Re: virus: Does a dog have meme-nature?
Reed Konsler (konsler@ascat.harvard.edu)
Tue, 4 Jun 1996 23:52:23 -0400
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Dogs don't seem to have the necessary memeory or ability for analogical
reasoning to be memetic vectors. Chimps might, but without human guidance,
I doubt that any replicators that made their way through chimp meme-space
would be sufficiently complex or representational to qualify as memes in
any interesting sense.
-KMO
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Certian species of african chimps use twigs as tools to extract termites from
small holes in trees. Some groups have hit upon this trick and others haven't.
Apparently it is learned by imitation.
Instead of asking "Do dogs have memes?" why not ask "Does memetics explain
anything about dogs we were wondering about before the idea came along?"
Reed
konsler@ascat.harvard.edu