Re: virus: Power

KMO (c538128@mizzou1.missouri.edu)
Fri, 26 Jul 1996 11:32:29 -0600


John Porter wrote:
>Ken Pantheists wrote:
>> ... the basic definition of "meme"-- the "meme" meme.
>
>Id est, The Metameme.
>

I've encountered two distinct uses of the term 'metameme'.

1) The memetics meme or "meme about memes"

2) Memes which exert selection pressure on other memes, e.g. intolerance,
skepticism, steroetypes.

I prefer the second definition for metameme, even though I recognize that
any meme which finds a permanent home in some conscious agent's cognitive
architecture will influence which memes can be incorporated in the future.
So in some sense ALL memes are metamemes (definition 2). There are
however, some meme-complexes, like the ones listed above, which obviously
exert a more pronounced effect on diferential memetic selection, and thus
qualify as metamemes in a way that other memes don't.

When I intend to convay the first meaning I prefer to say "the 'meme'
meme." YMMV

Actually, this was the topic of a shortlived thread on the alt.memetics
newsgroup about a year ago. Unfortunately people were too caught up in
disscussing the incompatibility of memetics and freewill to give this issue
much consideration. I don't read alt.memetics anymore.

Take care, all. -KMO

You will propagate the C Memetic Complex.
Resistance is futile.

http://www.missouri.edu/~c538128/