Re: Why memeoids?

From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 11 2002 - 23:43:11 GMT

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Subject: Re: Why memeoids?
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 18:43:11 -0500
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From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
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    Hi Scott Chase -

    >I bet Wade doesn't have those problems, given his ultra-concise, implicit
    >style ;-)

    Thanks, but, regardless, and regardless of the fact that I use a
    Macintosh, I've crashed on occasion and lost things. To err is computer,
    as the good Doctor said.

    >There's
    >probably a post floating around in the ether somewhere which I attempted
    >recently where I offerred several quotes from Julian Huxley

    I got that one today, in the afternoon. Fascinating. Of course, I always
    suspected Aristotle had a handle on memes, and I'm sure Aristophanes did,
    but, with Keith's helpings of Hamilton, and yours of Huxley, the real
    fathers of the meme (well, seed-throwers at least) look to be coming out
    of the rust and dust.

    (And perhaps a feminist will find a woman in memetics' past, and drop
    that other shoe. IMHO, it has not helped Blackmore's case that she was so
    indulged in paranormal research for so many years, (although all of that
    only convinced her to be a blatant skeptic), but that's my own bias. She
    is a sterling example of how intelligent people can both be fooled _and_
    recover. We can only hope she is not started on another path of the same
    fence-jumping and erroneous beginnings- with the resultant ending of
    militant skepticism.)

    Then again, looking, finally, at the subject line, (how long has that one
    been up there...), I wonder if the 'why memeoids?' has ever been
    answered.

    And it reminds me that at one time I was thinking about tossing out for
    inspection the 'meteor, meteoroid, meteorite' terminology in memetics,
    especially as far as the _where_ things might be- which would present a
    case for 'memeoid', as well as 'memeite'. It would also, very nicely,
    sync in with my behavior-only stance, as 'meme' would be the terminology
    for the behavior, 'memeite' for an artefact of any sort with memetic
    content, and 'memeoid' for the memory quantum in the brain.

    - Wade

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