Re: meme notation (was Re: The Unfathomable)

Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Sat, 06 Nov 1999 01:19:25 -0500

Anders Sandberg wrote:

> David McFadzean <david@kumo.com> writes:
>
> > At 10:33 AM 11/3/99 -0800, M. E. Smith wrote:
> >
> > >I don't know. But some people's conceptions of "God"
> > >(I'm tired of saying meme so much) seem to refer to
> >
> > On one of my mailing lists we have adopted the convention
> > of using angle brackets to denote "meme for" something.
> > So the God meme would be written as <God>. It has proven
> > to be a very useful shorthand.

Thank <Goodness>. Years ago I read a book on <Dianetics> by L. Ron Hubbard that used a similar terminology; this early work on <Scientology> I found -- "absurd" is not strong enough, maybe "deformed" as in "grotesque". The <Extropian> term <<meme>>* invariably evokes the original revulsion. You've provided a nifty solution.

Bob



Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA