Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 20:26:13 -0400
From: Dr I Price <PEWLEYFORT@compuserve.com>
Subject: RE: When is a meme not a meme?
To: "INTERNET:memetics@mmu.ac.uk" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Robin
>If- your metaphor echoes De Bono's "Mechanisms of Mind" (1973 Penguin) =
jellymould analogy of a landscape being riven by information/patterns. <
Others have made the same point. Perhaps it is parallel evolution. Perhap=
s
Ray Shaw who developed the metaphor with me has read De Bono. I don't kno=
w.
I am not claiming originality of metaphor; merely a way of explaining how=
for me memes shape minds. I am of the meme as mental model school rather
than the meme as hard item school. There is a lot of chicken and egg, or
perhaps Caterpillar and Butterfly about the debate [Gould's observation
exapted by me that 'butterfly' is something 'caterpillar' evolved to have=
sex] however I see 'memes' [or memomes] like Taylorism or 'the control
meme' or the 'competitive free market' meme that replicate through a
variety of structures and language. To reduce 'meme' to the artefact leve=
l
robs it, for me of some of its power.
If Price
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