Re: "Ideas have a life of their own" (Origin of Quote?)

From: Steven Thiele (sthiele@metz.une.edu.au)
Date: Mon 01 Mar 2004 - 22:12:48 GMT

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    Keith,

    Both Nietzsche and Max Weber said something like 'ideas occur to us when they please, not when we please'. This is saying something similar.

    Steven Thiele

    At 08:48 AM 1/03/2004 -0500, you wrote:

    >I have been trying to locate the (or at least *an*) origin for "ideas have
    >a life of their own," a statement that encapsulated memetics if you take
    >it literally. So far I have pushed it back with reasonable assurance to
    >1958. (See thread in alt.quotations)
    >
    >In the course of researching the origin of this quote I came upon some
    >items worth sharing.
    >
    >http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/21/1058639712397.html
    >
    > "Rob Stocker, a lecturer and PhD student from Charles Sturt
    > University in NSW, will simulate the effect media organisations have on
    > public opinion in a series of computational runs. The complex
    > relationships between people and the media they consume has been reduced
    > to a series of assumptions and fed into an algorithm that he hopes will
    > shed light on the reasons why the public chooses certain opinions. The
    > interaction of even simple rules can deliver complex behaviours with many
    > permutations that feed off each other, requiring computational power to
    > simulate.
    >
    >snip
    >
    > "It is also possible that sim members of the network may themselves
    > greatly influence others in their social circle. An example is the spread
    > of urban myths or legends. This "thought contagion" or "mimetics", which
    > suggests ideas have a life of their own and can become epidemic, is an
    > area for future research, Stocker says."
    >
    >Keith Henson
    >
    >
    >
    >===============================================================
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