What is a Meme?

[Opus the Penguin]

[NOTE: Three-way crosspost to alt.fan.cecil-adams,
alt.usage.english, and alt.folklore.urban]

I hope the crosspost is acceptable. I realize some people may
not see it due to filtering rules they have set in place. Our
groups have had cordial relations over the years, and this question
seems germane to all three.

AUE has an interest because it's a matter of usage and the
description or prescription thereof. AFU has an interest because
urban legends are sometimes described as "memes," either as though
the two concepts are synonymous, or as though the former constitute a
subset of the latter. AFCA has an interest because that's the sort of
thing we're interested in. QED.

As background, in AFCA we were batting about responses to the
comment: "Quick, name the last meme that was not propagated on the
internet." This brought five responses which may fall anywhwere on
the spectrum from Serious Proposal to Off the Cuff Quip:

- Elvis is alive
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
- The one just before "gry"
- The Macarena
- Paul is dead

The last one received a response from AFCA poster Pastime, who said:

> I think we need ... a definition of "meme" in this context.
> Clearly it's not the definition that Richard Dawkins used when he
> coined the word - those memes are arising all the time - nor is it
> the "internet meme" sense (like "LOL Jesus" or "overlay attached
> girlfriend") because by definition those are propagated on the
> internet.
>
> So what exactly are we looking for here?

(Side observation: I'm not sure I'm familiar with "overlay attached
girlfriend," but I'd be interested to see the do-it-yourself kit that
came with those instructions.)

I had found myself wondering the same thing. I think of a "meme" as
something that I know when I see. But I get the impression other
people may not know what I know when they see what I see.

Richard Dawkins--who originated the "meme" meme but naturally cannot
control its evolution--proposed it as a name for "a unit of cultural
transmission, or a unit of imitation" that replicates itself from one
mind to another. He said examples would include "tunes, ideas, catch-
phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building
arches."

He proposed the word in part because it sounded similar to "gene."
This helps lock down the idea that he's thinking of a "unit" of
information, whatever that might be. Complex ideas and involved
processes would then consist of (perhaps surprising) combinations of
these simpler units.

As pointed out above, memes in that sense arise constantly. There are
thousands and thousands of them out there, right now, swimming around
in the meme pool, hoping to become ... what?

We don't really have a separate word or agreed upon phrase for a meme
that hits the big time, that "goes viral" as it were, that attains
critical mass when the thousandth monkey thinks the same thought. I
think that even when we're talking about memes in the Dawkins sense,
we're usually talking about these successful memes.

But even then, we'll have to restrict and possibly alter the
definition to get from "successful meme" to LOLcats. How do we do
that? How do we identify a true meme in this narrower sense from just
any old idea that's floating around?

And what about urban legends? Are they memes? Are they collocations
of memes? (In which case, do we need a word to describe such
collocations? CHROMOSOME : GENE :: ???? : MEME. What about a word to
describe a meme's potential range of phenotypical expression given
different environments?) Or might they be referred to as memes by
synecdoche? I.e. the legends themselves are always more than memes,
but they all contain a memetic kernel. If so, how generic is the
meme? A concrete example may help. Take three obviously related urban
legends:

1. Red velvet cake
2. Mrs. Fields' cookie recipe
3. Neiman Marcus' cookie recipe

http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/cookie.asp

Here are some possibilities for that group:

a. All three are different (though similar) memes.
b. All three are the same meme.
c. All three *contain* the same meme, but are different expressions
of it.
d. All three contain the same memes (plural).
e. All three contain the same memes (plural), but different meme(s)
as well.

I have more thoughts and questions, but this is already way too long.
I'll close with this. When we discuss "the last meme that was not
propagated on the internet," I assume we mean the most recent meme
that owed its propagation primarily to something other than the
internet. If we mean that it has *never* been propagated on the
internet, I'm not sure there is such a thing.

Anyway, my answer as of now is "yada yada yada".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yada_yada_yada#.22Yada_yada.22

The expression existed before the March 31, 1997 Seinfeld episode.
But that's when it went viral. And while the internet may have helped
the spread, I don't think it was a necessary component.

--
Opus the Penguin
The best darn penguin in all of Usenet

[Joachim Pense]

Am 14.02.2013 16:38, schrieb Opus the Penguin:

>
>> I think we need ... a definition of "meme" in this context.
>> Clearly it's not the definition that Richard Dawkins used when he
>> coined the word - those memes are arising all the time - nor is it
>> the "internet meme" sense (like "LOL Jesus" or "overlay attached
>> girlfriend") because by definition those are propagated on the
>> internet.
>>
>> So what exactly are we looking for here?
>

>

> I had found myself wondering the same thing. I think of a "meme" as
> something that I know when I see. But I get the impression other
> people may not know what I know when they see what I see.
>

In the Q&A site www.quora.com, the word "meme" seems to be used in a
slightly restricted sense: a slightly funny picture, often of a person
with a speech bubble or the like attached uttering some more or less
funny truism. (For example a dinosaur saying "Life is unfair to
everyone. Doesn't that make life fair?").

