1) enduring fame is no reflection of a meaningful life. (its quite possible
to have either without the other )
2) The gregor mendel biographical details meme has happened to hitch itself
onto the highly successful mendelian genetics meme , but really neither
meme gives a damn about Gregor Mendel, monk person, nor ever did. The
interesting
question is really why do we bother to carry baggage about the names and
lives of great minds along with the ideas they had
a) because we think it might give us insight into how to have our own good
ideas and therefore confer some advantage to us (the Biography Meme's claim
? "study other lives and you will be able to do what they did" )
b) because we think there is prestige in cultures (national, educational ,
organizational) that are good at innovating (hence for instance the
Stalinist practice of rewriting history to attribute inventions to obscure
russians?). The Culture meme's claim - "adopt me because if you do you
will be good at helping you find winning memes"
----------
>From: virus
>To: 'virus@lucifer.com'
>Subject: virus: Meaning, A Puzzle
>Date: 27 February 1998 04:54
>
><<File Attachment: HEADER.TXT>>
>A memetic puzzle for your consideration:
>
>In 1865 Gregor Mendel published work of fundamental importance. It made no
>impression during his own lifetime and was only "rediscovered" in 1902 by
>Sutton and Boveri who had arrived at similar ideas. Today he is practically
>a household name, second only to Darwin in his field, and his memetic star
>is still rising.
>
>If enduring fame is any reflection of a meaningful life then Mendel did
>very well. The only problem is he died without knowing it. If his work was
>never rediscovered or otherwise lost to obscurity he would be just another
>anonymous monk who had a thing for peas.
>
>So the meaningfulness of his life seems to have been an unanswered question
>at the time of his death. How is this possible? -- In other words it seems
>that either posthumous fame has no bearing on the meaning of one's life or
>that there is some mysterious backward causation taking place whereby
>future events can affect one's present life. Both possibilities seem cou
>nterintuitive...
>
>....so what's the way out of the dilemma? (If I've convinced you that there
>is a dilemma, that is.)
>
>The first correct answer wins a set of steak knives :-)
>
>Deron
>
>
Nicholas Knowles
Technical Director, OTI UK Ltd - Object Technology International
131 High Holborn London WC1V 6PS, England.
Voice: +44 (0)171 831 5051. Fax: +44 (0)171 440 9826
E-mail: nick_knowles@oti.com
73370,52@compuserve.com
http://www.oti.com