I Used To Have A "No Meta Talk" Rule, I Wonder Where It Is Now
J'accuse circuit_four of reading the post about memes and taking it as a dare: from that fecund brain has marched a great example of the thought-experiment meme. Paraphrased, it goes like this: you have a six-cylinder revolver that shoots comprehension of a work of culture - one per chamber. Each chamber can hold one full-length media item: 1,500 pages of text, 90 minutes of music, 3 hours of film, one entire video game, a full speech, several dozen images from a single artist, a single season or plot arc of a TV series, one full live performance, detailed architectural plans and photographs for one building, even a full meal -- any discrete cultural work. When you fire it, the entire artistic contents of the chamber you choose will be instantly uploaded into the target's memory and cognition. It will be as if they have not only experienced the work, they understand it at the same level you do, with all prerequisite knowledge also uploaded. You get the gun for a year, during which you can fire it as many times as you like. Which six works do you choose and who do you go after with your thought-weapon?
I love this one to pieces because it's not only a very good example of a good thought-experiment meme, it also exhibits high reproductive fitness, something I meant to talk about earlier, and it comments on the postmodern condition, a meta-layer that's absolutely delicious to me.
It's got high reproductive fitness because it's quick to explain, it asks people about a subject they're expert on (themselves), and it invites them to put forward their opinion as valuable. Further, it's easy to do it - in conversation or in text, it's an engaging task, and it has the lagniappe layer of begging people to finesse it into talking about other things they want to talk about. In short, it's easy to ingest, easy to pass on, and makes you want to pass it on - three absolutely critical components of a meme's reproductive fitness.
It also assumes that people's minds can be changed and that perspective and mental environment are pretty critical. Notice the assumptions that the meme makes - that if, just for instance, Dick Cheney possessed your keen and profound understanding of The Bombing Of Guernica, that he would become a different person. Look at that! So postmodern in the way it assumes people's fluidity - but at the same time remixing the earlier tradition of the Canon, of the Great Works theory, the idea that if people only understood a central set of Classics, that they could be made into model citizens. It invites you to create your own canon, to fantasize "yes! If only they understood the way I do, the world would be a better place!" Now, I don't know you: this may be true. I certainly hope it's true of me. But whether it's true or not, it's a subtle and virtuosic appeal to ego.
Hence, a very generous hand of applause to circuit_four for answering the unspoken challenge with radiant good form.
I love this one to pieces because it's not only a very good example of a good thought-experiment meme, it also exhibits high reproductive fitness, something I meant to talk about earlier, and it comments on the postmodern condition, a meta-layer that's absolutely delicious to me.
It's got high reproductive fitness because it's quick to explain, it asks people about a subject they're expert on (themselves), and it invites them to put forward their opinion as valuable. Further, it's easy to do it - in conversation or in text, it's an engaging task, and it has the lagniappe layer of begging people to finesse it into talking about other things they want to talk about. In short, it's easy to ingest, easy to pass on, and makes you want to pass it on - three absolutely critical components of a meme's reproductive fitness.
It also assumes that people's minds can be changed and that perspective and mental environment are pretty critical. Notice the assumptions that the meme makes - that if, just for instance, Dick Cheney possessed your keen and profound understanding of The Bombing Of Guernica, that he would become a different person. Look at that! So postmodern in the way it assumes people's fluidity - but at the same time remixing the earlier tradition of the Canon, of the Great Works theory, the idea that if people only understood a central set of Classics, that they could be made into model citizens. It invites you to create your own canon, to fantasize "yes! If only they understood the way I do, the world would be a better place!" Now, I don't know you: this may be true. I certainly hope it's true of me. But whether it's true or not, it's a subtle and virtuosic appeal to ego.
Hence, a very generous hand of applause to circuit_four for answering the unspoken challenge with radiant good form.