Re: RS string

From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Thu 20 Apr 2006 - 18:18:17 GMT

  • Next message: Kenneth Van Oost: "Re: RS"

    At 10:50 PM 4/19/2006 -0700, Dace wrote:

    snip

    >There's no flow of information from one person to the next. You're thinking
    >analogically when you should be thinking digitally. The information is in
    >my mind. I write something that expresses to my satisfaction what I'm
    >thinking. You read it. However, you fail to understand my point and
    >therefore the information in my mind has not been transmitted to yours.
    >It's not as if by writing it down and having you read it, I've managed to
    >propell the information two-thirds of the way to your mind. It's all or
    >nothing. Either the info is there, or in this case, it isn't.

    If the information is "important" to get it right, then we have error correction mechanisms that are very much like those used in electronic communications.

    To drag out baseball (rules) again as an example, the number of strikes and balls might be misunderstood when a kid first is learning the rules. The other people who do know the proper numbers will correct such misunderstandings. So depending on the block size you want to consider "a meme" then it would be possible for part of it rather than all of it to be conveyed.

    I.e., if you consider the number of strikes to be a meme, it is either going to be correct in the receptor mind or not. If you consider "baseball rules" to be the meme, then only rare people have a completely accurate version of the information in the rule book.

    My wife and I differ on this point. She prefers to reserve "meme" for the smallest informational element and use "scheme of memes" for the higher level collectives.

    Partly because I find it too hard to figure out what the smallest elements are, I use meme in the same sense as "string" where size is indeterminate.

    Long as you understand what's going on, it is a minor point.

    Keith Henson

    PS. "The memes are scheming to control your mind!"

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