Re: I know one when I see one

From: Philip Jonkers (ephilution@attbi.com)
Date: Thu 24 Oct 2002 - 18:19:01 GMT

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    Grant:
    > <But "couch potato," in my opinion, is not a meme but an artifact.
    > It encodes
    > > an idea, along with a bunch of associated ideas, for transmission.
    People
    > > who hear that transmission will either pass it along, let it die, or
    store
    > >
    > > it away for future use some day.>
    Vincent:
    > But isn't that what people do with memes? Seems to me to be a
    > pretty good description of artefact as meme to me.
    >
    > <I am a man.
    > > I am A man.
    > > I am a MAN
    > > I AM a man.>

    Vincent:
    > The changes here might change their interpretation by people reading
    > them, but they are not necessarily dramatically different enough to not
    call
    > them memes. (Could this be a linguistic equivalent to hair colour? Wild,
    > speculation from the social scientist there... on the basis that hair
    colour
    > in our species doesn't appear to play and substantive part in adaptive
    > potential so it varies from person to person). Slight variations in text
    > are fine as sufficient meaning can still be conveyed.

    I do would call them memes for the same reason that alleles are genes too.

    Phil

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