The relationship between "meme" and "concept" is much like the
relationship between "mass" and "weight". While you could often
interchange the words and still make sense, the former carries with it a
whole scientific model and thereby focuses your thinking in a useful
way.
When we talk about an object's mass, we easily have access to ideas
about its acceleration, momentum, and so on, that we don't get with
"weight." Likewise, when we use the word "meme" we usually are talking
about a concept, but the memetic model leads us to think about
interesting things like how well the concept replicates to other minds,
how it got in my mind in the first place, and so on.
The study of how and why memes evolve and spread will be one of the
driving forces of social change over the next century; that's why I
train myself to use the word "meme" and to identify them on a daily
basis.
Richard
Richard Brodie RBrodie@brodietech.com +1.206.688.8600
CEO, Brodie Technology Group, Inc., Bellevue, WA USA
http://members.gnn.com/rbrodie
Do you know what a "meme" is? http://members.gnn.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
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