From: Kate Distin (memes@distin.co.uk)
Date: Tue 22 Mar 2005 - 14:55:24 GMT
Kate Distin wrote:
> I'd drafted a rather complicated reply to you, but for some reason
> seemed to put things more succinctly in my response to Julio - perhaps
> you wouldn't mind looking there for a summary of my position. As a
> more direct reply to you: essentially I believe that the idea of which
> the blueprint is a representation can also be represented mentally.
> The same information can be carried in pen-and-paper and also in a brain.
>
Sorry - this is very stupid of me. I'd assumed that the message I
replied to was from this list, but it wasn't! I'll quote what I put here:
I see memes as representations. As such they gain their meaning from
whichever representational system they are a part of; and unlike genes
that may be one of many. Whereas genetic information is always
represented in the language of DNA, memetic information can be
represented in natural languages, in blueprints, in mathematical and
musical notation, or whatever. Equally each representational system can
be realized in a variety of media: paper, CD, speech, etc. So
ontologically a meme may be a piece of writing on some paper; it may be
a portion of speech on the radio; it may be a thought in a brain; etc.
This is a threefold picture: when we want to know about any particular
meme we need to ask what *information* it contains; how that information
is *represented*; and in what *medium* the representation is realized.
Yours, rather embarrassed,
Kate
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