Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980413123913.00a353ac@popmail.mcs.net>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:39:13 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
Subject: Re: List of meme definitions
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980409083939.00acfb58@popmail.mcs.net>
>The definition I have chosen to use is the more parsimonious of two
>possibilities. But instead of going with just homoderivative mnemons, we
>can also define "meme" more broadly to include homogenic mnemons as well.
>That yeilds the following:
>
>MEME: A memory item, or portion of an organism's neurally-stored
>information, identified using the abstraction system of the observer, whose
>instantiation depended critically on causation by prior instantiation of
>the same memory item in one or more other organisms' nervous systems, or
>which has caused a subsequent instantiation of the same memory item in
>another organism's nervous system. ("Sameness" of memory items is
>determined with respect to the above-mentioned abstraction system of the
>observer.)
I should add that I still strongly prefer the simpler meme definition* in
my paper. It does not give rise to any mnemons that spend part of their
existence as non-memes and part as memes (after replication). And events
that propagate to a single new mnemon host never cause the meme's host
population to increment by 2.
*MEME: A memory item, or portion of an organism's neurally-stored
information, identified using the abstraction system of the observer, whose
instantiation depended critically on causation by prior instantiation of
the same memory item in one or more other organisms' nervous systems.
("Sameness" of memory items is determined with respect to the
above-mentioned abstraction system of the observer.)
--Aaron Lynch
http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html
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