Getting a little bit confused here in a what is the sound of one hand clapping sort of way.
I’ve just begun to register with Google, Blogdex et al. to try and get some input, links, feedback – to learn things from everyone else out there. Now I expect that in a while there’ll be the usual trickle through of visitors looking for Anna Kournikova and Penthouse but finding instead a whole load of witterings about memes. [I may have to edit that last sentence, depressingly enough]
But, and this is what’s confusing me, if all that is in my blog is a series of questions, would those questions propagate in the same way as answers (or at least definite opinions).
My gut feeling is that, if there is this emergent hierarchy in networks, which Mr O’Reilly touched on, then “question memes” propagate upwards (towards the boss) and “answer memes” propagate downards (received wisdom, you’re sacked etc).
So what happens to a “question” meme that is unanswerable? Does it tend to propagate to everyone in the network as they search for an answer, e.g. what is the meaning of life? Or does it get booted out as irrelevant and the replicator get told to grow up, e.g. what is the meaning of life?!
Presumably there are at least three types of questions, then.
1) Questions based on misunderstanding (e.g. how do pigs fly?)
2) Questions based on not understanding (e.g. How do you set up a weblog?)
3) Unanswerable questions based on current inability to understand (e.g. in 300BC, How does the sun go round the earth?)
And if memes are patterns of information that float round the infosphere, is a question a pattern of information (and so can it propagate?)? Or is it a question about the pattern of information? An indication of a propagation error, so to speak.
I’m going to stop now, have a cup of weak tea, and think about things I can cope with.