From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Jan 23 1998 - 05:01:49 MST
At 12:48 PM 1/22/98 -0600, Thom wrote:
>I must have missed this earlier, what is a keme?
A keme is a stupid typo of mine. I meant to write `kene', which is a
borrowing from Gregory Benford's Galactic Center sequence of sf novels. In
SAILING BRIGHT ETERNITY, we are told:
`Memes evolved in turn far faster than genes. Brains are easier to infest
than DNA.
`The organized constellation of information in computers were *kenes* -
from *ken*, to know.
`[...] Kenes evolved faster than memes. Soon, they learned to leave even
the substrate of silicon. Ordered, replicating data propagated beyond its
*in silico* origins. Rather than matter, it sought out fields - electric,
magnetic, even gravitational.' And so on.
And then there are *datavores* - `these use the energy equivalence of
information... Predators do not propagate memes; they feed upon them.'
I suspect a link with Greg Bear's *evolvons*, which are Son-of-Computer-Virus.
Damien Broderick
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