Re: virus: Will the real meme please stand up.

Tim Rhodes (proftim@speakeasy.org)
Mon, 4 Aug 1997 22:47:37 -0700 (PDT)


On Sun, 3 Aug 1997, Tim Abbott wrote:

> A prehensile tail is a useful genetic trait, but I, and I presume you
> too, do not have one.

I suspect that memetics is, at the moment, in the process of making itself
a reality. What we are seeing now is an infancy, a toddler pulling itself
up on all the furniture and chewing on the carpet. If memetics is able to
enter the public mind, to become a part of the larger consensus reality,
it will, by that act, prove itself to be legitimate (even if, as yet,
quite immature).

Therefore the emphasis on spreading the meta-meme is often given
importance over actual research. Because if <memetics> is in play in the
consciousness of a group, the transmission of ideas within that group will
conform to the dynamics we would expect to see from the memetic model.

Memetics is, in this very real sense, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

-Prof. Tim