From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Sun 02 Mar 2003 - 15:57:58 GMT
On Sunday, March 2, 2003, at 01:26 AM, memetics-digest wrote:
> The information is still encoded in the artifact. Just because no one
> still
> has the cultural tools with which to decode it doesn't mean the
> information
> has vanished.
Okay, perhaps I said 'bullshit' too soon, but, really, just because no
one still has the cultural tools is _precisely why_ there is no
information still encoded within a forgotten artifact. Memes are
cultural units of information, and this artifact has lost (yes, lost)
the information that was required to make it. It is now an item for
research and wonderment, not without, admittedly, cultural import, but
the cultural context of its creation is gone.
You seem to have adopted a homeopathic model for cultural information,
and it is just as invalid and specious there as it is in medicine.
- Wade
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