> And is it language
> outside the mind, or the expressions of language? Really....
Really?
Well, (turning his chair to the bookcase for an appeal to authority) my
Webster's Encyclopedic says of language:
"Human speech; the expression of thoughts by words or articulate sounds;
the aggregate of the words employed by any community for
intercommunication; the speech pecular to a nation; words appropriate to or
especially employed in any branch of knowledge;" etc.
And from _The Cambrige Encyclopedia of Language_ (edited by D.Crystal,
1987) in its glossary of terms:
"language (general) 1) The systematic, conventional use of sounds, signs,
or written symbols in a human society for communication and
self-expression. 2) A specially devised system of symbols for progamming
and interacting with computers. 3) The means animals use to communicate.
4) (clinical) The symbolic aspects of language(1), excluding +phonetics
(and often +phonology)."
You asked, "And is it language outside the mind, or the expressions of
language?" Well, the expression IS the language and any neurological
patterns that give rise to that expression in another thing entirely
(similarly with memes). A set of synapses that create the behavior of
speech is not the same as the words that are spoken.
If you want to call the neurological juncture that records or replicates a
memetic artifact in the brain a "meme", you will need to provide new terms
for the memetic artifact itself. If a mini-skirt is not a meme and only
the perception or memory of a <mini-skirt> qualifies as a meme, then what
do we label the mini-skirt? A "memetic artifact"? What are spoken words
or visual cues? Temporaly specific memetic artifacts, purhaps? It seems
like a bit too unwheldy a terminology to be of much use. Especilly when
you consider that the actual evolution of a meme is evidenced and takes
place in its expression.
-Prof. Tim