From: "Aaron Agassi" <agassi@erols.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: i-memes and m-memes
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 20:24:38 -0400
In-Reply-To: <37D058E4.2E8F2693@pacbell.net>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Bill Spight
> Sent: Friday, September 03, 1999 7:25 PM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: i-memes and m-memes
>
>
> Bill:
>
> I thought you said that everything is a meme.
>
> Aaron:
>
> No, everything is memetic.
>
> Bill:
>
> Do you mean that everything is either a meme or composed of memes?
No. As far as I gather from standard definitions, an artifact is not a meme.
Nor, if I understand, is a behavior or a brain cell. And yet, artifacts and
behaviors are templates from which witnesses may encode and replicate memes.
This makes memes rather abstract. But then, for hypothetical units of
information, perhaps tis is to be to be expected.
I also include natural objects and phenomena as memetic, because can also be
perceived, then decoded and encoded for information in the physicist's
sense. Deliberate encoding in an artifact, or transmission by behaviors, are
only special cases. Information that is encoded is only a special case of
information in the physicist's sense, that is to say: form, or low Entropy.
And replicative success is circumstantial outcome, not quala. An animal that
dies rather than reproducing and evolving may be less well adapted. Or just
unlucky in opportunity, no matter how well adapted. But no less an animal.
Likewise unperceived or forgotten things are no less memetic. They are
merely dormant. Dormancy is the norm.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bill
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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>
===============================================================
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