From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Thu 17 Oct 2002 - 20:00:58 GMT
On Thursday, October 17, 2002, at 03:34 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> This perspective ignores not only the mistakes made in internal
> perception (such as my mishearing of 'London Bridges (is)"
That's right, blame your ears....
> which lead to mutations,
The mutation happened at the moment of performance, when you wrote 'I
will sing London Bridges.' There is, in fact, no song that I know of, as
I explained, called 'London Bridges'. I knew of a few other songs with
London in them, and wondered if you meant one of those. The fact that
your memory of the song's title and main stanza was inaccurate, well,
that's no meme, that's my wife.
> but also the intentional mutations made not only in
> actions, but also (and primarily) in the ideas that guide them.
No ignorance is being made of intent in any of my descriptions of the
behavior-only model. Just the opposite. Memes are fully intentioned
performances by humans within cultural environments. The intent, while
useful as a precursory activity in the mind, is useless to culture, and
might, indeed, be obviated or denied expression in the resultant meme.
If all intentions carried through intact, I might begin to think the
mental meme model made some sense, but, sorry, you have to actually dip
in the oar to move the canoe and there might be a rock in the way. All
and every intention to move the canoe will come to nought without an
actual performance with the oar.
The intent is not the meme.
I bet Mae West had something to say about that.
"He who hesitates is a damned fool." -- Mae West
She did.
- Wade
adios!
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