Answers consisting of memes are frowned upon in quora, because they
easily get many upvotes, but don't contribute much to the question and
clutter up the site.

Joachim

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 17:40:57 +0100, Joachim Pense <sn...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:

>Am 14.02.2013 16:38, schrieb Opus the Penguin:
>
>>
>>> I think we need ... a definition of "meme" in this context.
>>> Clearly it's not the definition that Richard Dawkins used when he
>>> coined the word - those memes are arising all the time - nor is it
>>> the "internet meme" sense (like "LOL Jesus" or "overlay attached
>>> girlfriend") because by definition those are propagated on the
>>> internet.
>>>
>>> So what exactly are we looking for here?
>>
>
>>
>> I had found myself wondering the same thing. I think of a "meme" as
>> something that I know when I see. But I get the impression other
>> people may not know what I know when they see what I see.
>>
>
>In the Q&A site www.quora.com, the word "meme" seems to be used in a
>slightly restricted sense: a slightly funny picture, often of a person
>with a speech bubble or the like attached uttering some more or less
>funny truism. (For example a dinosaur saying "Life is unfair to
>everyone. Doesn't that make life fair?").

In the Internet sense a meme is a subset of Dawkins's idea.

Here is one such:

THE EIGHT THINGS MEME

Here are the rules�

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things
and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and
list their names.
4. Don�t forget to leave them a comment telling them they�re tagged, and to
read your blog.

and here's another:

15 Authors (meme)
Fifteen authors (poets included) who�ve influenced you and that will always
stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen
minutes. Tag at least fifteen friends, including me, because I�m interested in
seeing what authors my friends choose.

And if you want to see it in action, look here:

http://khanya.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/15-authors-meme/
or here:
http://khanya.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/eight-things-about-me/





--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

Opus the Penguin <opusthepen...@gmail.com> writes:

> As pointed out above, memes in that sense arise constantly. There
> are thousands and thousands of them out there, right now, swimming
> around in the meme pool, hoping to become ... what?

Propagated.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |"Algebra? But that's far too
SF Bay Area (1982-) |difficult for seven-year-olds!"
Chicago (1964-1982) |
|"Yes, but I didn't tell them that
evan.kir...@gmail.com |and so far they haven't found out,"
|said Susan.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:38:58 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
<evan.kir...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Opus the Penguin <opusthepen...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> As pointed out above, memes in that sense arise constantly. There
>> are thousands and thousands of them out there, right now, swimming
>> around in the meme pool, hoping to become ... what?
>
>Propagated.

Ah yes, isn't Dawkins the guy who ascribed that desire to genes?

<Googles>

Yes, here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

[Peter Brooks]

On Feb 14, 9:39 pm, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
>
> In the Internet sense a meme is a subset of Dawkins's idea.
>

The meme has life after Dawkins. It might have been superseded by now,
but Susan Blackmore's 'The Meme Machine' is the best exploration of
the notion that I've encountered. It goes much further, postulating
that our brains are no more than memeplexes. In that image everything
is a meme - words, metaphors, images. A thought that has the potential
to be shared with another memeplex is a meme.

[David DeLaney]

Evan Kirshenbaum <evan.kir...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Opus the Penguin <opusthepen...@gmail.com> writes:
>> As pointed out above, memes in that sense arise constantly. There
>> are thousands and thousands of them out there, right now, swimming
>> around in the meme pool, hoping to become ... what?
>
>Propagated.

And the ones that manage to propagate themselves, without needing to be
attached to something else like "the background knowledge of book 17 of the
Bible" or "the specifics of the infield fly rule", regardless of their actual
truth, falsity, or neither-one, are what I'd call memes these days. Pieces
of knowledge that can get ejected into the no\"osphere and propagate (and
reproduce themselves, so that the number of a given meme increases for at
least a while).

Dave, who has the last known instance of the Vicki Robinson .sig virus
safely quarantined below
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[R H Draney]

David DeLaney filted:

>
>Dave, who has the last known instance of the Vicki Robinson .sig virus
> safely quarantined below
>--
>\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
>It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
>Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
>http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

Is that the Vickie "Sue" Robinson .sig virus, or did I just turn the beat
around?...r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:30:18 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
wrote:

>On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:38:58 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
><evan.kir...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Opus the Penguin <opusthepen...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> As pointed out above, memes in that sense arise constantly. There
>>> are thousands and thousands of them out there, right now, swimming
>>> around in the meme pool, hoping to become ... what?
>>
>>Propagated.
>
>Ah yes, isn't Dawkins the guy who ascribed that desire to genes?
>

Rhetorically, not literally.

><Googles>
>
>Yes, here it is:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

--

Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Lee Rudolph]

What, you don't know that memes are quantized? And can tunnel?

Lee Rudolph

[Mac]

What kind of theory are you trying to string us along about?

