X-Message-Number: 28436
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:08:25 -0600
From: "Anthony ." <>
Subject: basic memetics for little ol' me

Disclaimer: this is all waaay "off-topic" because as we know, cryonics
has nothing to do with ideas, memes, or discussion of weird concepts
generally. ;)

Disclaimer the 2nd: Keith, I invite you again to this forum I recently
discovered:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/

Despite persistent trolling in the forum, I think we can create a
thread on this for ourselves and interested cryonet readers before
someone screams at me to quit the meme talk.

> Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:33:15 -0400
> From: Keith Henson <>
> Subject: Basic memetics for Anthony

> > > When you can convert from one media to another.  Tape, paper, CD, hard
> > > disk, etc can all be used to store text and it is no big deal to convert
> > > from one to the other.
> >
> >This is nothing but isomorphism. Is that all a meme is!?
>
> No.

I don't see what else a meme is then. If a meme is "just" information,
then isn't genetic information also a meme? Indeed, almost everything
is a meme, including the universe - quite a blunt tool this concept!

> >(If you are saying the info. is independant (like some "memeticians"
> >do), then you are espousing another form of philosophical idealism -
> >prey to the same old criticisms.)
>
> I am an electrical engineer.   Go read
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon to see why information in the
> abstract does not bother engineers.

The concept "death" doesn't bother most physicians, yet people like
ourselves question it because the concept they are using is important
and deserves re-appraisal.

> I find the concept of memes as elements of culture or replicating
> information patterns or similar descriptions useful to model what goes on
> in the world going back to when the hominid line started to chip rocks.

This is not Dawkins' use of the term, which also applied to animals
and "explained" how/why they imitate each other - though Dawkins had
people in mind of course (as he is an anthropocentric thinker):

A meme is "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation"
(from The Extended Phenotype)

Did the meme "mutate" (& thus not be "fit" enough for "survival" in
its original forumlation)?

Your definition of memes as "going back to when the hominid line
started to chip rocks" is odd. Are you saying:

memes did not exist until people made tools? (Which meme transmitted
the idea of tools?)

Or

not until people start to "think"?

Or

something else?

I know these might be annoying questions (John K Egg doesn't answer
them at all, they are so "annoying"), but the evolutionary origins of
the "meme" is important to the concept, and I have not seen anyone
address the problem - where did the first meme come from? You must
answer this if you have any belief in evolution.

If you still stick to the "chipping rocks" explanation, I'll offer an
alternative account of human thinking.

> If you don't that's fine with me.  I won't argue philosophy with you,
> that's the wrong field to talk about information (and it's connection to
> thermodynamics).

Huh!? Since when was philosophy the "wrong field" to discuss concepts?

If electrical engineers can't talk to philosophers, why can they talk
to evolutionary biologists (like Dawkins)?

> In both cases the only constant of a gene or a meme *is* the
> information.  Of course to have real world effects a gene has to be coded
> in DNA and be in a cell.  To have real world effects a meme has to be in a
> brain.

Or media - right?

(John K Egg says it is ONLY minds, not brains, nor media).
http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1158168747/Memes+and+Genes

(He also equates "self" with "memes" as well as "ideas" with "memes"
and the universe with "memes" - can you see why I find this concept so
flaky it's embarressing?)

> Try Henson baseball meme in Google.

thanks, I will - you've obviously worked hard on this idea!

Anthony

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