Re: virus: Re: respectable

Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Tue, 5 Aug 97 20:34:01 -0400


>But my honest gut response to your proposal is that science should be
>nudged in the direction of being a respectable branch of memetics.

I was toying with the notion of dividing our feeble attempts at
understanding this universe into two parts- physics and memetics.

Then that old villain rationality took over and said- 'It's physics,
stupid!'

Well, yes it is....

However, there is a wide range of studies which, with a little proper
positioning and belly-rubbing, could all be gathered under the rubric
memetics.

Then an early bias chimed in with- 'What's wrong with aesthetics? Hmmm?
Or philology? Why has everyone forgotten philology?'

And I again say that, so far, nothing presented as memetics, _except the
foggy notion of the meme_, is (to me at least), in any way disparate from
aesthetics. Now, don't get me wrong, I truly love aesthetics, the physics
of expression after all....

Once this thing called a meme is pinned down (and it ain't yet, folks,
regardless of who's lexicon is being waved about....) then memetics may
indeed open like an umbrella over the aesthetic and social disciplines,
not to mention philosophy, that bastard child of discourse.

And I for one would enjoy this measurability of culture, this sudden
influx of the known into the solid impenetrability of art.

*****************
Wade T. Smith
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