Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19980227123810.007a2760@pop.netaddress.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 12:38:10 +0100
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Josip Pajk <j.p.pajk@usa.net>
Subject: EgoistX Virus?
In-Reply-To: <186b8af1.34f6200e@aol.com>
EgoistX wrote:
>A virus is essentially non-living, yet it uses living cells to reproduce
it's genetic material and spread it.
>
scott wrote:
>Would the instructional aspect of the double helix fall under this
definition? Is DNA/RNA working "for the control of (static) systems."
>That would be a hard for me to accept. The molecule, as an instructional
structure, is very much involved in the control of dynamic systems capable
of learning and evolving.
>
When EgoistX say "uses" is it an intention of the virus or is it pure
chemistry? In every organism there are chemical structures and processes
which are out of the system's control. I call it a given, rigid, material
structure of a dynamic system. A genetic structure of an organism is also
part of it's given rigid material structure which is produced, or is
evolving (created, grow, die) without it's intentional control, no matter
how high is this organism on the evolutionary scale. Instructions are doing
well in such kind of structures.
In the process of unintentional growth, the organism (system) uses the
environmental resources (stochastic energetic structures) at it's disposal.
The basic difference between static and dynamic systems is in the fact that
static systems are "reactive", if there are such resources in their
vicinity they grow and reproduce itself, if not, they dye or fall in an
anabiosis state. Dynamic systems are "proactive" they can search for
"favorable environments", they "know" what is such an environment and can
recognize it because they posses it's meme as a part of their informational
structure.
Memes, or as I use to call it elements of the "informational structure" of
a dynamic system are memorized patterns which are continuously correlated,
classified and adapted with other patterns (memes) created from information
extracted by the system from the data (signals, structures, irritations)
gathered from the environment.
That's the reason why I say that memes or information can not "survive"
with-out or out-of the dynamic system. The meme of a virus could not be
found nor in the virus itself neither in the "picture" of a virus in some
manuscript. It could be found only in a dynamic system which recognized the
particular pattern and/or it’s behavior and defined it as a meme called
"virus".
Moreover, we deliberately call, for example, a computer as a "system". For
me, from a cybernetic point of view, it is only a (material) structure.
Even if connected to a power source (energetic structure) and "fully
equipped" with a running program, it is still a combination of two
structures (or maybe a static system?) completely dependent about the
environment. Only with the intervention of a human (with the knowledge of
the computer's/program's informational structure) it becomes a proactive
"dynamic system" for the fulfillment of whatsoever.
The program (it's source code depends also about the "machine" on which it
is running) of a "dynamic system" must be and actually is in a constant
process of adaptation (self-organization). The genetic structure of an
organism is constant, but it's "memetic" structure is permanently changing.
That’s why we could never be positive if an instruction applied to a
dynamic system will be correctly understood and executed.
So, I would like to propose some basic terms to clarify the discussion:
Structures are patterns made with a finite number of elements with clear
functional connections.
Material structures are rigid, deterministic, ...
Energetic structures are labile, stochastic, ...
Informational structures are flexible, controlable, ...
A system is a relatively isolated combination of a material and energetic
structure elements able to perform a change of it's internal structural
states.
A static system is identified by the same response (structural change) to
the same input (irritataion) from the environment.
A dynamic system is identified by it's memory elements capable to perform
an internal change of the system state without the influence from outside
of the system.
I'm not very happy with this definitions but could we take them as a start?
Josip
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