From: Richard Brodie (richard@brodietech.com)
Date: Tue 08 Jul 2003 - 15:08:20 GMT
Keith wrote:
<<As list members know I consider the *information itself* to be the meme,
independent of the media. And indeed memes *may be* encoded in an artifact
so they are easy to read out.
A piece of paper folded into an airplane is more "information rich" than a
never folded sheet. It can be "read out" by a person unfolding and
learning the folding steps. A brain that has just learned to make this
paper airplane either by watching one made or "reverse engineering" a
sample airplane is that much more information rich. The same information
would exist in a series of drawings or a text description of how to fold up
this particular paper airplane. The only common element (besides paper) in
a variety of ways leading to a paper airplane flying about is the
information on how to make one.
Information, of course, must be encoded in matter. In the paper airplane
example it is in an object (a sample), on paper (drawings, text) or in
brains. There is no particular reason not to class drawings, text and
brains as "artifacts" I suppose so in that sense memes would always be
encoded in "artifacts." But the only common element for the paper airplane
across these "artifacts" is the information on how to fold one.>>
What makes a replicating information pattern a meme (rather than some other
kind of replicator) is the fact that it replicates because of the influence
it has on a human mind when the information is in the mind. If you don't
have this constraint, there is no difference between a meme and some other
kind of replicator such as a gene or a computer virus.
Richard Brodie
www.memecentral.com
===============================================================
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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue 08 Jul 2003 - 15:15:15 GMT