Re: virus: Birds

Eric Boyd (6ceb3@qlink.queensu.ca)
Thu, 22 Oct 1998 00:07:59 -0400


Hi,

"C.A. Cook" <coreycook12@email.msn.com> wrote:
> ps I think that adopted birds mimicking their adopted parents is
> an excellent example of a meme. It doesn't much resemble the
> common example of memes, but it fits the definition perfectly.

Having thought it over, I now agree as well that bird song's are memes. I
decided that my main intellectual objection was that said "meme-space" is
very small and *biologically* biased; e.g. like I said, a Robin probably
*can't* learn to sing like a Chick-a-dee. However, it has since occurred
to me that *our* meme space is analogously crippled.

It's just a mere definition at that point -- how "crippled" can a
replication system become before the necessary evolutionary underpinnings
fall away?

Tim: thanks for the reading material, very interesting.

ERiC