::scr clue

[Simon Wistow]

On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 03:17:37PM -0000, Martin Coxall said:
> Well, apart from the notion of "mimesis" coined by Socrates 3,000 years
> before Dawkin's birth.

Wasn't it Plotinus who came up with this term in 'Against the Gnostics'?

It doesn't quite mean the same thing, IIRC, as Dawkins use of meme as,
effectively, an atomic unit of information </gross undersimplification>

I thought (knowledge. of. Greek. literature. failing. fast. must keep
blagging) it was supposed to be the opposite of Eros, in the meaning
of Eros as "the soul's deepest yearning" (although Plato took it far
beyond this in Phaedrus and in Republic). Basically, froom what I
understood, memesis was a devaluation of a philosophical concept by
describing it in words (I'm very probably wrong. Most of my knowledge of
this comes from the notes in other books) - Plato felt that mimesis was
wholly without merit. As opposed to the ideal form of human interaction
- dialectical discourse (dialektike techne [0]).

I presume that tt's from this meaning of an (inferior) copy that we get
Mime, Mimeograph etc etc

Anyway, I diverge. Dawkin's ideas were these :

http://www.victorianweb.org/cpace/infotech/cook/memedef.html

which is essentially describing a virus (in the biological sense). Which
is a remarkably good description ... the meme exists only to replicate.
To do so it must not destroy its host (by making it so dull at parties
that no-one will speak to it, I suppose) and must be passed via a vector
(email, word of mouth) to another host. And the cycle begins again.

I read a paper about mimetic viruses and how to stop them once - the
Good Times 'virus' was the cited example since it was a major pain in
the ass - the suggestion borrowed from traditional virus (both computer
and biological senses) containment - try and find the source and the
spread. Innoculate and educate. The paper concluded that innoculation
was the same as education for mimetic viruses.

Interestingly enough, telling people that it was impossible for a virus
to infect your computer even if you just open the email was absolutely
correct then, but, thanks to Microsoft, that particular Boschian
nightmare is a reality. Which links us back in with the previous thread.








[0] I think techne is my favourite word ever

-- 
: i'm satisfied ... yet still strangely outraged.