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

From: Chris Taylor (christ@ebi.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 02 Mar 2004 - 09:38:53 GMT

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    Again this just drops out of my model. Honestly I'm on to something, I just don't have the time to work it out properly :\

    Steven Thiele wrote:

    > 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
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >> ===============================================================
    >> 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 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
    >
    > 

    -- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Chris Taylor (christ@ebi.ac.uk)
  MIAPE Project -- psidev.sf.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
===============================================================
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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