Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA29648 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 26 Jan 2002 21:24:11 GMT Message-ID: <005b01c1a6b7$3e24a720$5e2ffea9@oemcomputer> From: "Philip Jonkers" <philipjonkers@prodigy.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <LAW2-F35eqXItMcx4vv00001a06@hotmail.com> Subject: Re: Selfish meme? Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 13:17:26 -0900 Organization: Prodigy Internet Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Grant:
> > Does anyone see a similarity here between words and memes?
Philip:
>I see an even stronger relationship:
>Words *are* memes (but not all memes are words).
Grant:
Exactly so, so why can't the study of words and how they are created and
propogated provide clues to the essence of all memes as well as defining
them, where they come from and what they do? We have a pretty good handle
on words and language, so why is it so hard to understand what memes are in
general? How can people deny that memes exist without saying that words
don't exist? Or saying that words are not memes? It's an illogical
arguement.
Yeah well it's somewhat of a mystery to me too. Perhaps the success-rate,
novelty or level of sophistication creeps in to the definition of a meme
some people maintain. That is, they may regard only sufficiently successful
or novel or
sophisticated elements of culture qualify to called memes. What is
sufficiently successful then, new and what is sophisticated enough?
To me such qualifiers are all redundant and make the identification process
of memes extremely cumbersome and subjective.
Philip.
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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