Re: Japanese Univ. to set up world meme bank

From: Wade Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Tue 03 Dec 2002 - 15:38:44 GMT

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    On Tuesday, December 3, 2002, at 09:43 , Lawrence DeBivort wrote:

    > If this is so, how in your memetic scheme would you handle the 'idea'
    > that
    > someone thinks of or speaks to himself internally, that is, that has no
    > externally discernable performance?

    As an idea, a construct of mental activity, but an idea, because it is without performance, that is memetically and culturally useless
    (unreplicatable) because it is not observed. Memesinthemind, and ideas therein, are precursors to performance, and performance relies upon them, but it is not wholly, nor could it be singly, reliant upon them.

    > If this is so, how in your memetic scheme would you handle the 'idea'
    > that
    > someone thinks of or speaks to himself internally, that is, that has no
    > externally discernable performance?

    As precursory. And, yes, as precursory as the shoes one wears, or the breakfast one had, or the time of day, or the angle of view of the audience, or the sound level and activity in the performance space, or the color of the rug, or who was on Oprah yesterday....

    > I wonder what, beyond
    > sadness, the reactions of all assembled were? Was there pride in the
    > preservation of the artifacts? Was there a suspicion that had the
    > artifacts
    > not been taken, that they might have attained an honored position within
    > Inuit society, complete with memory of what the artifacts had signified?
    > Was it thought that the Inuit visitors were free to ascribe (new)
    > meaning to
    > the artifacts?

    I was an observer of this only. I saw sadness, and regret mostly. There was some pride, in the workmanship, the construction. There was some hint of that suspicion you mention, that these were things that should have been maintained. But, I do know there was no attempt at making these artifacts, with their lost meanings, come alive in any way with some new meaning or use. There was a palpable level of feeling that these things were lost, but belonged.

    - Wade

    PS- if and when memesinthemind _can_ be observed without personal performance, perhaps in some day of fMRI imaging, they will be accessible as artifactual performance.

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