>Lee Rudolph

Oh, el, it's you.

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) writes:

> Evan Kirshenbaum <evan.kir...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Opus the Penguin <opusthepen...@gmail.com> writes:
>>> As pointed out above, memes in that sense arise constantly. There
>>> are thousands and thousands of them out there, right now, swimming
>>> around in the meme pool, hoping to become ... what?
>>
>>Propagated.
>
> And the ones that manage to propagate themselves, without needing to
> be attached to something else like "the background knowledge of book
> 17 of the Bible" or "the specifics of the infield fly rule",
> regardless of their actual truth, falsity, or neither-one, are what
> I'd call memes these days. Pieces of knowledge that can get ejected
> into the no\"osphere and propagate (and reproduce themselves, so
> that the number of a given meme increases for at least a while).

That's the meme equivalent of the high r/low K strategy. Don't have
anybody care all that much, but ensure that you get reproduced a lot.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |Society in every state is a blessing,
SF Bay Area (1982-) |but government, even in its best
Chicago (1964-1982) |state is but a necessary evil; in its
|worst state, an intolerable one.
evan.kir...@gmail.com | Thomas Paine

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[David DeLaney]

R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>Is that the Vickie "Sue" Robinson .sig virus, or did I just turn the beat
>around?...r

I don't think that's right. I could ask...

Dave, plus postage

[David DeLaney]

Lee Rudolph <lrud...@panix.com> wrote:
>d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) writes:

>>Dave, who has the last known instance of the Vicki Robinson .sig virus
>> safely quarantined below
>

>What, you don't know that memes are quantized? And can tunnel?

Well, it seems to never have escaped so far. Perhaps it is content where it
is, surrounded by other memes its own age?

Dave, some never seem to need to go fourth and multiply

[Peter Brooks]

On Feb 15, 6:58 pm, Evan Kirshenbaum <evan.kirshenb...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> That's the meme equivalent of the high r/low K strategy.  Don't have
> anybody care all that much, but ensure that you get reproduced a lot.
>

I wonder whether 'strategy' is the right word. It suggests a
purposeful intention, which evolution lacks, as do most organisms.

I'm not sure what a better word would be, but I think 'strategy' is
somewhat anthropomorphic for the different methods of reproducing.

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

This is what Dennett[1] called "the intentional stance". He posits three
different "stances" to take when trying to predict the behavior of an
object or system.

First, there's the "physical stance", where you make your prediction
based on what you know of the actual physical state of the system and
your knowledge of the laws of physics and chemistry and the like.
That's the stance you take when you try to predict what a computer or
an unconscious person will do when dropped from an airplane.

Second, there's the "design stance", where you treat the system as
though it were designed to perform some function or had bits designed
to perform various functions. That's the stance you take when you
describe the heart as "an organ for pumping blood". In reality
there's no "for" about it. It's just a bunch of tissue that contracts
and whose regular contractions have the effect of pushing blood
through the circulatory system. But it's easier to understand how the
body works if you think of it as a bit of machinery that performs (and
is there to perform) that particular function. This is also the
stance you take when you try to predict what a person will do if a
particular organ "malfunctions" in a particular way. Or when you look
at the code for a computer program or the parts of a computer system,
which really are designed[2].

Third, there's the "intentional stance", where you treat the system as
though it had knowledge and desires and goals and the ability to
attempt to satisfy those goals. That's the stance we usually take
when trying to predict what people will do, and it's also the stance
we typically take when interacting with computers. ("The dialog box
popped up so that I could tell the program where to save the file.")

Dennett argues that we go between these stances all the time,
preferring the higher levels, because they get to the answer faster,
and only dropping down when the predictions at those levels contradict
what we see. (Or, if we're dogmatic, refusing to drop down.) And
that there's nothing wrong with this, as long as we realize that we're
only doing it because that gives us the easiest way to grasp what the
thing we're modeling does.

Most of the lay books on evolutionary theory I have spend a bit of
time at the beginning warning the reader that they will be using
intentional terms metaphorically and that they're not to be taken
literally. The non-lay books don't bother. It's just assumed that
everybody knows.

[1] Daniel Dennett, Intentional Systems, J. Phil., 68 (1971).

[2] Unless they are evolved. When I worked with genetic programming
and needed to make sense of the evolved solutions, I found myself
taking the same stance. "This bit computes the length of the
vector. That bit adds in the sum of the arguments..." But nobody
designed those bits.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |Just sit right back
SF Bay Area (1982-) | and you'll hear a tale,
Chicago (1964-1982) | a tale of the Stanford red
|That started when a little boy
evan.kir...@gmail.com | named Leland did drop dead

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[Robert Bannister]

I would suggest that they have, like other forms of expression
(metaphors, references to jokes, etc.) dates attached to them. At least
I think that is why I feel so irritated and contemptuous when I hear
people say - in this day and age! - "...and all that jazz".

