From: Niklas Frykholm <niklas@...>
Date: 2002-01-22T18:24:31+09:00
Subject: [OT] Re: [ANN] Devel::Logger -- Lightweight logging utility.

>> I hadn't thought about logging a block... thanks for the meme.
> 
> [ruby-talk:11649] might help you more.
> By the way, what does 'meme' mean?
> ...sigh, for me, English is harder than Ruby.

A 'meme' is a thought pattern, an idea that has the capability of
spreading from brain to brain.

The word, I believe, was coined as a paralel to 'gene'. Someone
suggested (don't know how seriously) that thoughts and ideas could be
seen as a form of life, since they could reproduce themselves via human
hosts (i.e., be transfered from mind to mind). Just as genes, a meme can
be seen as competing with other memes in the memepool for the resources
required for its existence (attention, memory space). A process somewhat
akin to natural selection occurs. The fittest, most viral ideas will
reproduce quicker and in turn produce new ideas (mutations). In this way
memes that are better and better at surviving in the human brain will
develop.

Personally, I think this is an interesting viewpoint, but hardly the
full picture. Human minds are not merely passive vessels for reproducing
ideas.

// Niklas