Re: Japanese Univ. to set up world meme bank

From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue 03 Dec 2002 - 15:02:40 GMT

  • Next message: Wade Smith: "Re: Japanese Univ. to set up world meme bank"

    Wade,

    "Conceptual Integration Networks" by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner seems to suggest an underlying process in the brain that produces concepts that could be labeled memes.

    They call them "frames" but at least they have something they can point to and call names.

    Grant
    >
    >On Tuesday, December 3, 2002, at 08:53 , Lawrence DeBivort wrote:
    >
    >>It might be more interesting (and more feasible) for the university to
    >>catalog those ideas that have become obsolete or have died.
    >
    >Seems like a paradox, finding an idea that is no longer there. Of course,
    >you could go look for one where the light is better....
    >
    >But then, as the Zim has said, 'inside the museums, infinity goes up on
    >trial'.
    >
    >I again am reminded of those artifacts of the Tlingit that were recently
    >brought out of the vaults of the Peabody here at Harvard, and shown to a
    >group of visiting elders, who, alas, had no idea what some of the items
    >were, although they made some guesses, but could only shrug, saddened with
    >the loss.
    >
    >Museums are, in fact, already storehouses of ideas that are dead, or just
    >as dead, obsolete. We can only catalog these finds by place and time, not
    >by meaning.
    >
    >IMHO, it is impossible to find a dead idea.
    >
    >Kind of like those memesinthemind I hear tell about. I don't know about
    >them until someone performs something, and I never know what was in that
    >mind, or even what is in mine, because when I perform my version of it
    >(deduced in some way from the observed performance), unless repetition and
    >skill have allowed me to repeat performances with a high degree of
    >accuracy, I don't know what is going to happen, and, indeed, no performer,
    >regardless of skill or expertise, can predict the precise then and there
    >performance.
    >
    >And it is the precise then and there performance that gets observed.
    >
    >- Wade
    >
    >
    >===============================================================
    >This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    >Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    >For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    >see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit

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    =============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit

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