--
Robert Bannister

[Peter Brooks]

On Feb 16, 12:22 am, Evan Kirshenbaum <evan.kirshenb...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> Dennett argues that we go between these stances all the time,
> preferring the higher levels, because they get to the answer faster,
> and only dropping down when the predictions at those levels contradict
> what we see.  (Or, if we're dogmatic, refusing to drop down.)  And
> that there's nothing wrong with this, as long as we realize that we're
> only doing it because that gives us the easiest way to grasp what the
> thing we're modeling does.
>

So, the short answer is that there aren't better words because it's a
result of the level of reduction, rather than language. Not a bad
answer, I agree.

I'm not sure that it's true that there is 'nothing wrong with it'.
Ascribing intentionality to things does, as you say, have the
advantage of getting you to where you want to be more quickly, but it
is at the cost of leaving memetic traces that can lead one into error.

I find it when I want to swear at a computer because of its
foolishness or obstinacy. In this case, it's wrong, but
understandable, to treat the computer as a metaphorical agent. It's a
slightly more interesting case because there is an agent responsible,
in this case the programmer - or, more realistically, the marketing
type at Microsoft or Google that's insisted on whatever idiocy is
causing the problem.

I still think it would be nice to have a word for an intention free
strategy - that is something for which strategy works as a metaphor,
but not as an accurate description.

[Peter Brooks]

Isn't it more because they're tired cliché than simply because they're
old? A line of poetry, or a line from a play, can remain fresh, even
if it is striking and memorable and old, if it hasn't been overused.

[Steve Hayes]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:22:41 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
<evan.kir...@gmail.com> wrote:

>First, there's the "physical stance", where you make your prediction
>based on what you know of the actual physical state of the system and
>your knowledge of the laws of physics and chemistry and the like.
>That's the stance you take when you try to predict what a computer or
>an unconscious person will do when dropped from an airplane.

So it's not literally a physical stance, or it is if you mean literally
metaphorically|?

[Robert Bannister]

Really it's funny how some really old phrases sound fresh or if not then
friendly, while others are just irritating.

--
Robert Bannister

[Peter Brooks]

From the point of view of memetics, it's the fresh sounding ones that
have the best chance of survival - though an alternative survival
'strategy' is for a phrase to be so extremely irritating that it's
used as verbal itching powder.

Tunes, or songs, being memes, survive mainly if they're fresh and
pleasant, but some really annoying ones can keep a grip on far too
much head-space for ages. Sometimes the only way to get rid of them is
to deliberately invoke another strongly haunting rhythm.

[David DeLaney]

David DeLaney <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote:
>R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>>Is that the Vickie "Sue" Robinson .sig virus, or did I just turn the beat
>>around?...r
>
>I don't think that's right. I could ask...

No, she says hers starts with J. (Which I knew, it turns out. Bah.)

Dave, write-only memory

[Dr Nick]

It's the intentional stance.

[Michael Kuettner]

Opus the Penguin wrote:
> [NOTE: Three-way crosspost to alt.fan.cecil-adams,
> alt.usage.english, and alt.folklore.urban]
>
> I hope the crosspost is acceptable.

<snip>
Oh yes, very acceptable.
A very nice post, too.

<snip>

> As background, in AFCA we were batting about responses to the
> comment: "Quick, name the last meme that was not propagated on the
> internet." This brought five responses which may fall anywhwere on
> the spectrum from Serious Proposal to Off the Cuff Quip:
>
> - Elvis is alive

Not a meme, except in the widest sense.
Like "Barbarossa sleeps in the Kyffhaeuser".

> - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Not a meme, but anti-semitic propaganda by the Russian Czar's
secret police.

> - The one just before "gry"

???

> - The Macarena
???

> - Paul is dead
>
Yeah, and Satanic messages when a record is played backwards.
That might be a meme.

<snip>

> I had found myself wondering the same thing. I think of a "meme" as
> something that I know when I see. But I get the impression other
> people may not know what I know when they see what I see.
>

As is shown by your examples below. It is tricky ...

<snip>

> We don't really have a separate word or agreed upon phrase for a meme
> that hits the big time, that "goes viral" as it were, that attains
> critical mass when the thousandth monkey thinks the same thought. I
> think that even when we're talking about memes in the Dawkins sense,
> we're usually talking about these successful memes.
>

Successful memes always are involved with fears, I think.

> But even then, we'll have to restrict and possibly alter the
> definition to get from "successful meme" to LOLcats. How do we do
> that? How do we identify a true meme in this narrower sense from just
> any old idea that's floating around?
>

By looking at old stories. Some elements always remain the same;
like fear and Schadenfreude, eg.
Those would be the "Ueber-Memes" ;-)

<snip>

> A concrete example may help. Take three obviously related urban
> legends:
>

Bad examples.
Those are USA'n urban legends.
They won 't work anywhere outside the US.

