Re: virus: Angelica de Meme
Tadeusz Niwinski (tad@teta.ai)
Thu, 03 Apr 1997 22:25:09 -0800
Martz wrote:
>On Mon, 31 Mar 1997, Tadeusz Niwinski <tad@teta.ai> wrote:
>
>>Mathematicians do not say which numbers are good or bad. How come,
>>memeticists claim they know which memes and "harmful" or "useful"? Good/bad
>>has nothing to do with studying how ideas spread, does it?
>
>Possibly not directly. However, we often view memes in relation to their
>effect on their host (and the hosts consequent effect on the world). In
>that sense a 'user' of mathematics in, say, engineering may well talk of
>good or bad numbers.
As you say, the "user", yes, but not the mathematician. My point is that
memetics is not another name for philosophy, ethics, or psychology. It
seems to be easy to trick people into believing that memetics and life
purpose somehow correspond to each other.
> 'This number is bad because it's a measurement of
>stress and my bridge just can't withstand it'.
Perfect example: mathematicians do not pretend they can build bridges.
Regards, Tadeusz (Tad) Niwinski from planet TeTa
tad@teta.ai http://www.teta.ai (604) 985-4159