> Do some memes not, in some cases, create a "memetic immune system", making
> the transmission of certain "rival" memes difficult, and/or "encapsulating"
> memes so they can do less "harm" to the overall system?
I can see that happening in closed narrative forms. It is difficult to
blend the memes of Steven Speilberg's ET and The action thriller
Independence Day. They are encapsulated differently.
(It's not impossible, but you compromise the stability if you you do--
it would lend itself to comedy or spoof first...)
When I'm talking of
> "encapsulation", I'm thinking of cases like "I know about that, but I don't
> believe it" and more sophisticated cases like Saint Thomas Aquinas's
> appropriation of Aristotalian thought under a Catholic umbrella. (I guess
> the latter would be more like absorption.)
Or apropriation.
>
>...how would one construct a
> meme to damage the action of the immune system, making someone somewhat
> more open-minded?
One would insert a subversive narrative line or jog the "mis en scene"
to make your point. I am reminded of a film someone described to me
where a director is hired by the Nazi government to produce german plays
for children. So he decides to do Hansel and Gretel. The scene where all
the parents are in the audience watching the Witch throw little Hansel
and Gretel into the oven is the turning point of the piece. The "immune
system" was thoroughly compromised.
This sparks another tangent-- I urge all people who believe in objective
reality to take an acting class and then describe, from the point of
view of your brain, what's real and what's not ;).
-- Regards +--------------------------------------------------------+ Ken Pantheists http://www.lucifer.com/~kenpan +--------------------------------------------------------+