Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA06653 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 16 Feb 2000 02:46:32 GMT From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: What are memes made of? Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 18:45:23 -0800 Message-ID: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJIEAAEGAA.richard@brodietech.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 In-reply-to: <Pine.WNT.4.21.0002151805330.-334975@Starship051.cbe.wwu.edu> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
TJ wrote:
<<I for one believe that a better grounding for the concept is that of
"self-replicating patterned data," a grounding that requires no
self-conciousness, only some agent that will replicate the pattern of
data.>>
That's the definition of "replicator", of which genes are one kind. Dawkins
coined the term "meme" to specifically refer to replicators that act in
human cultural evolution. He later refined this to refer to mental
information that acts as a replicator, a definition that I preserved when I
wrote the first book on memetics. Both the general and the specific are, I
think, useful topics for study, but only the latter is memetics.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com www.memecentral.com/rbrodie.htm
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