X-Message-Number: 11967
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 11:31:15 +0100
From:  (John de Rivaz)
Subject: what does this author REALLY say about memes?

In article: <>  Thomas Donaldson 
<> writes:
> If she can really USE the idea of memes rather than just the word, I'm
> interested. Otherwise not.
> 

I rather suspect that may be for another book. She does make a strong case 
for memetics being a way of looking at things that consistantly explains the 
results we observe. But the book is not a "cook book" on how to win friends 
and influence people using memetics. She does hint that deliberate attempts 
have been made to create and spread memes using the principles described in 
the book, but no examples of such experiments are given. If it worked, such 
a science would have enormous commercial implications, and experiments could 
be clothed in commercial secrecy. 

If we want to develop such ideas for cryonics, we may have to do it 
ourselves, or possibly as Pete Merel suggested in the last cryonet, it 
may be more productive to use a different model for the way ideas spread 
throughout humanity.

Memetics is only a model - the test is whether that model can

a. explain events we observe
b. be applied to perform repeatable experiments

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
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