Re: Memetics 101 (re)launch

From: Kate Distin (memes@distin.co.uk)
Date: Tue 11 Apr 2006 - 17:50:16 GMT

  • Next message: Derek Gatherer: "New Scientist"

    > Dear readers,
    >
    >
    > I have just relaunched my site at http://memetics.chielens.net/ on
    > which i try to give a basic introduction to the field of memetics and
    > also try to propagate my own research a bit. Comments are welcome.
    >
    >
    > Klaas
    >
    > ps. some of you may know that I have accepted the job as assistant
    > manager for the 'new' jom-emit. however i have not had any contact
    > with dr. Heylighen for a few months now on this matter. I do not know
    > what his further plans are. Sorry for the false hope it might have
    > created after Bruce quit his job as manager but i am afraid this
    > revival was also short-lived in the attention of the new manager...

    Thanks, Klaas - an interesting website - and very easy to navigate, which is always a bonus.

    I had a couple of thoughts while browsing your Memetics 101 pages in particular. On the Meme lifecyeles page I was curious about your choice of Yahoo! as the search engine with a similar status to Amazon, Ebay and Hotmail. In the vocabulary of most people I know it's Google that's become a verb - people "google" things they want to research. Is this a country-to-country distinction? I'd rather parochially assumed that Google had achieved worldwide dominance in the same way that Ebay et al. seem to have done.

    I'm not sure I'd agree with the final paragraph of the Memes as Replicators page. Are you saying that memetic replication is always Lamarckian? (I *think* I'd go so far as to say it never is . . . hence the disagreement).

    Finally, on the Introduction page you describe me as a "Cambridge scholar" and I thought this was as good a place as any to clear that one up, as you're not the first person to make this assumption. My first degree is from Cambridge and I'm published by the CUP, but I'm not now with any university. (CUP describes me as "an independent scholar", which I suppose sounds better than "fits writing in around the children"!).

    Kate

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