Re: virus: Re: Rationality (meme make-up)

Dave Pape (davepape@dial.pipex.com)
Wed, 19 Mar 1997 19:51:25 GMT


At 16:57 19/03/97 GMT, Drakir wrote:
>Dave Pape wrote:
>
>> I'd suggest that the thing that makes the
>> target's memosphere "vulnerable to throw out the intended meme-complex"
>> would just be more memes which're resonant with the intended meme-complex,
>> ones which draw in associations between the previously transmitted meme
>> components.
>
>Can there ever be 100% certainty that the target will reconstruct the
>original meme?

I'd say there's probably a 0% certainty that they'll construct the original
EXACTLY... erm... what you're after is giving yourself an
as-close-to-100%-as-possible chance of them reconstructing
as-close-to-100%-as-possible of your meme.

>Is there a finite amount of information needed? Using
>your thriller analogy, is there a point at which every viewer is aware
>of the identity of the culpret, and they are all correct?

Well, probably not, if you include, say, people who watched the film when
they were smacked up to the eye teeth, or snogging each other.

The "point", even with a closely attentive audience of
your-language-speakers, all versed watching thrillers (a learnt skill, I
reckon), when each member of the audience realises who the culprit is, will
vary. And be smeared over time, as the meme "x was the culprit" becomes more
and more active in their memosphere, eventually becoming active enough to
outcompete other culprit-memes for expression...

Blur those edges, man. Read "Fuzzy Thinking" by Bart Kosko, I lost my copy
but it's got a purple and white cover with a yin-yang symbol on it, but is
mostly about how concepts are blurred-edged... how to get computers to
behave in a flexible, funky way, by letting them see the grey between true
and false...

Dave Pape
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