Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 10:01:54 +0100
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: facets of meme-talk
In-Reply-To: <740e8d25.24f74237@aol.com>
In message <740e8d25.24f74237@aol.com>, RPrestonic@aol.com writes
>
>Whether plugged into a mind's
>conception of an evolutionary algorithm or not, a gene in fact IS just DNA:
This definition works for biologists, but only because they can take the
DNA's environment forgranted. The DNA is meaningless without the
cellular machinery that decodes it, by biochemically interacting with
it. Outside of this particular context, the gene is *information*, not
any molecule or part thereof.
Don't give too much credence to "the experts" -- sometimes they get just
a bit too specialised.
>[...]
>I suggest that, in the spirit of Dawkins, genes are indeed naked selfish
>bits of
>DNA, and memes are naked selfish bits of ......hmmm, stumped, here. Help me
>out.
It all gets a lot easier if you accept that both genes and memes are
items of information.
-- Robin Faichney Get The Information at http://www.conscious-machine.com=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit