Message-Id: <199910042004.QAA17153@smtp10.atl.mindspring.net>
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 16:12:26 -0400
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: bbenzon@mindspring.com (Bill Benzon)
Subject: Re: implied or inferred memes
At 10:15 AM 10/4/99 -0700, Tim Rhodes wrote:
>Bill wrote:
>
><<<I think that the analogy of a recipe is helpful. I can copy a written
>recipe, but if all I know is the cake, I have no recipe to copy. A good cook
>might be able to come up with a recipe which produces similar cakes, and it
>might even be the same as the original recipe. But reverse engineering is
>*not* imitation.>>>
>
>This is a good point. I think often we're actually talking about reverse
>engineering when we use the word "imitation". Reverse engineering our
>L-memes from the G-meme behaviors they are meant to "imitate".
>
However, what if there are 37+ different ways (L-memes) to produce the
G-meme? In that case, the imitation will be successful if anyone of them
is created. Does it make sense to call anyone of them a meme, or the set
as a whole a meme? It's the G-meme that's replicated, not the mental
whatever that subserves it.
William L. Benzon 201.217.1010
708 Jersey Ave. Apt. 2A bbenzon@mindspring.com
Jersey City, NJ 07302 USA http://www.newsavanna.com/wlb/
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