virus: Re: Memes are necessarily hosted by sentient beings?

IBANCORP@tricom.net
Tue, 11 Jun 1996 08:35:43 -0400


<---- Begin Included Message ---->
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 15:25:52 -0400
From: John Porter <jporter@btg.com>

Memes are necessarily hosted by sentient beings. So far, that's just us.
[That is, if there are other meme-supporting minds out there, there has
been no meme-transfer between them and us. (wink to Tad)]

<snip>

-- 
John Porter
jporter@btg.com

<---- End Included Message ---->

Did I miss some big part of this conversation? What about all the examples of bio-mimicry? i.e.

Ancient human spear-fisher-person notices spider building web.

Ancient human sees web catch spider-food.

"Ahah! More passive food catching equals more expendable calories!"

Ancient human spear-fisher-person weaves net and (due to successful x-fer of web-meme from spider to human brain), becomes...

Ancient human net-fisher-person.

...who continues to ponder and refine the web idea until...

Ancient human net-fisher-person becomes

[many generations pass]

...modern human WWWeb-fisher-person.

Or was that what the wink to Tad was about?

One step further would be to question whether the spider as the originator (?) of the web-meme was carrying it in any mind at all (let alone a sentient mind) or whether the web-meme was just simply stored genetically. Regardless, it seems to me that any information recording medium can theoretically function as meme transport or storage.