Having lived through Ice Storm '98, I'm glad to be back in action!
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 98 13:26:25 EST
From: Kim Stogner <KASTOGN@vm.sc.edu>
Subject: Re: virus: interactive meme page project
>I agree with Brett that we should form our own opinions about the
>meaning of certain terms. Why strictly hold to someone else's
>definition? Isn't free thought about thinking for yourself?
Freethought is about forming our *opinions* outside of established
authority -- which can mean "thinking for yourself". However, if there is
*one* thing that memetics teaches us, it's that ideas don't just pop out of
no-where, for the same reason that humans weren't *created*. Ideas evolve,
and the *material* of natural selection is the ideas of others. [1]
The purpose of communication is to learn what others think. Since the only
way that communication works is if people agree about the language they are
speaking (at least in the basics), it is important for us to accept a
common definition of our most basic term, the meme. Books have been
written defining this term -- allow me to quote our resident expert, Mr.
Brodie:
A <I>meme</I> is a unit of information in a mind whose existence influences
events such that more copies of itself get created in other mind. --
Richard Brodie, _Virus of the Mind; the New Science of the Meme_
Other similar definitions have also been proposed:
MEME. Noun. A memory item, or portion of an organism's
neurally-stored information, identified using the abstraction
system of the observer, whose instantiation depended critically
on causation by prior instantiation of the same memory item in
one or more other organisms’ nervous systems. ("Sameness" of
memory items is determined with respect to the above-mentioned
abstraction system of the observer.) -- Aaron Lynch
http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/mememath.html
(I think it's important to keep reinforcing the definitions -- repetition
is the key, eh?)
The difference between these two is only in the placement of the meme in
time -- Brodie's is more accurate in terms of the function of a meme
(replication), but Lynch's is easier to identify as an entity (the *result*
of replication, not the *cause* -- much easier to identify)
Whatever Brett is talking about, it bears not much relationship to the meme
that the rest of us know. He would be better served with a different word.
Here is my recommended memetic page of the month:
This page *amazes* me -- see how similar their "banner" is to the one we
are proposing?
Searching?
Searching?
for the ultimate answers to life?
Scientology
know yourself
know life
your search is over
but the adventure has just begun
click here
(Go see this one for yourself -- could it be any better?)
After that, go check out the Virtual Tours -- simply an amazing tour de
force in memetic engineering!
We can learn a lot from these people -- here's a page describing the *real*
Church, and it's actual tactics: they are *in*control* of their memes!:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~fishman/fable.htm
ERiC
[1] There is, of course, much argument about what exactly is the selecting
force. Are we controlled by our memes? Are we in control?