Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA11809 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 26 Nov 2001 02:27:33 GMT Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 18:22:30 -0800 Message-Id: <200111260222.fAQ2MU005452@mail3.bigmailbox.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary X-Mailer: MIME-tools 4.104 (Entity 4.116) X-Originating-Ip: [216.76.255.98] From: "Joe Dees" <joedees@addall.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: A Question for Wade Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)
> Re: A Question for WadeDate: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 20:55:01 -0500
> "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>Hi Joe Dees -
>
>>No, but you can act upon the ideas of mass production and interchangeable
>>parts to build a factory to produce cars and a whole lot of other products.
>
>Yup.
>
>And, yup, you can produce all sorts of memes.
>
>But, from my new perspective, none of those ideas are memes, at all. But,
>yes, if you act upon those ideas, and build that factory- that factory
>itself is a marvelous memeplex, and, could (could...) produce a meme.
>(But it doesn't have to- it could lie fallow, or unfinished, or,
>competition could ruin it.)
>
>Until and if you put together that factory, it hasn't made a meme. And
>until it does, there is no meme to speak of (other than the myriad of
>memes that make up the fabric of the factory).
>
>Once that car is available, then and only then can it be used. And only
>in the using can a meme evolve.
>
>I won't call an idea a meme- because, (besides the fact that it's already
>been called an idea), right now, I'm trying to maintain an absolute
>working perspective, similar, I suppose, to that strange subset of
>language-study that refuses to use E, although I think calling nothing
>that is not an actual artifact a meme is more useful and descriptive.
>
>I am trying to be difficult for a specific purpose.
>
And I am disagreeing with you because of a specific principle - that it is what Whitehead called a category error or a violation of the type/token distinction (Dennett, Fodor) to conflate particular examples, which may vary widely, with single common ideas or structural meaning-relations behind them.
>
>- Wade
>
>
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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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