>Except that I have difficulty stating bald-faced that
>`books/text/artifacts /encode/ memes' without looking aghast. They only
>encode memes if you accept that there is guaranteed a
>translation/interpreter extant for that code. For example, there are
>still fragments of Sanskrit that haven't been translated nor are likely
>to ever be translated. Do they `encode memes'? I'd say no; they carry
>patterns that have no interpreter to make use of them to encourage
>in-head meme-reproduction from other memes.
How do you know the Sanskrit fragments are unlikely to ever be translated?
Egyptian heiroglyphics were not interpretable for almost 2000 years until
the discovery of the Rosetta stone in 1799.
(http://www.gold.net/users/iy12/aaes/orion/egyptol.htm)
Would you say the heiroglyphics encoded memes when they were written,
stopped encoding memes when the language was lost, and started again
when the Rosetta stone was discovered? That seems rather bizarre to me.
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/