virus: articulation
Tracy Yucikas (tyucikas@cts.com)
Thu, 12 Mar 1998 22:13:47 -0800 (PST)
Hello, this being my first time to have posted here,
let me say that I have followed several months of
the proceedings; nice show here, with real efforts
to explore some of the stickier aspects of "life
as we know it".
The randomness of pi sorta leads to the conclusion
that somewhere out there in the sequence of digits lies
the plain-ASCII representation of "Joe Smith, you're
absolutely right in your prediction of April 16, 1998."
... but it's a very long stretch of digits from the list
of those known at this time.
As an ex-wanna-be mathematician, I have previously been
struck by the lowness of the probability of the matching
of the angular displacement of the size of the sun and
the moon and the range of the size of the shadow of totality
during a solar eclipse. Doesn't take a terribly hi-tech
tool to consider this phenomenon.
Can there be "false-to-fact" memes? Alright, memes
seem to be associated with thought-structures, or actions,
or mental states, or heavily steeped in language forms.
Sheesh, my memory remembers reading about memes here, but
writing about them is way-more difficult. Eigenvalues ?
no comment. Did Mozart use/create musical memes ? The
measurable effect on intelligence from listening to Mozart
would seem to argue strongly for a validity somewhere.
Oh yeah, there's a factor of self-replication involved
in this definition. And music that crops up hundreds of
years after its initial articulation might very well be
considered a manifestation of this replication ... or I
may well be drifting off target. There is a price to pay
for focus.
Lotsa blind alleys in these woods.
....
living in a glass house,
Tracy