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You're right - to suggest that a meme could be 'dormant' when it is 'trapped' in a book or some other cultural form is rather silly. Would a meme contained in a book be dormant whenever it wasn't being read? Would a meme contained in a sentence be dormant when one was reading the preceding sentence, but active when the sentence was being read and then dormant again once the sentence had been passed over?
What if someone reads one word of the sentence, then has a cup of tea, then reads another word, then goes for a walk, etc...
That seems to be the suggestion, but it misses the point about memes. Memes have no awareness of time - they are just memes. They are equally dependent on minds AND cultural 'encapsulation'. Without one or the other, they are, by definintion, NOT memes.
A cultural encapsualtion, on its own, is not a meme. Just as a thought, on its own, is not a meme. Only when a thought is expressed in culture is there a meme.