Principia Cybernetica Web

ANNOTATION:
A Technical Definition and Math URL

Some have have come to this page looking not for a model of the structure of memes, but rather a formal technical definition of the term. Such a definition, and mathematical and symbolic analysis are available at http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/memetheory.htm.

MEME. Noun. A memory item, or portion of an organism’s neurally-stored information, identified using the abstraction system of the observer, whose instantiation depended critically on causation by prior instantiation of the same memory item in one or more other organisms’ nervous systems. ("Sameness" of memory items is determined with respect to the above-mentioned abstraction system of the observer.)

I have also published a less technical memetics book, Thought Contagion, with information at http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html.

--Aaron Lynch


Copyright© 1998 Principia Cybernetica - Referencing this page

Author
Aaron Lynch (aaron[ at ]mcs.net)

Date
Jan 28, 1998

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