From: Philip Jonkers (ephilution@attbi.com)
Date: Sat 19 Oct 2002 - 00:13:00 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.
I think the absolute minimum requirement would be:
meme = a replicator of a cultural element.
Phil
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