> 1. Red velvet cake
> 2. Mrs. Fields' cookie recipe
> 3. Neiman Marcus' cookie recipe
>

Why not try
1. Poisonous spider in bananas / exotic plant
2. Luxury car sold cheap. After buying, new owner discovers that it
stinks, because a corpse was ripening in it for two weeks
3. Winner of Noble prize or excellant scientist was bad in school .
(OK, they're not related. But those are memes that work in Europe and
USA/Canada. And maybe other countries, too).

You'd need to find some memes like the above examples which are
also known outside the USA (like my examples).
None of those urban legends mentioned by you ever took root over here.

Let's simply ask our posters for urban legends/memes known in their
countries. Maybe we can get closer to memes then.


<snip>

Cheers,

Michael Kuettner

PS : I'm from Austria.
Meme (UL) 2 was associated with a Jaguar, later other luxury caes.
Meme 3 is mostly associated with Einstein.

[Peter Moylan]

On 02/03/13 09:55, Michael Kuettner wrote:

> Opus the Penguin wrote:

>> A concrete example may help. Take three obviously related urban
>> legends:
>>
> Bad examples.
> Those are USA'n urban legends.
> They won 't work anywhere outside the US.
>
>> 1. Red velvet cake
>> 2. Mrs. Fields' cookie recipe
>> 3. Neiman Marcus' cookie recipe
>>
> Why not try
> 1. Poisonous spider in bananas / exotic plant
> 2. Luxury car sold cheap. After buying, new owner discovers that it
> stinks, because a corpse was ripening in it for two weeks
> 3. Winner of Noble prize or excellant scientist was bad in school .
> (OK, they're not related. But those are memes that work in Europe and
> USA/Canada. And maybe other countries, too).
>
> You'd need to find some memes like the above examples which are
> also known outside the USA (like my examples).
> None of those urban legends mentioned by you ever took root over here.
>
> Let's simply ask our posters for urban legends/memes known in their
> countries. Maybe we can get closer to memes then.

None of your examples are memes. They are urban legends.

You both seem to be saying that an urban legend can be a meme. That
would make the already-fuzzy definition of "meme" even fuzzier,
rendering the concept close to pointless.

--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.

[aquachimp]

For what it's worth, I've understood that memes (spell checker doesn't
recognise it) are akin to paralleled notions symptomatic of an
emotive infection.

[Peter Brooks]

Any, and every, idea is a meme, from urban legends to what food is
good for you to the formula for the area of a circle. The difficulty
is thinking of a thought that isn't a meme. Memes are units of thought
or units of idea, our brains are, as Susan Blackmore put it,
'memeplexes' - they're engines for processing memes and it is the
operation of those engines that create memes, communicate them and
remember, or forget, them. The ecosystem of memes in memeplexes is
what is homologous to genes in creatures - a creature is a gene-plex,
that is, the expression of the genes that determine it, and it's
survival, or not, determines the survival of the genes.

Memeplexes are a bit more forgiving than gene-plexes because a
memeplex can die, but still memes created by it continue to exist,
possibly for thousands of years.

[Lee Rudolph]

What is a meme, that thou art mindfull of it?

Lee Rudolph

[Opus the Penguin]

Lee Rudolph (lrud...@panix.com) wrote:

> What is a meme, that thou art mindfull of it?
>
> Lee Rudolph
>

Or the son of meme that thou postest about it?

--
Opus the Penguin
The best darn penguin in all of Usenet

[David DeLaney]

Opus the Penguin <opusthepen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Lee Rudolph (lrud...@panix.com) wrote:
>> What is a meme, that thou art mindfull of it?
>

>Or the son of meme that thou postest about it?

Can you call a meme from the vasty mental depths?

Dave, and put it down again?

[Alan J Rosenthal]

Peter Brooks <peter.h....@gmail.com> writes:
>Any, and every, idea is a meme, from urban legends to what food is
>good for you to the formula for the area of a circle.

So the word "meme" is at best a synonym for "idea".

(But actually it's less meaningful than that -- "idea" plus fuzziness.)

[aquachimp]

On Mar 3, 4:50 pm, Lewis <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> In message <6d8efb9e-bae8-4e55-afb7-6e8faa26e...@z4g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>

> A meme is an idea or a behavior that passes through people without any
> obvious method of sharing it.

Do you mean like subatomic particles or some such? Might that be how
various unconnected cultures developed writing at around the same
time?

My stumbling block concerns using the word "sharing" when perhaps the
word "infecting" might be more appropriate.
For a meme to be successful it has to get into position and then
dominate.
May an unsuccessful meme still be called a meme just as a gene remains
a gene regardless of its levels of influence?

To me, it represents / reveals itself as a notion. Others with the
same meme "infection" are likely to "share" (display) similar
notions.

I was not aware that one of the rules governing the identification of
memes is that the sharing/infecting/contamination has to have no
obvious method of doing so.

> So, posting something to twitter doesn't
> make it a meme, and most Internet memes aren't.

Urm... an internet meme isn't a meme? A meme isn't a meme? Is this
back to the unheralded memes aren't memes?

