Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id DAA16904 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 28 Nov 2001 03:35:09 GMT Message-ID: <007301c177bd$20d77540$3386b2d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <F300aquczPZlNc8dGrO00011598@hotmail.com> Subject: Field of Memes Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 19:31:10 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Scott,
> As Ernst Mayr says of the meme:
>
> (bq) "It seems to me that this word is nothing but an unnecessary synonym
> of the term "concept"." (eq)
A meme is a concept with its own motive power, an idea on wheels. In the
context of mental self-existence, every idea is capable of taking on a life
of its own. With the onset of human consciousness, life is remade into a
kind of mental body-- a soul, so to speak. In the course of their
interaction, these mental selves generate secondary mental creatures, all of
them autonomous, all of them devoted to their own replication. The original
child of consciousness is the tribe. Early humans identified not with
themselves as individuals but with their group. The ego began collectively,
and its collective influence remains powerful, as we saw in the tribalistic
reaction of America to the terror struck against it. Language also began
collectively, emerging not from one mind or another but from their
intercourse. The departure from Africa set off gradual fragmentation into
distinct languages, each one a child of the mother tongue, each with its own
will to endure. The tribal ego began its decline three thousand years, most
conspicuously in ancient Athens. Egos, languages, and all the institutions
of human culture consist of self-perpetuating corpuscles of thought.
Culture is nothing more than the field in which memes are the particles.
Ted
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