Subject: Re: i-memes and m-memes
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 10:32:14 -0400
From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
On 8/30/99 08:52, Robin Faichney said this-
>Good point, but surely it means that the example above contains not even
>a potential meme? (And I'm not happy with that concept.
I'm amazed at how happy I am with that concept- that there is no reason
to assume that an object 'contains' a meme- potential or otherwise. In
fact, I am on record here, for what that's worth, as saying so quite
distinctly. Once the culture to see it is lost, the object is, yes, in
this forensic universe of ours, just another lump of matter.
I wasn't happy about getting happy about it.
Are there objects which carry their culture along with them? Ah, well,
right now, I don't think so.
Even recently, the Iceman- there are tattoos on his body we have no
explanation for- that are silent to us culturally. There were certainly
memes in operation at the time he got tattoo'd, but, other than the meme
of body decoration, all else is lost, as if it never were there.
Perhaps we will find some other forensic evidence to re-establish this
meme of his, but, well, I doubt it. A meme lost is a meme gone. If it
were ever there to begin with.
- Wade
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