Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA26832 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 25 Jan 2002 22:32:15 GMT From: <salice@gmx.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 23:25:56 +0100 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: sex and the single meme Message-ID: <3C51E984.23823.2165D8@localhost> In-reply-to: <F113SXNCt6mIIjWjydK0000d195@hotmail.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 25 Jan 2002, at 16:44, Scott Chase wrote:
> If one were to look at a pool of ideas and analogize variants of ideas as
> allelic (so to speak), could it be that generation to generation shifts in
> the frequencies of these variants could, in special circumstances, be
> related to nothing more than sampling error? I'll leave it to those more
> imaginative and mathematically versed than I to flesh out the details.
Of course, sampling error happens all the time. I remember things
i've read or heard wrong all the time. And there are all the typos.
But still, these sampling errors happen in the brain or maybe in a
wrong coordinated muscle movement while typing but it's in the
individual where this happens.
You could say that sampling errors happen also outside of us, like
i dunno, some song might be played with noise interference on the
radio but how much does this amount for. How important is that for
cultural evolution? Even if there is some strange coincidence, let's
say because of a sampling error some new idea gets born, this
newborn idea still needs us to become succesfull and wide-spread.
Remember this "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US"-crap?
Well that probably was a mistake the person who originally wrote it
in the video game wasn't aware of. But the fact that this sentence
spread throughout the web and tv was a result of people putting it
on websites and tv-shows. The meme didn't lay itself inside the
html-code, right?
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