Re: virus: Will the real meme please stand up.

tom.holz (tom.holz@pobox.com)
Wed, 06 Aug 1997 16:35:14 -0400

>Given the complexity of interaction between ideas, and between
>each idea and its environment, I don't believe it's possible in
>practice to distinguish between those ideas that reproduce,
>and those that don't. Also, I think all ideas are, at least in
>principle, capable of reproducing. While taking it forgranted
>that memetics is about ideas that actually do reproduce, I
>really don't see any harm arising from using "meme"
>fairly indiscriminately. So, for instance, to view
...
>Any argument?

"You are wrong, and I've got sniper[s] hidden nearby."

1) "All genes are molecules." -> "All molecules are genes." is FALSE.
2) "All memes are thoughts." -> "All thoughts are memes." if FALSE.

With our (or at least my) current understanding of memetics, both memes and
thoughts are very fuzzily defined, making (2) partially true.

here's a cute mutation--"having never seen the light of email"

[1] That is to say, my self would like parts of it replicated. Isn't that
cute.