Re: virus: Memetics Again

From: Walter Watts (wlwatts@home.com)
Date: Tue Jan 29 2002 - 11:36:43 MST


joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:

> No, because memes inhabit and compete for space in an intentional
> environment (human brains and the recursive and meaning-creating,
> bestowing-and-apprehending minds which emerge from this complex
> material substrate) rather than in a natural and nonintentional
> environment, such as a terrestrial ecology. People actually intentionally
> deconstruct memeplexes into component memes and recombine them
> in novel ways for preconceived purposes (or just for the helluvit), rather
> than them just mutate at random without so much as a whiff of
> intentional human agency.
>

Given that the usefullness of any memetic deconstruction cannot be determined
until evidence of widespread selection for said deconstruction rears its obvious
head, then calling the process intentional is a tad anthropocentric, don't ya
think?

The minds of most of the people I encounter on a day-to-day basis more closely
resemble, in terms of purpose, your natural, non-intentional terrestrial ecology
than a meaning-directed, intentional agency.

Walter
<stumbling about, trying things, bumping into dogma>
<<dog-damn, that dogma's hard, too>>

--
Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
"To err is human. To really screw things up requires a bare-naked command line and
a wildcard operator."


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