virus: Re : Dormant Memes - An Oxymoron?

Hakeeb A. Nandalal (nanco@trinidad.net)
Mon, 25 Nov 1996 01:31:25 +0000


David McFadzean wrote :-

> ....
> How do you know the Sanskrit fragments are unlikely to ever be translated?
> Egyptian heiroglyphics were not interpretable for almost 2000 years until
> the discovery of the Rosetta stone in 1799.
>
> (http://www.gold.net/users/iy12/aaes/orion/egyptol.htm)
>
> Would you say the heiroglyphics encoded memes when they were written,
> stopped encoding memes when the language was lost, and started again
> when the Rosetta stone was discovered? That seems rather bizarre to me.
> ....

Two thoughts on this :-

1. In my table

---------------------------------------------------------------
1. Code (pattern : raw ordered data)
2. Meme (information : interpretation of data by similar species which wrote code)
3. Behavior (emotion : caused by meme, encouraged to replicate meme)

Meme replication takes place by oscillating between 1, 2 & 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------

I specifically said that the code is interpreted "by similar species
which wrote code". This means more than just a compatible brain. It also
pertains to a decryption key. A chimp finding the Rosetta stone wouldn't know
what to with it (maybe cave in another chimp's head).

2. Star Trek IV : The Voyage Home

Here we had the decryption key in the form of the probe. The problem
was there was nothing to generate the code - the whales were extinct.

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Hakeeb A. Nandalal
nanco@trinidad.net
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