From: "Tim Rhodes" <proftim@speakeasy.org>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: implied or inferred memes
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 20:44:01 -0700
Bill Benzon wrote:
> I wrote:
> >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.
I couldn't have said it any better myself! <s>
But I expect we'll find (maybe... someday...) that there are certain limits
on what forms those 37 plus L-memes could possibly take and still result in
the same G-meme being imitated. At which point, it might actually be of
some value to label that whole set the "L-forms" for a given G-meme.
(And then one could look at how the various L-forms of different G-memes
interact with one another to produce novel G-memes--but that all seems quite
a ways down the road still.)
Thinking aloud again-
-Tim
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