>Seriously though : if someone were to say to me :-
>"I believe in flying pigs" and I said to them
>"That's bullshit" and them I forgot all about it.
>Did I truely develop a counter-meme for an ephemeral
>time or did I merely reject someone elses meme?
This is why I prefer to only label as "memes" those ideas which are
transmited in some form from one decision making system (a human brain in
most cases) to another, similar system. Until <There ain't no flyin' pigs!>
travels from inside your head to the inside of someone elses, no meme is or
was present.
(BTW, Wade, this simplifies your quest for that elusive lil' bugger. Unless
there is a change in state in a system /as a result of contact with another
system/, then you don't have a meme. So, to the extent it is possible to
track both communication and changes in state (ideas held), one can, in
fact, hunt for the fabled meme with relative efficacy.
-Prof. Tim