From: Wade Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Wed 16 Oct 2002 - 20:26:41 GMT
On Wednesday, October 16, 2002, at 03:58 , Grant Callaghan wrote:
> The question here is not whether a meme is or isn't. The question is
> what are we going to call things? At some point in time someone wrote
> a ditty called London Bridge is falling down. Some of us are calling
> the creation of that ditty in the mind of the creator a meme. Some are
> saying they will only refer to it as a meme after he/she has passed it
> on to someone else. Some say it is what was passed on that was the
> meme and everyone else who sings or says or writes it is also passing
> on that same meme. To each person who uses the word, "meme," to refer
> to what he/she has decided to call a meme, it is a meme. To those who
> have decided something different, it is not. But there is no meme
> outside of what we decide to call something. If we decide to call it a
> beme, then for that person at that moment, that's what it is. So
> arguing over what is and is not a meme is futile and self defeating.
> What we have to decide is what part of our experience are we going to
> refer to as memes. Outside of that, they don't exist.
It is all a question of what, yes.
And stances.
And the ability of a stance to model.
IMHO, the behavior stance is the best modeler. And that is why I am
championing it.
- Wade
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