So memes, genes, and chain letters are a kind of thing, a message of some sort that may in the right host environment provoke a chain of events that yields more copies of that thing
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Not environmental and learning; I mean the quality of identity, stripped of distinguishing information. A vortex in a stream has identity in the same way a human has identity (that is, you can track a particular vortex over time, even though its material is constantly changing). It also sortof has a metabolism - a long-lived vortex implies that there has been, all through its life, an energy gradient for it to "feed" off of.
Benard cells (which are simply toroidal vortexes) have the same sort of identity / metabolism.
I think both vortexes and benard cells are self-catalyzing, in two senses - one is that a laminar flow, though it might be stable for a while, once you introduce vortexes (turbulence) to it, the turbulent domain will invade the laminar domain, and stick. Another sense is that in an empty plane, if you splice in a benard cell hexagon, it will generate new cells of the same phase. What I mean by phase is, if you take an infinite hexagon tiling, and move it over a smidge, less than one hexagon, then you get a tiling with a different phase. Phase is not much information content, but it's all that these cells have.
Metaplanetary sounds neato; I'll have to look into it.
Benard cells (which are simply toroidal vortexes) have the same sort of identity / metabolism.
https://www.google.com/search?q=benard+cells&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=r7ldUMj7FcXx0gG97oCADQ&ved=0CCsQsAQ&biw=1091&bih=565
I think both vortexes and benard cells are self-catalyzing, in two senses - one is that a laminar flow, though it might be stable for a while, once you introduce vortexes (turbulence) to it, the turbulent domain will invade the laminar domain, and stick. Another sense is that in an empty plane, if you splice in a benard cell hexagon, it will generate new cells of the same phase. What I mean by phase is, if you take an infinite hexagon tiling, and move it over a smidge, less than one hexagon, then you get a tiling with a different phase. Phase is not much information content, but it's all that these cells have.
Metaplanetary sounds neato; I'll have to look into it.
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