----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Ridge <richard_ridge@tao-group.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 2:46 PM
Subject: RE: MD memetic transfer?
> > Unless I am mistaken I believe Dennett states it is the meme hosts (in
> > the case of the whale song, the whales) who replicate the meme and not
> > the memes themselves that replicate.
<< If you take the point of view of the Selfish Meme you can 't say that
memes do not replicate themselves. They DO, but you are not aware of it,
much of the meme activity is not directly known to us_ our brain is making
up neuro- connections which are basically meme- driven. For what/ how and
when your brain does that you do not know, you only see/ experience the
result as behavior.
> In the essay (link below) Dennett partially characterises it as a
parasitic
> relationship - the meme requires a vehicle to exist and propagate within,
> but is analogous to a bacteria.
<< In addition here, the essay you talk about was written in 1989/1990.
We, on the memetic Discussion List, have since long left the path that a
meme is analogous to a bacteria or a virus for that matter, some act in
such a way, but most of them make up of what we experience as our
daily lives. If I am not mistaken, the bacteria/ virus stance is be spoken
of and discussed on a seperate list. I do not have the address.
The meme does indeed require a vehicle (whatever that may be) to replicate
itself, but DOES NOT always propagate within that vehicle.
Take computers, untill now info/ memes are stored IN computers but do
not propagate within. Untill now no meme had have the possibility to escape
its container.
On the other hand, computer networks exchange memes all the time, there
you have memes which do propagate, they jump from computer to computer
and therefor in a sense from brain to brain.
For propagation you have to have two sides...
Best regards,
Kenneth
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