Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA18948 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 2 Apr 2002 13:35:27 +0100 Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 03:14:32 -0800 From: "Douglas P. Wilson" <dp-wilson@shaw.ca> Subject: Re: MemeticsFlowers.Org and mailing list To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Cc: MemeticFlowers@yahoogroups.com Message-id: <005101c1d712$e776f2c0$856c4518@no.shawcable.net> X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.3018.1300 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.3018.1300 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-priority: Normal References: <F1653OJXsNQptgFrYIL0000003f@hotmail.com> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Scott Chase <ecphoric@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry. At first sight, MemeticsFlowers did seem way over the top. So if I
> get you right you would consider a webpage as an attractive flower-like
sort
> of organ which has attributes making it a facilitator of the spread of
.....
..... ideas, memes, meme-complexes, or memetic organisms, including research
and development projects, software, and other web pages, and conceptually,
at least, symphonies, novels, etc.
> memetic pollen or something like that? Websites have anthers/filaments
> and/or stigma/styles/ovaries so to speak?
Please do not dilute or diminish the grand generality of the meme concept by
seeking too exact an analogy.
I suppose you meant your comments humorously, but if you will humour me for
the moment, please don't expect memetic flowers (see
www.SocialTechnology.Org/MemeticFlowers.html) to be any more analogous to
the more ordinary real world and very visible angiosperm sex organs, (the
ones that male human beings give to female ones to symbolise their desire
for sexual activities with them), than any of the many kinds memes are
strictly analogous to the genes encoded in DNA and representing
approximately a template for one enzyme each -- (the dogmatic one-gene, one
enzyme theory has been refuted but is still, I think, approximately true,
with a few conspicuous exceptions).
The concept of meme is much broader than this much more limited definition
of what a gene is, and what is so great about Richard Dawkins and his idea
is just this truly grand generality. I can only hope the concept of
memetic flower can be equally broad and inclusive.
> ... Are we kinda like pollinators then? The websites have
> nifty colors and designs which bring us in to their clutches?
Yes, some do, and many more are intended to, but the concept is not
limited to web sites and can include any other item of communication which
attracts attention and eventually imitation.
> I'm having a vision of a male "wasp" being duped by a memetic orchid...OK
> I'll not go there. That's more risque than the round and waggle dance as
> means of communicating whereabouts of nearby memetic flowers.
Cute.
Anyway, I hope you will find MemeticFlowers a catchy name for an important
concept, and I will in return find your comments delightfully humorous and
themselves an aid in propagating the MemeticFlowers idea, and thus a simple
(if silly) kind of memetic flower themselves.
dpw
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MemeticFlowers
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