Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id KAA19643 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 31 Jan 2001 10:36:40 GMT Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:53:29 +0000 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Labels for memes Message-ID: <20010131095329.D10942@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <20010130194202.A2584@reborntechnology.co.uk> <JJEIIFOCALCJKOFDFAHBOEIJCDAA.richard@brodietech.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.12i In-Reply-To: <JJEIIFOCALCJKOFDFAHBOEIJCDAA.richard@brodietech.com>; from richard@brodietech.com on Tue, Jan 30, 2001 at 03:04:58PM -0800 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Tue, Jan 30, 2001 at 03:04:58PM -0800, Richard Brodie wrote:
> << Where information is transmitted, that information is _not_
> normally seen as existing only at each end of the transmission chain.
> In fact, to do so is incoherent. No matter how complex its encoding, it
> exists throughout the chain (at some point in time). It _has_ to do so,
> in order to make it from one end to the other.>>
>
> The information has to exist, but not the meme. The meme stays right in the
> head of the ad exec for Budweiser.
My point is that, understanding that meme as an item of information,
a pattern encoded in his brain, you cannot then say that same pattern,
differently encoded in the ad, is not the same meme. If it's the same
pattern, it's the meme. Such is the numerical identity of information.
Here's something I wrote earlier:
``Information'' is very closely related to ``form,'' and form is what
two different things of the same type share. It therefore differs from
substance, or matter, in that one item of it can occur in more than
one place at one time. This is what is called its numerical identity:
however many copies of an item of it exist, it remains one single item
of form, or information.
The numerical identity of material objects specifies that each must
occupy exactly one place at a time---any more, and there's more than
one object (if it occupies less than one place, it doesn't exist!).
But Mozart wrote {\em an\/} opera called The Marriage of Figaro, no matter
how many productions of it have subsequently taken place. Though every
production is probably slightly different, these are considered versions
of the same opera, rather than different operas, due to what they have
in common: the information they share. A particular performance of it
remains just that---a particular performance---even if it was recorded,
and thousands of CD's made.
[end of quote]
And that performance is the same performance whether encoded digitally
on a CD, or analogically, on vinyl.
-- Robin Faichney robin@reborntechnology.co.uk=============================================================== 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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