Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA11200 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 25 Nov 2001 22:10:02 GMT From: <salice@gmx.net> Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 23:05:03 +0100 (MET) To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk References: <002301c175e5$14e1fdc0$1301bed4@default> Subject: Re: A Question for Wade X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-Authenticated-Sender: #0000542789@gmx.net X-Authenticated-IP: [62.96.146.10] Message-ID: <2672.1006725903@www35.gmx.net> X-Mailer: WWW-Mail 1.5 (Global Message Exchange) X-Flags: 0001 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> What are memes than from your point of view !?
I'd say they are basically means of transmission.
> It confuses me a little bit, to read that memes can transfer ideas etc.
> Out of what consist than those ideas, if I follow the applied logic, if
> they are not memes !?
Let's compare it to genes/alleles. There are genes which include the
information for an human leg for instance. But the gene itself is not a leg. The leg
is constructed out of the genes.
> Do you see memes as only those entities which transfer ideas, etc and not
> so mush as the tranferred information !? Or do I miss something !?
Memes only become visible in the mind. When we receive a meme it can not
only result that we remember exactly this meme but more likely that an
idea-complex pops up in our head. This resulting thinking-complex can be considered as
an idea, the meme serves as a transmitter between two thinking-complexes.
The resulting idea in the head is not a direct result of the particular meme
but our mind uses it to build up something more complex. And this usage of
memes varies between people.
Let's compare this again to the dna-world. Genes for themselves are useless.
They stand for nothing when they're not used to build something more complex
out of them again, and this usage happens according to body functions which
strangely themselves were build up by genes.
Further I wouldn't agree to the cultural artefact theory because it's too
limited and at the same time including too much. When i copy the behavior of
one of my friends it also happens through the use of memes but i don't think
that my friend's behavior is considered to be an cultural artefact. If i would
formulate that simple behavior and write it down in a book and publish it and
let's say i would even become famous with it, it would certainly become a
meme? No, it already was a meme at the simple behavior-copy level between two
persons.
From the other side, imagine giving a 3,5" hd disk to a native tribe on some
island.
Would they discover the same memes in/on that disk as we could do? One could
still argue that the memes are still in there because WE can find them. But
this is actually the point. We are the ones who make something become a meme.
To find a meme in the outside world, in the sensual information we receive
the physical reality of an object has to resemble something in our
mind-structure. In this way it's not even important whether this information is human
made. Even space-noise or the look of stars in a clear night includes memes,
because our minds are cabable to find them in there. Take astrology for an
example.
So concluding from all this a meme is basically an incoming information
which we identifiy as something relating to a part of our mind structure. It can
change or add to our mind-structure, whether it is that we can remember
exactly this meme or whether it even builds up a more complex structure or changes
an existing one.
Memes can be used to transfer ideas from one mind to another, we can use
them as a tool.
When i write a word here i change the physical reality of something in the
random access memory of my computer, when i will send the mail i change the
physical reality of the cables were it goes through for a few nanoseconds.
Finally the physical reality of your screen changes, you can identify the
physical structure on your screen as a word i have written. So i used the physical
world, i changed a part of it, structured it into something which i can
recognize as a meme and which i consider to be recognizable as a meme to you
aswell.
In this way we both utilize the outside physical world for our
information-transmission purposes. What actually is the meme is the physical structure
pattern which in an abstracted form we both can recognize as an information
which resembles a part of our mind-structure.
Our usage of memes is in that way a special case. We can also identify memes
when we look at the stars and find structures in them for instance. We can
copy this abstract structure or build up ideas like astrology from it. It's
the same concept just that that there is only a receiver and no sender.
So the concept is quite elementary. I'd say for meme-theory it would be
better to just consider the sender->receiver special case anyway.
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