Re: virus: Fractals and memes?

Todd M Kuipers (tkuipers@merak.com)
Mon, 10 Jun 1996 12:48:23 -0600

At 02:06 PM 6/10/96 -0400, MakakiloBb@aol.com wrote:
>Sounds fine... just don't think I can accept that memes are mathematical
>constructs.
>I do suppose, however, that memes... or anything else... could be constructed
>mathematically. It's just that their complexity would be far in excess of
>XY**2=Z!

This makes sense to me. Rarely has a complex system (e.g. biological,
economic, social) been modelled accurately enough to do justice to the
system itself.

But it is interesting to approximate the functioning of a system via a
reasonably simple mathematical formula, fractal based or not.

>There is the additional problem that far too often outrageous memes become
>popular...
>ie: do not spiral off to infinity.

This would depend on your definition of outrageous? :) Simple example:
some of the memes that I and my friends would be infected with would not
likely infect my grandmother...

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