>When some specific idea
> is shared by a lot of people at once, then it may be a meme.

So, success is the measure of definition.


>
> The word was coined by Richard Dawkins (yes, the Satan worshipping
> atheist,


urm, he can't be a Satan worshipper AND and atheist at the same time.


Richard Dawkins :) in the 70s as a way of describing the type
> of ideas spread through a culture. Dawkins' argument was that a meme is
> to the culture as a gene is to the individual.
>
> --
> "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho
> Marx

[aquachimp]

On Mar 3, 7:26 pm, fl...@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) wrote:

> Peter Brooks <peter.h.m.bro...@gmail.com> writes:
> >Any, and every, idea is a meme, from urban legends to what food is
> >good for you to the formula for the area of a circle.
>
> So the word "meme" is at best a synonym for "idea".
>

I'd say more of a notion.

[Peter Brooks]

On Mar 4, 12:26 am, Lewis <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> In message <be91e4b1-ad14-420f-8410-09b088e11...@m4g2000vbo.googlegroups.com>

> most things called memes are called that because the people using the
> word have no idea what it means.
>
Or, rather, most things are not called memes because of that.

[Kevin]

On Sun, 3 Mar 2013 15:50:51 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

>In message <6d8efb9e-bae8-4e55...@z4g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>

>A meme is an idea or a behavior that passes through people without any
>obvious method of sharing it.

Where do you get this definition from? From what I recall of Dawkins'
original idea, it was just a replicating idea or skill. I don't recall
any requirement that the means of transmission be invisible. In fact,
he talked about skills like building arches as memes, right? But they
have obvious methods of replication, they're taught openly.

[Kevin]

On 3 Mar 2013 18:26:45 GMT, fl...@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal)
wrote:

It's an idea that replicates. In order to study mutation et al, you
have to have replication of the meme from person to person.

[Peter Brooks]

On Mar 4, 8:23 am, Kevin <K_S_ONe...@yh.com> wrote:
> On 3 Mar 2013 18:26:45 GMT, fl...@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal)
> wrote:
>

> >Peter Brooks <peter.h.m.bro...@gmail.com> writes:
> >>Any, and every, idea is a meme, from urban legends to what food is
> >>good for you to the formula for the area of a circle.
>
> >So the word "meme" is at best a synonym for "idea".
>
> >(But actually it's less meaningful than that -- "idea" plus fuzziness.)
>
> It's an idea that replicates. In order to study mutation et al, you
> have to have replication of the meme from person to person.
>

Not necessarily. 'Red' and 'Green', for example, are memes for the
relative qualia and are thus easily transmitted to most people. Those
with red-green colourblindness have difficulty understanding these
memes, not simply because of poor, or garbled, transmission, or from
being ineffective meme-machines, but because they lack the quale of
one or other that'd enable the meme to be replicated faithfully.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Mon, 4 Mar 2013 06:33:18 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

>In message <38f8j819cmebg435r...@4ax.com>

>I thought it was the morphology of the idea and the non-obvious method
>of transmission (not that it was invisible or secret, just not explicit)
>that defined the meme. A concept spread through a culture via mimicry
>and with that concept being amenable.
>

OED:

meme, n.
Etymology: Shortened < mimeme (see quot. 19761) < ancient Greek
?????? that which is imitated ( < ????????? to imitate: see mimesis
n.), after gene n.2
Biol.

A cultural element or behavioural trait whose transmission and
consequent persistence in a population, although occurring by
non-genetic means (esp. imitation), is considered as analogous to
the inheritance of a gene.

1976 R. Dawkins Selfish Gene xi. 206 The new soup is the soup of
human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which
conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of
imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a
monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist
friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme... It
should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cream’. Examples of memes are
tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots
or of building arches.

>>In fact, he talked about skills like building arches as memes, right?
>>But they have obvious methods of replication, they're taught openly.
>

>I thought the point of the arch was that it wasn't taught, per se. It
>was built, and then other people built them too. And maybe theirs were a
>little different and some were better and there you go.
>
>But I could easily be misremembering or conflating it with something
>else about the Minoans.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Peter Brooks]

On Mar 4, 12:25 pm, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
wrote:

> On Mon, 4 Mar 2013 06:33:18 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> >In message <38f8j819cmebg435rji31e3u4qbqfle...@4ax.com>

> >  Kevin <K_S_ONe...@yh.com> wrote:
> >> On Sun, 3 Mar 2013 15:50:51 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

> >> <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>
> >>>In message <6d8efb9e-bae8-4e55-afb7-6e8faa26e...@z4g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>

The other quotes are quite good too:

