From: Philip Jonkers (ephilution@attbi.com)
Date: Sat 19 Oct 2002 - 19:22:20 GMT
> When I look out on the lush lawn of the park I see a number of birds
hopping
> around competing for crumbs of bread, etc. How do I know which ones to
call
> robins, which to call crows, which to call pigeons, etc.? They are all
> birds, but each type has distinguishing characteristics. Individual birds
> also have distinguishing characteristics. So how can we distinguish memes
> from other types of behavior and experience? What are the distinguishing
> characteristics of a meme? If we can't find any, we can't do much with
the
> concept. If we can't agree on what they are, it will be difficult to
define
> them. So how do we go about deciding what the distinguishing
> characteristics of a meme are?
Here's one suggestion: a distinguishing characteristic of a meme from
non-memes is that the former, unlike the latter, is being
replicated (by non-genetic means for sake of quoting our
great hero Richard Dawkins).
Phil
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