> At 06:57 AM 26/11/96 -0500, Alex Williams wrote:
[CLIP]
> OK, here's a new argument that will prove that memes are encoded in
> writing:
>
> 1. Memes aren't encoded in writing.
> 2. Memes aren't encoded in a recording of a spoken narrative of writing.
> 3. Memes aren't encoded in a live spoken narrative of writing.
> 4. Memes aren't encoded in speech.
> 5. Memes cannot be transmitted by speech.
> 6. Memes cannot be transmitted.
>
> Obviously (I think) 6 is wrong. Each step follows logically
> from the previous (to the extent that if X is true, it is
> reasonable to say that X+1 is true), so where does the argument
> go wrong? I say the first premise is flawed.
Glancing at this:
#1,2,3,4 are equivalent. The entire process of "encoding a meme" is so
contraintuitive that I could reasonably claim that #1,2,3,4 are all true.
[Example: running an 8086 program on a IIe doesn't work too well,
showing that the executable file fails to be self-contained in defining
its meme. Its meme expresses properly on the target machine it was
compiled for, and does not express properly on the IIe.]
#5 is *definitely* wrong, empirically.
I would say that the places to attack are:
1) #1,2,3,4
2) The implication #4 => #5.
I think the implication is MUCH more vulnerable to being false.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/ Towards the conversion of data into information....
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/ Kenneth Boyd
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