From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Wed 04 Feb 2004 - 03:19:34 GMT
At 07:09 PM 03/02/04 -0500, Aaron wrote:
>In a message dated 2/3/2004 9:03:26 AM Central Standard
>Time, hkhenson@rogers.com writes:
>
>Re: groupthink gauntlet: MacArthur's ill-fated drive toward the Yalu
>>At 11:35 AM 03/02/04 +0000, you wrote:
>> > <and,as the inventor of the word "memetics,">
>> >
>> > ... have I missed something? Who's claiming this and on what
>> >grounds? Or am I missing some ironic meaning?
>>
>>Her email was not intended to be posted, and Arel is not reading the list
>>now, but she did coin the word. She gets credit in Hofstadter's
>>_MetaMagical Themas_. I would give you the page number, but my copy is
>>loaned out. Look in the index for "Arel Lucas."
>>
>>Keith Henson
>
>
>Hi Keith.
>
>By coincidence, I have recently made an expanded foray into early
>transmission of evolutionary cultural replicator theory, and words
>connected with it. I have uncovered some fascinating events and
>phenomena, much too much to explain here. I can, however, confirm
>that, as far as I know, the first published appearance of the word
>"memetics" used as a noun to name a line of study appeared in
>Hoftstadter's _Metamagical Themas_, page 65. (Basic Books, 1985).
>To quote: "... Arel Lucas suggested that the discipline that studies
>memes and their connections to humans and other potential carriers
>of them be known as _memetics_, by analogy with 'genetics'. I think
>this is a good suggestion, and hop it will be adopted."
>
>As it happens, I also have the original letter sent by Arel Lucas to
>Douglas Hofstadter and eventually forwarded to me by Hofstadter. The
>letter is dated March 4, 1983, and bears markings by Hofstadter and
>one or two other people who pre-screened letters to his Scientific
>American column for him. The name "Hofstadter" in the salutation is
>elevated a conspicuous 1 mm above neighboring text. The game
>theoretic significance of this aberration is still being studied.
>
>Bidding for this unique historical document at Krystee's London will
>start at £1.5 million, the price of a chair fit for issuance of ex
>cathedra pronouncements... Until bidding starts, the document will
>of course remain carefully preserved in a cryogenic case using
>superfluid Helium-3 as coolant.
>
>Authentication was conducted by carbon-14 mass spectrometry, which
>determined that the trees from which the pages were made had lived
>during the 1970s. During the forensic document analysis, a single
>strand of DNA was also recovered. The molecule was analyzed using an
>atomic force resonant microprobe in conjunction with a giant
>magnetoresistive nuclear resonance microprobe. Specific patterns
>were found in combinations of carbon-12 and carbon-13 placements in
>the ribose substructures. Further analysis revealed that the
>*INFORMATION* in the DNA was stored in the carbon isotope sequence
>of the ribose substructure, which when read out in 5-bit ASCII
>happened to be identical with the text of the letter upon which the
>DNA was found. The finding reveals a level of technological
>advancement considered anomalyous for a 20th century document.
>
>
>--Aaron Lynch
>
>Thought Contagion Science Page:
>http://www.thoughtcontagion.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
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