Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA06674 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 3 Feb 2000 18:04:26 GMT From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: What are memes made of? Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 17:56:04 +0000 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <v04220805b4ba18b58043@[154.15.11.196]> Message-Id: <00020317593903.00465@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, 03 Feb 2000, William van den Heuvel wrote:
>Robin Faichney, 2000-01-30:
>>I'd be grateful for any feedback on the following essay...
>>
>
>
>In response to your request for feedback, I would like to offer you
>my view on information:
>
>Your article seems to be based on the notion that "information is
>simply the form, or structure, of matter". In my opinion, this notion
>of information is in some sense inadequate. I am not saying it is
>incorrect but the point I wish to make is that this is only a
>relatively insignificant aspect. A much more significant aspect is
>what the form means.
>
>I am inclined to think that the information is not so much in the
>form of the matter but much more in the meaning of the form.
You obviously skipped the second paragraph, which reads:
<begin quote>
Roy Frieden (1998) has recently suggested that the laws of physics are
generated by the attempt to minimise the difference between an entity or
system's own physical information, and the information that physicists
can obtain about it. What follows is based not on Frieden's work, but on
that distinction, between physical and intentional information. I intend
to show that memes, like genes, are items of physical information, even
though, unlike genes, they are not tied to a particular molecular-level
encoding.
<end quote>
"Meaning" is a quality of intentional information, and so is beyond the
remit of this particular essay.
-- Robin Faichney===============================This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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