> Even though I admit that ONE way to characterize a
> meme is according to the "connections between neural
> cells"; it seems, again, superfluous to speak of a
> meme thus characterized if-- in fact-- the memetic
> unit is not reducible from two separate incidences
> (if the "meme" in the first brain isn't the same as
> the "meme" in the second brain... then why call "it"
> a *meme*).
>
> One characteristic of a meme is that it exists so as
> to replicate itself. Even assuming that the memeset
> within which the meme manifests is different from
> one structure to another... what is to keep us from
> localizing the meme proper in another form such that
> its consistency is noted in its transmission from
> one set of cells to another?
>
> For example, assume that two sets of different cells
> produce a behavior which is reducible to a specific
> chemical pattern traceable from one set of cells to
> the other (or that the behavior is traceable...
> though that area seems reserved for evolutionary
> biologists and psychologists rather than memeticists
> according to the current thinking on this list).
> Anyway, if this chemical pattern is the same from
> one person to another, and if THIS is found to be
> the meme (which replicates itself from one host to
> another); then, why remain focused on the difference
> and demand that THIS represent the meme?
>
>
> B. Lane Robertson
> Indiana, USA
> http://www.window.to/mindrec
> Bio: http://members.theglobe.com/bretthay
> See who's chatting about this topic:
> http://www.talkcity.com/chat.cgi?room=MindRec
>
>
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>
The problem with the description of a meme as a pattern is that it
comes down to the pattern difference in a particular brain between
the meme present within it and (all else being equal) the meme absent
from it. However, once you open the box to inspection, the meme
(kinda like Schodinger's cat) is either there or it is not. We
cannot have cloned twin brains with (excepting our meme) identical
formative (genetic and environmental) histories. Peter ain't Paul,
and never will be; nor are two Peters possible. Therefore we can
never map a pattern difference in the brain, for we can have our
deviation or our control, but not both. The same problem applies to
behavior. We can divine statistically significant behavioral
differences attributable (more or less) to the presence or absence of
memes over a population to a certain degree of probability, but there
is a Heisenbergian limit of precision that simply cannot be breached.