Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: argosy!kevin@decwrl.dec.com (Kevin S. Van Horn) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Memetics Message-ID: Date: 18 Dec 90 19:13:07 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: MasPar Computer Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 27 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu I've seen memetics discussed from time to time in this newsgroup, and I have a question: is there a real theory of memetics? Everything I've read on the subject to this point has been rather vague and mostly metaphorical. A real scientific theory has to be capable of generating predictions of some sort that can actually be tested. Is there a theory of memetics that can provide concrete, testable predictions about the spread of ideas? Or, perhaps, even aid one in designing an idea for maximum propagation? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin S. Van Horn | It is the means that determine the ends. kevin@maspar.com | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kevin S. Van Horn | What we really need is a *system* of government, argosy!kevin@decwrl.dec.com | not a Government; the latter is merely a form | of institutionalized crime. [There is a scholarly journal devoted to memetics, called the Journal of Ideas, published by the Institute for Memetic Research, Box 16327, Panama City, FL 32406-1327. This would probably represent the most organized thought on the subject. There is a substantial body of literature on the history of ideas, and it might be possible to re-systematize it using the ideas of memetics, and to see whether this brought any advantages or new insights. Other than that, however, memetics seems to be more an application of the basic Darwinian mechanism than a theory *sui generis*. --JoSH]