"
1980 Ibid. 3 July 50/2 The mutant reading (a meme as some
sociobiologists might call it) appears to have had at least three
independent origins.    1986 W. A. Koch Genes vs. Memes iii. 40
Although genes and memes are interconnected in one direction (genes
create memes), their circular embrace is disrupted at one point.
   1986 Canad. Jrnl. Zool. LXIV. 1576 Congruence of the patterns of
morphometric and cultural evolution in these islands suggests‥that the
differentiation has been influenced by a colonization history
involving restricted gene and meme flow between archipelagos,
subsequent drift, and possibly founder effects.    1988 Ecology LXIX.
104 (heading) Biological and cultural success of song memes in indigo
buntings.    1993 Wired Feb. 132/2 I'm not sure what happens to such a
culture when radical Maoism is replaced by the far more seductive meme
of Western consumer culture.
"

I think this is useful too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memeplex

and:

Susan Blackmore (2002) re-stated the definition of meme as: whatever
is copied from one person to another person, whether habits, skills,
songs, stories, or any other kind of information. Further she said
that memes, like genes, are replicators in the sense as defined by
Dawkins

[Lee Rudolph]

Perhaps it's time to put AFU's old mission statement^Wbumper sticker,
"Eisegesis of the Exoteric R Us", out to pasture [1], and move on to
"AFU: Sequencing the Junk DNA of the Human Memeome since, like,
forever!"

Lee Rudolph

[1] Or so we'll *say*. In fact, you can bet traces of it
will keep showing up in your brainburgers! [2]

[2] (ObAUE) And in fact I've already repurposed the phrase "eisegesis
of exoterica" to bumperstickerize (my interpretation of) Jody
Azzouni's article "How and why mathematics is unique as a social
practice" (in R. Hersh, ed., _18 Unconventional Essays on the
Nature of Mathematics_, Springer, pp. 201-219). His essay can
be retrieved intact from http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29831-2.
Parts of my chapter (those which haven't been nobbled by knackers)
can be retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=8BWGlPa-kFEC&q=Azzouni,
http://books.google.com/books?id=8BWGlPa-kFEC&q=eisegesis, and similarly
formed URLs. See also http://www.evolutionaryontology.com/drupal/ [3].

[3] http://www.evolutionaryontology.com/drupal/content/blog-post/monkeys-and-shakespeare-part-1
and http://www.evolutionaryontology.com/drupal/content/blog-post/stir-fries-and-differential-equations
may also be of interest to all y'all, or at least some y'ome.

[Steve Hayes]

On Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:25:54 +0000, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"
<ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:

> 1976 R. Dawkins Selfish Gene xi. 206 The new soup is the soup of
> human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which
> conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of
> imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a
> monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist
> friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme... It
> should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cream’. Examples of memes are
> tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots
> or of building arches.

That made me think of this:

Talcott Parsons and obscure language.
Source: Andreski 1972:60.
"The prime example of obscurity is, of course, Talcott
Parsons, as can well be seen even in a book which is less
burdened by this vice than his other works: namely,
'Societies: evolutionary and comparative perspectives'...
Sometimes the author's insensitivity to the meanings of words
and his lack of feeling for logic prompt him to make
statements which are not merely platitudinous but plainly
silly, as when he writes on page 30, 'In the realm of action,
the gene has been replaced by the symbol as the basic
structural element.' As if we could be here at all if our
genes had been replaced by symbols, or as if our capacity to
use symbols did not depend on the nature of our genes. After
all, worms cannot speak and crocodiles cannot write."

[Kevin]

I'm not sure what part of this justifies "Not necessarily". I just
said that a meme had to replicate; it does not follow that I (or
Dawkins in the original definition) require that the meme replicate
across all possible hosts. Indeed, imperfect replication is sort of
the point.

[S. Checker]

In alt.fan.cecil-adams Peter Brooks <peter.h....@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 4, 12:26?am, Lewis <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>> In message <be91e4b1-ad14-420f-8410-09b088e11...@m4g2000vbo.googlegroups.com>

>> ? aquachimp <aquach...@fsmail.net> wrote:
>> > I was not aware that one of the rules governing the identification of
>> > memes is that the sharing/infecting/contamination has to have no
>> > obvious method of doing so.
>> >> So, posting something to twitter doesn't
>> >> make it a meme, and most Internet memes aren't.
>> > Urm... an internet meme isn't a meme? A meme isn't a meme? Is this
>> > back to the unheralded memes aren't memes?
>>
>> most things called memes are called that because the people using the
>> word have no idea what it means.
>>
> Or, rather, most things are not called memes because of that.

You keep using that word. I do not think it memes what you think it
memes.
--
Steady movement is more important than speed, much of the time. So long
as there is a regular progression of stimuli to get your mental hooks
into, there is room for lateral movement. Once this begins, its rate is
a matter of discretion.
-- Corwin, Prince of Amber

[David DeLaney]

Lee Rudolph <lrud...@panix.com> wrote:
>fl...@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) writes:
>>Peter Brooks <peter.h....@gmail.com> writes:
>>>Any, and every, idea is a meme, from urban legends to what food is
>>>good for you to the formula for the area of a circle.
>>
>>So the word "meme" is at best a synonym for "idea".
>>
>>(But actually it's less meaningful than that -- "idea" plus fuzziness.)
>
>Perhaps it's time to put AFU's old mission statement^Wbumper sticker,
>"Eisegesis of the Exoteric R Us", out to pasture [1], and move on to
>"AFU: Sequencing the Junk DNA of the Human Memeome since, like, forever!"

I just find it fascinating that it's apparently not possible to exactly pin
down _which_ meme "meme" _is_.

Dave, the more it changes the samer it stays

[ke10]

On 03/03/2013 18:04, David DeLaney wrote:
> Opus the Penguin <opusthepen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Lee Rudolph (lrud...@panix.com) wrote:
>>> What is a meme, that thou art mindfull of it?
>>
>> Or the son of meme that thou postest about it?
>
> Can you call a meme from the vasty mental depths?
>
> Dave, and put it down again?
>

And will it come when you do call for it?

Katy

[Lee Rudolph]

Of course not: there's that whole "tip of the tongue"
phenomenon.

Lee Rudolph

[David DeLaney]

L'esprit du escalier. Which is why they tell you not to lick the banisters.

Dave, ou sont les memes d'antan?

[Robert Bannister]

On 9/03/13 3:21 AM, David DeLaney wrote:
> Lee Rudolph <lrud...@panix.com> wrote:
>> ke10 <ke...@cam.ac.uk> writes:
>>> On 03/03/2013 18:04, David DeLaney wrote:
>>>> Opus the Penguin <opusthepen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Lee Rudolph (lrud...@panix.com) wrote:
>>>>>> What is a meme, that thou art mindfull of it?
>>>>>
>>>>> Or the son of meme that thou postest about it?
>>>>
>>>> Can you call a meme from the vasty mental depths?
>>>>
>>>> Dave, and put it down again?
>>>>
>>> And will it come when you do call for it?
>>
>> Of course not: there's that whole "tip of the tongue" phenomenon.
>
> L'esprit du escalier. Which is why they tell you not to lick the banisters.

I am glad you used the correct spelling.

--
Robert Bannister

[Lee Rudolph]

Which is easily remembered by noting that it ends with "retsina", Backwards.

Lee Rudolph

[David DeLaney]

Which is why Lee occasionally licks one.

Dave, not that there's anything WRONG with that; I'm happy, you're happy, she's
happy, the BANISTER'S happy!

[Adam Funk]

If you can type the label backwards, pour another glass.


--
A recent study conducted by Harvard University found that the average
American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study by the AMA found
that Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. This
means, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon.
http://www.cartalk.com/content/average-americans-mpg

[Robert Bannister]

I think I may have drunk it backwards that night in Greece that I don't
remember.

--
Robert Bannister

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) writes:

> Lee Rudolph <lrud...@panix.com> wrote:
>>Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> writes:
>>>On 9/03/13 3:21 AM, David DeLaney wrote:
>>>> Lee Rudolph <lrud...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>>> ke10 <ke...@cam.ac.uk> writes:
>>>>>> On 03/03/2013 18:04, David DeLaney wrote:
>>>>>>> Opus the Penguin <opusthepen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> Lee Rudolph (lrud...@panix.com) wrote:
>>>>>>>>> What is a meme, that thou art mindfull of it?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Or the son of meme that thou postest about it?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Can you call a meme from the vasty mental depths?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dave, and put it down again?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> And will it come when you do call for it?
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course not: there's that whole "tip of the tongue" phenomenon.
>>>>
>>>> L'esprit du escalier. Which is why they tell you not to lick the
>>>> banisters.
>>>
>>>I am glad you used the correct spelling.
>>
>>Which is easily remembered by noting that it ends with "retsina",
>>Backwards.
>
> Which is why Lee occasionally licks one.
>
> Dave, not that there's anything WRONG with that; I'm happy, you're
> happy, she's happy, the BANISTER'S happy!

There's a professor there whom I hope to be studying with. A
brilliant man, Dr. Howard Bannister. No, "Bannister". As in
"sliding down the".

Yeah, I checked the credits in my copy to be sure.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |Society in every state is a blessing,
SF Bay Area (1982-) |but government, even in its best
Chicago (1964-1982) |state is but a necessary evil; in its
|worst state, an intolerable one.
evan.kir...@gmail.com | Thomas Paine

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[R H Draney]

Evan Kirshenbaum filted:

>
>
> There's a professor there whom I hope to be studying with. A
> brilliant man, Dr. Howard Bannister. No, "Bannister". As in
> "sliding down the".
>
>Yeah, I checked the credits in my copy to be sure.

Recognized the line on sight, but couldn't remember what it was from (and after
I'd quoted the same movie many times myself for the exchange among Ryan O'Neal,
Kenneth Mars and the judge)....r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[David DeLaney]

And, because I forgot to this whole time, sorry:

Meme meme tekel upharsin!

Dave, or was that 'upstairs-in'?
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower

It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>

http://panacea.phys.utk.edu/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ/ I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.