics cannot be captured by abstract, logical systems, but are dependent on an agent’s experience derived from being situated in an environment. This theory has recently received a great deal of support in the cognitive science literature and is having significant impact in artificial intelligence. Memetics refers to the theory that k...

Hominid evolution: genetics versus memetics

The last few million years on planet Earth have witnessed two remarkable phases of hominid development, starting with a phase of biological evolution characterised by rather rapid increase of the size of the brain. This has been followed by a phase of even more rapid technological evolution and concomitant expansion of the size of the population, that began when our own particular ‘sapiens’ spe...