Re: virus: Original Thoughts
Eric Boyd (6ceb3@qlink.queensu.ca)
Sun, 23 Jun 1996 17:59:17 -0500
Tim Rhodes wrote:
> This is a good a point and very close to what I have been mulling on for a
> couple days. I don't think we can gain much from talking about
> "originality" if we also realize the memetic legacy and causality of the
> ideas we recombine.
>
> However, discussing the "novelty"[1] of new recombinations of ideas seems
> much more fruitful. If only we had a scale whereby we could judge, say,
> <A'> as x% more novel than <A>. Or speak of <D> as being a specific
> recombination of <A> + <B> + <C> resulting in an x% increase in total
> novelty of <D> vs. <A+B+C>.
>
> Any ideas for a unit of novelty, folks?
The Tim? A unit corresponding to a 1% increase in the novelty of a meme
or meta-meme over it's parent(s). Of course, measuring such an increase
will be difficult, to say the least.[1] It is interesting to note that
even 100 Tim's does not mean a /new/ idea. It just means the idea is
100% more novel than the old one. How, then, do we express the novelity
of a /totally/ new idea (Orginal Thought?) Is that an infinite Tim? Or
does that transend the scale?
[1] I propose a sort of vote style thing... everyone gives their
estimate of how novel the idea is, and we average (or apply any of the
stats tools) to find the Tim rating.
ERiC