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The problem, as I see it, is that many people are running their own private research projects in memetics. Because there is no standard terminology, people produce papers using their own terms. The problem is that when people read these papers, they encounter words that they might have read elsewhere, but with different meanings. This, obviously, leads to a lot of confusion.
I think it is good idea to build a list of terms. This should help to clear up some of the cross talk that occurs here.
Tim said that he has seen "the combination of internal and external that results in replication" referred to as a memeplex. This is a mistake that many people make, and I would like to help by providing a definition of "memeplex" that I work with.
For me, a memeplex is a large collection of memes that rely upon each other for replication. It could be that the individual memes were once successful replicators but now they do not make it alone -- they need to be "connected" to the other memes in the memeplex to which they belong. An example of a memeplex is a symphony, or a story. These contain a vast number of memes many of which do not get replicated in isolation. They exist together in the memeplex for mutual benefit and use each other for replication.
I am sure that many of you are already using this definition of memeplex, but I wanted to offer my contribution nonetheless.
Cheers...
Brent.
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----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Rhodes
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2000 9:15 AM
Subject: Defining and moving on
William Benzon wrote:
<<<If you don't have a grasp of the data to be accounted for nor of the
causal processes and mechanisms, then you just haggle over definitions.
In my experience, serious thinkers don't waste time over definitions.
Where the issues are well understood, thinkers may give definitions by
way of indicating which (among several well-known) position they
take.>>>
I have the sense that most of us are using the same concepts, but under
different names. There are many reasons for this (and too many of them
are surprisingly petty or political), but I think it could be a useful
exercise to lay out all the differing terms and compare them. I suspect
we'll find we share more concepts more in common than we disagree.
So here's a start, I call:
A) the external vehicle by which memetic information is passed: the
G-meme.
B) the internal information necessary for propagating the cultural
information: the L-meme.
C) the combination of internal and external that results in
replication: the meme
I've seen (A) referred to by others as: the meme seed, the vehicle, the
meme, the memetic artifact and several other terms. What term do you
use for this concept?
I've seen (B) referred to as: copying instructions, the meme,
memes-in-the-mind, etc. What term do you use for this concept?
I've also seen (C) referred to as: self-replicating mind viruses,
memeplexes, the meme, etc. What term do you use for this concept?
Lets build a list of overlapping terms, recognize what each other means
by them, and then get this show on the road.
-Tim Rhodes
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
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===============================================================
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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