RE: virus: The One or the Many? (was: META)

Robin Faichney (r.j.faichney@stir.ac.uk)
Tue, 28 Oct 1997 10:02:49 -0000


> From: Eva-Lise Carlstrom[SMTP:eva-lise@efn.org]
>
> Um, Robin, you're not the only one (or the first one) who's said that
> the
> word "meme" *could be* be applied either to ideas or external
> phenomena...
>
But Eva, that's not what I said. I was talking about putting
memetics on a scientific basis, about the reality of
patterns and information, eliminating the subjectivity of
"what's in the mind", where the "internal" memes are in
the *brain*, instead (i.e. patterns of neural excitation),
and therefore, unlike ideas, of the same kind as the
"external" patterns of actual observable behaviour. Who
else is saying anything like that? Certainly Richard
seems to think all the Big Memeticians view memes as
in the mind.

Robin