Sunday, December 17, 2006

meme with a difference

Since I signed up on Colette's blog, it's my turn. I'd provide a link to her blog on my sidebar, but I don't know how to add links yet..... but I'll paste it here -- check it out!!! http://a-bird-in-the-hand.blogspot.com/

"The first five people to respond to this post (via the comments section) will get some form of art made by me. The only catch, of course: as with most memes, if you sign up, you have to put this in your own blog as well."

The art will be something fabricky and will help to celebrate the new year.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is a meme?

martha brown said...

The term "meme" (IPA: /miːm/, not /mɛm/ or /mimi/, to rhyme with "theme"), coined in 1976 by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, refers to a unit of cultural information transferable from one mind to another. Dawkins said, Examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. A meme propagates itself as a unit of cultural evolution and diffusion — analogous in many ways to the behavior of the gene (the unit of genetic information). Often memes propagate as more-or-less integrated cooperative sets or groups, referred to as memeplexes or meme-complexes.

The idea of memes has proved a successful meme in its own right, achieving a degree of penetration into popular culture rare for a scientific theory.

Proponents of memes suggest that memes evolve via natural selection — in a way very similar to Charles Darwin's ideas concerning biological evolution — on the premise that variation, mutation, competition, and "inheritance" influence their replicative success. For example, while one idea may become extinct, other ideas will survive, spread and mutate — for better or for worse — through modification.

Meme-theorists contend that memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive; rather, those memes which replicate the most effectively spread best; which allows for the possibility that successful memes might prove detrimental to their hosts.

Anonymous said...

Sign me up! I have just the idea and I will start once I get back from out west.

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the blog world! This is so great! One more person to link to!

Anonymous said...

I love the idea that Colette has about bonuses. Wouldn't it be a wonderful change. Then the poorer could enjoy many of the little "luxuries" like enough gasoline for a ride in the country, or a new box of crayolas for the kids, DM