RE: definition of meme

From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Sat 07 Jun 2003 - 16:26:16 GMT

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    Greetings, Xuenlin,

    Thanks for your email.

    One thing cannot be copied by the second man is the originality of the thing done by the first. That is, the act of creation is itself quite different from the act of imitation. The two acts may look the same to an observer, but the experience of the act, and what led to it cognitively, will be quite different for the two men. Yes?

    Best regards, Lawry

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On
    > Behalf Of xuelin he
    > Sent: Sat, June 07, 2003 12:12 PM
    > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Subject: definition of meme
    >
    >
    > Dear all,
    > Meme itself becomes a meme or a meta-meme since the
    > day it
    >
    > was created. I don't know there is anybody who
    > questions the
    >
    > logical correctness of meme concept. If the word
    > "meme" still
    > suggests a relation, to some extent, with its
    > etymological orgin--
    >
    > imitation, it can not deny its foundation on man-made
    > actions.
    >
    > Following this line of thinking, it seems unversally
    > true that any
    >
    > man-made action can be copied. To put it in another
    > way, a first
    >
    > man does it, a second man can imitate it. The only
    > difference
    >
    > between them is a matter of degree rather than a
    > categorical
    >
    > distinction, even though the ideas underlying the
    > action and its
    >
    > copying action may be quite different. Perhaps just
    > because of
    >
    > easy copying of our man-made things, we need the law
    > of patent
    >
    > to protect our originality. What's more, copying is
    > not only
    >
    > confined to human culture. As science and technology
    > update,
    >
    > biological copying will be as usual as our cultural
    > copying.
    >
    > However, a scientist should keep alert to any so
    > called "universal
    >
    > truth". I wonder if there is something about a man
    > which can not
    >
    > be imitated or copied by another.
    >
    > All the best.
    > Xuelin
    >
    > _________________________________________________________
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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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