Message-Id: <199706240109.VAA08345@global.dca.net>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 21:10:22 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: perpcorn@dca.net (Timothy Perper/Martha Cornog)
Subject: Re: Meme pools~drosophila
>>I'm defending the physical analogy between genes and memes. They are
>>analogous systems residing in different frequency domains.
>
>You got to start somewhere- although 'frequency domains'? - sounds a
>little newagey to me....
>
>> From this
>>perspective, it is not hard to see how computers will fit into the
>>picture, but I'll leave that for another day.
>
>Are computers not the drosophila we seek? Or the programs thereof? Do we
>have something complex enough to be studied as a memetic set yet?
>
>Or will we have to grow our own fruitflies?
>
The term "frequency domain" and its correlative, "time domain," are
technical terms from the theories of the Laplace transform and the Fourier
transform. They are specialized branches of mathematics widely used in
engineering, especially for the analysis of analog signals.
If one represents a signal as a sequence of voltage pulses that rise and
fall in various ways over time, one has a description in the "time domain."
If one takes the same signal and determines the wavelengths of all its
components, then one has a description in the "frequency domain."
Frequency and wavelength are mathematical reciprocals of each other.
The concepts are useful for analyzing and designing various electronic and
other components. For example, the electronic filters that acts as "tone
controls" for changing the treble or bass in a stereo system can be
described in both the time and frequency domains. The reason is that tone
controls act differently on signals of different wavelengths.
The notions of time and frequency domain the antithesis of everything
new-agey: pure technology and physics.
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