From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue Jan 29 2002 - 18:29:21 MST
On 29 Jan 2002 at 12:36, Walter Watts wrote:
> 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.
>
Just because memetic modifications don't always work out as we intend
does not mean that we did not intend them, and intend them to work out
in specific ways.
>
> 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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