virus: Re: How did we get here?

Peter Charlot (bevens@hgea.org)
Mon, 10 Feb 1997 11:13:15 -1000

At 09:13 AM 2/10/97 -0800, you wrote:
>
> Jake asked:
> P.S. I stumbled on memetics after researching political theory. How did
you all get intrested?
>
This is going to sound very weird, but it is the truth. I came up with the
basic concepts underlying what you all call memetics (and what I will now
learn to do) twenty years ago, when I was thirty. This, after spending ten
years trying to develop a theory for machine consciousness. Last year I
finally put it all down in a paper called, "Mind As Cosmos."

Now here is the hard part for me to understand. I missed the whole movement.
I don't know how. I've been researching obscure philosophers,
neuroscientists and A-life folks. Close as I came was Dennett's
"Consciousness Explained." I was intrigued that he nibbled at the
self-replicating idea, but he seemed focused elsewhere. I guess I should
have payed closer attention to the bibliography. Never came across the
memetics universe until two weeks ago, when I punched it up in YAHOO! I feel
real stupid. You cannot imagine what it is like, after all this time, to
come across thousands of people devoted to the subject.