h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Mimetic Diversity - A771086
Author: Andrew Wyld - U196900

Not sure if this is too "alternative", but anyway:

If memes evolve and progagate like genes, is it our responsibility to ensure that there is as much ideodiversity as possible?

If not, should we do it for fun anyway?

("ideodiversity" is a made-up word based on "biodiversity" and meaning "diversity of viewpoints" and I want to get it in a dictionary, so all of you, use it lots.)

Surely not too 'alternative'. It starts great, but IMHO it falls off towards the end before it reaches a climax. Any chance of getting *examples* to drive home your point?

Oh, horrors! Entry interruptus? How down-letting for the side...

having actually read the thing, now:

My eyes keep playing tricks on me. I first thought the title was
"Mime Divers" and I thought,"Wow, strange but cool!"
Then I thought,"What a redundancy. Underwater, everyone is a mime."
Then I thought I thought,"But, what if we are all divers in a sea of air and we are all mimes, too...particularly to fish, who can't see us too clearly, I don't care what Flipper says..."
Then I actually read the title and felt real silly.

My reaction to the entry: More! More!
I sit in my high chair with my Tinky-Wink bib one, splashing damp Cheerios all over the dining room, crying,"More, DADDY! Finish it, Daddy! Please! Baby wants more!"

Um, er, we no return you to our regular Bossel, who has found the right cereal and the right toilet paper, but he won't tell us about either...

Cereal?

As in Frutibix?

I am writing a rock-opera about Frutibix.

I think towards the end I lost the courage of my convictions and feared the article was getting too long. I have to set down the basics of a cool question about evolution, but I'll come back to this soon!

Hooray!

And thrice yay.

Actually it's just one song about Frutibix, but I discovered that the tune is very good and I'm cannibalizing it.

Well, you don't know me, no,
Know me, no,
Know me, no,
Yeah,
But I'm a-gonna know you!

I love The Who.

I'm still kind of wondering where this entry's going... Andrew - you do have a knack for entries which are *questions*, rather than *answers*, don't you? If you know what I mean...

You know, I'm not sure if anywhere in your fine entry you actually *say* what mimetic diversity is... shouldn't you talk about genepools and memepools and suchlike?
-Lucinda

Indeed it is a question, and not an answer.

Since life is composed more of questions than answers, why not reflect this in the guide?

my initial reaction to this is "where is the rest of it?", as it barely lays the background to the question it tries to ask.

can we have some expansion of this entry.

It's coming ... been busy.

Incidentally, I've just thought of a better way to explain it. The last part is intended to be an example of a mutamem, which basically causes mutation of ideas, and hopefully gives rise to ideodiversity.

I'll put all these thoughts into the entry on Monday, when I have time ....

Dwooling in antwicipation...

forgot ... sorry ... I've been weirdly busy, with the emphasis on weirdly

Thas okay...patience is my middle name...

























and if you believe that, I have this lovely bridge I want to sell you...only used on Sundays...

Hey there Andy - I'm in agreement with most of the other people here that you have the basis of a great entry here, but it just kind of... stops.

Why not ditch the self-consciously weird stuff, and write a straightforward entry on Memes? There doesn't see to be anything in the guide on them at all. I'd be interested to know if anyone has taken the idea further than Dawkins in 'The Selfish Gene', and if it's an accepted idea in the field of biology.

There's some info on evolution at A673319 - but nothing on memes, might be a good place to reference if you don't want to spend the entry describing the fundamentals of gene selection.

"The second is variation...." is a bit misleading, I think - copying fidelity is much more important, isn't it?

Copying fidelity is assumed in the reproduction bit. You need some variation introduced into that. I agree with you, though, that an at least approximately faithful copy is at the heart of this -- the word "replicator" is scarcely justified as such without it.

I know what you mean about ... stops. I re-read it recently and am planning an overhaul shortly. I would like to keep the weird stuff, but there will be a lot more on memes too ... fundamentally, I think the whole theory is pretty weird, which is what makes it so compelling.