Meme

ec2-13-58-247-31.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com | ToothyWiki | RecentChanges | Login | Webcomic

[RichardDawkins]'s idea of thought genes.

Which, according to ChiarkPerson, alleged bollocks allegedly proves that Dawkins should stick to biology and leave philosophy to the philosophers.

For example:

Instructions: Grab the nearest book, open it to page 23, find the 5th sentence, and post its text along with these instructions. I would add to the instructions: point [back to where you got the idea] so that we can follow the threads.

From 'A Cavern of Black Ice' by J.V. Jones "Ash kept her eyelids closed, but not tightly - he had caught her on that in the past." --DouglasReay
From 'Obsidian Butterfly' (a AnitaBlake novel) by Laurell K. Hamilton: "It was only attention-getting for the first, oh, fifteen minutes or so."
From 'Reaper Man' by Terry Pratchett: "Twenty-five minutes past the hour."
since that was only arguably closest to me, also:
From 'Mauritius Command' by Patrick O'Brien: "Stephen, what's amiss?" - although it just missed a large slew of ship descriptions...

: Thank God for lack of EvilShipDescriptions

The other two options, roughly equally spaced, are:
From 'Concise Oxford Dictionary: Tenth Edition': "Another term for PASHTO."
and
From 'Quantum Computation and Quantum Information' by Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang: "To see that this circuit accomplishes a swap operation, note that the sequence of gates has the following sequence of effects on a computational basis state |a,b>,

     |a,b> --> |a,a+b>
                --> |a+(a+b),a+b> = |b,a+b>
                --> |b,(a+b)+b> = |b,a>,            (1.20)

where all additions are done modulo 2."
From 'Systematic Theology' by Wayne Grudem: "But the focus of systematic theology remains different: its focus is on the collection and then the summary of the teaching of all the biblical passages on a particular subject."

Wait. That was next to my knee, but I was resting my hand next to my mouse on the book I'm using as a mousepad:

Surely theology (as opposed to Christian Theology) wouldn't be reliant on the Christian Bible? I assume that they apply the same approach to the Koran, the Torah and the Aztec Codices? - GuessWho?

Theology *ought* to be the study of all religeon - but it isn't, not really. It's very monotheistic. Probably wouldn't cover the source of this meme for instance - Naath

I've heard the view that all religions are memes. This is the first time I've heard anyone suggest at all memes fall under the heading "religion". --DR

: Not at all. Just *this* meme does - Naath

Theology - as you'd notice if you thought about the word - is not the study of religion. It's the study of God. The study of religion is 'religious studies' and is offered at many provincial universities. PlasmonPerson suggests you find yourself one.

My religeon has gods. Theos does not refer exclusively to the god of the Jews. It refers to gods in generall, therefore theology does not include atheism but should include such things as Hinduism. The study of religion is different, more anthropological, less involved. - Naath

: Can I suggest that both of you stop trying to use Etymology? to try and argue what Semantics? ought to be and just actually use English TheWaySheIsSpoke?? -- Senji

(PeterTaylor) Torah is part of the Bible. It may be that theological scholars of other faiths also use the term in a similar way. However, given that the subtitle of the book is "An introduction to Biblical doctrine" and that the contrast is with Biblical theology, the statement is perfectly reasonable.

From 'Blitz Basic Reference Manual' by Acid Software: "SizeOf? may also be followed by an optional EntryPath?, in which case the offset from the start of the type to the specified entry is returned."
From 'Winning Ways for your mathematical plays' by Berlekamp, Conway and Guy: "We have already seen in our discussion of Ski-Jumps that we should not necessarily expec our answer to be the mean of 1 1/4 and 2, that is 1 5/8."

Multiplying both sides of this supposed equality by (x+1)(x-2)^2 produces and equation whose LHS is linear in x, whilst its RHS is quadratic. - From RH&B Mathematical Methods. (ignoring the part sentance at the start because that way the 5th sentance has a lot of maths in it).
Or we could take the book that is open online... which might be nearer... On the other hand, that's the bit that explains the mem, so maybe not. Last time I did this the nearest physical book happened to be part of Illuminatus...

There are animals and seaweed, hunger and disease, and the observer on the beach; there may be even happiness and thought. -The Feynman Lectures on Physics, volume 1.

C and C++ programmers should note that Java is quite strict about its boolean type: boolean values can never be converted to or from other data types. ISBN 1565924878

"All things fade into the storied past, and in a little while are shrouded in oblivion." -- Xarak, wondering what purpose all this serves? ( or are these all just examples of memes? )

Aha! It's explained! Xarak is a book! --Requiem :p

At a guess, we're probably meant to post the quote along with the instructions somewhere else. But that wouldn't be being awkward, and being awkward is fun. - tjm

Ah, but you see perhaps some of the readers of this page have posted their quote elsewhere; thus the meme spreads. One could use [the google "link:" directive] to [check]. In fact I suspect by doing a google on the phrases "page 23" and "fifth sentance" then parsing the resulting pages for links to others, and by doing a "link:" search on each of those pages, one could come up with a really pretty graph showing meme propagation. --DR

: One might get more results (like, 18 000) with [Google:"page+23"+"fifth+sentence"]. Although [the search you suggest] does return 16 already... scary. --AlexChurchill

"使用しません。" ("This is not used.") - game manual for "Rurouni Kenshin: Juuyuushi Inbouhen (PSX)" (which beat "Harrap's English Usage" by 4mm). - tjm

'Come and meet --' began Mark, but as he spoke, he became aware that his audience's attention was elsewhere. -- The Centre of the Circle by Jonathan Wylie ISBN 0552131342 -- Senji

"Yes, Father." (One of Noah's sons, in the Graphic Bible, ISBN 0745927084 . But only because I refused to lift my monitor to get at PeterTaylor's two Java books which are propping it up, and then the next two books had less than five sentences on page 23.) --AlexChurchill, now wondering why after "page" Dasher wanted to type "65"

"Book 11, "The Nine Zones"
Comprehension of the use of strategic zones, as well as adaptations and advantageous use of various situations for the conduct of offensive operations; also, ways forces are applied by superpowers, and coordination with the goverment." Sun-Tzu's The Art of War (the new translation) -- Humm maybe this being the closest book to me explains a few things. Artan

The nearest things are datasheets, without sentences.
The nearest "real" book to me is a technical reference manual:
Page xxiii is a contents page.
Page 1-23 has the following:
"From the FX2's point of view, an endpoint is a buffer full of bytes received or held for transmission over the bus." --M-A

The captains are reasonably sure they can capture and hold for a short while the dock area of the city by blockading the harbour and using mercenaries and crew loyal to their cause to capture the docklands - Echoes of Oblivion, An Exalted: The Abyssals Campaign by James R. Bowe
Edith - Now what are the chances that the nearest book I could grab were my campaign notes?

OK, so what happens if there is no fifth sentence? The closest book to me now is a set of data sheets; page 23 is pretty much empty apart from a diagram and some numbers.. - MoonShadow

So, is everyone enlightened now, or something? I never got the hang of these meme things. Maybe I just don't find them interesting enough in the first place to bother forwarding them to anyone else. On a *very rare* occasion, I will forward a *particularly* funny joke or URL to a few friends that i know would appreciate *that particular* email. That's not to say that I object to receiving memes or funny emails from other people, I'll just not forward them anywhere. --M-A

I find that LiveJournal is a breeding ground for Memes. --Requiem