Re: virus: Rationality

Alex Williams (thantos@decatl.alf.dec.com)
Sun, 2 Mar 1997 21:42:51 -0500 (EST)

> OK, I see the difference now. But memes are defined by their effects,
> not by the actual pattern of information. For instance, if we both
> say "Jesus Christ is my saviour", then that indicates that we are
> infected by the Christian meme even though the actual information
> pattern that caused that particular speech act to be executed may
> be radically different in our respective neural systems.

Mind is highly likely to be heavily tinged with sarcasm, for example
... but I could use the expression in its memetic context /as/
sarcasm, which is rather the point, you see.

Does knowledge of Christianity /really/ denote `infection'? If we're
going to use the bio-viral model, what would the equivalent of `once
infected, infection fought /off/ successfully and antibodies still
present or natural immunity'? We may carry memes that make up passive
/knowledge/ of Christianity, but does that really imply infection?