From: "Aaron Agassi" <agassi@erols.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: i-memes and m-memes
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 23:57:15 -0400
In-Reply-To: <37D0742E.18016F7E@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 9:22 PM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: i-memes and m-memes
>
>
> Dear Aaron,
>
> > 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.
>
> But you regard a dust particle as a meme:
>
> > Allow me to clarify:
> > A microscopic dust particle in a dark cave never seen by any
> living thing is
> > a meme, but one with major replicative disadvantages.
Okay, you got me! Sorry for the confusion. That was before I read the post
denoting how original usage differentiates memes from memetic objects and
phenomena, and rephrased, making the distinction, in accordance. The
observation was that some have expanded the usage of the word 'meme' to
cover the memes manifestations. According to the old usage I can only deem a
dust particle memetic. According to current expanded usage that I too had
fallen into, it might even be called a meme in and of itself. Perhaps you
can advise me on the Semantics, the fine distinction, which has become the
more confusing since I intentionally challenged the idea that natural
objects and phenomena are not memetic (or memes, in the newer looser usage).
Meaning is transmissible subject to comprehension. Meaning is an
intellectual artifact, information content, that is decoded and re-encoded,
thus comprehended. But then, so is sensory input from reality. Meaning
derived from information in the physicist's sense is understanding. It has
to do with concepts and interrelationships as opposed to rote learning of
detail without meaning. Accurate meaning is truth, correspondence to
reality, of interrelationship, Gestalt, as opposed to the truth of one to
one correspondence of every point, meaninglessly. My point is that
receptivity to communication is only a special case of perception. That
comprehension is comprehension. Decoding messages is only a special case,
just another instance of problem solving and that aspect of that part of the
Phenomena which is ongoing simulation of reality from input. It's the same
operation, perhaps with some variation, in confronting culture as in
confronting nature. If there is any such variation, then what is it? A fine
point, I'd expect, and not a difference in kind.
Thus all is memetic, or by the newer looser usage, all is meme.
> >
>
> Please explain the difference.
>
> 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