Re: I know one when I see one

From: Jeremy Bradley (jeremyb@nor.com.au)
Date: Sat 26 Oct 2002 - 05:10:44 GMT

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    Snip...(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.

    I agree Grant. 'Couch potato' is a concept which encapsulates triggers for binary judgements to be made on a range of presonalised memes. Is this what is meant by a memeplex?

    >
    >I am a man.
    >I am A man.
    >I am a MAN
    >I AM a man.
    >
    >The mere shift in emphasis changes the sentence above so it transmits four
    >different meanings.

    This is what linguists refer to as 'horizontal and vertical sense making'

    Snip....(Grant)
    >Things we craft with our hands or mouths are artifacts.
    >What they communicate is something going on in the mind of the craftsman.
    >
    >So the sentence, "I know a meme when I see one." is a lie. You can't see
    >one. You can only perceive the artifact that carries it. You only
    >recognize the artifact as a meme carrying sentence after a number of people
    >have started using it in their own communications. But the message or
    >information it carries can be completely different for each person each time
    >it is used. So where is the meme?
    >
    >Cheers,
    >
    >Grant
    >
    These are good points Grant. I also think that a copied behaviour is an artefact, that the process of behaviour acquisition by copying is a method of transference called 'mimesis', that the notion that the behaviour will have an effect in the copier's world is judged to be good or bad by filtering through a personalised set of previously internalised memes and that it is only the idea (accepted or rejected) that should be called a meme. Jeremy

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