From: <christopher_l._turner@hud.gov>
Message-Id: <9804278936.AA893691435@hudsmtphq.hud.gov>
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 98 11:45:46 -0500
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: 'Experience' as 'substrate'
I wonder if we might usefully describe a meme as a self-replicating
'pattern of experience'. A certain pattern of sensory experience may
carry a sensual 'reward' such that the experiencing organism is
motivated to behave in such a way as to attempt to _reproduce_ that
sensory reward. Variation occurs when such behavior patterns have
'unintended' experiential consequences, which must then be 'adjusted
for' by further behavior modifications by the affected nervous system.
Thus 'experience', as a _self-designing_ cybernetic operation of the
(in our case 'human') nervous system, becomes the 'substrate' in which
'memes', in conjunction with their generative behavior patterns and
the nervous systems which execute them, are 'evolved'.
What do you think?
Chris Turner 4-27-98 (CR)
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