Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA27850 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 11 May 2000 19:29:38 +0100 Message-ID: <391AB670.D876DDCE@mediaone.net> Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 14:32:32 +0100 From: Chuck Palson <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Fwd: Did language drive society or vice versa? References: <391A7EFE.D8AB8E87@mediaone.net> <00051116502907.00619@faichney> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Robin Faichney wrote:
> On Thu, 11 May 2000, Chuck Palson wrote:
> >Robin Faichney wrote:
> >>
> >> I think Sherlock is better described as a great meme, than a great memeticist.
> >> But in any case, the improbability alluded to there is surely subjective.
> >>
> >I can see where this kind of reasoning is going, and it could get to the atomic
> >level and merge memetics with physics. Think of it: Is Sherlock a memeticist or a
> >meme himself? Well, it's hard to say, but the prevailing theory is that all
> >memeticists are really just a general form of meme creating other memes. Are there
> >memes within memes within memes.. etc etc. etc.? The inevitable answer will be
> >always, Yes, Yes, Yes! And THEN, at a deep atomic level, memetics will indeed be a
> >science of sciences that provides the unified field theory for all existence.
>
> Uh huh. Well, I believe I have already worked out the relationship between
> memetics and physics, and I posted a series of messages to this list about it a
> while back. I don't feel like getting into it again now -- I'm more interested
> in working on a book-length treatment -- but you could probably find them in
> the archive if you wanted to. The title was "What are memes made of?".
>
> >We will at that point figure out the most urgent of all questions facing
> >memetics: how many memes fit on the head of a pin!
>
> The straight answer, despite the levity of the question, is: depends how
> they're encoded.
>
Well, it seems to me that only means that you haven't drilled down enough to the basic
elements. There can't be any ambiguity on this basic question or no one would believe
you had finally found it!:)
>
> >Actually, from a statistical point of view, you can't say that one event has X
> >probability of happening because you couldn't no the characteristics of the
> >relevant universe.
>
>
> So how can you claim that human evolution was improbable?? :-)
>
> --
> 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
===============================================================
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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