Prophecy Child

each of us is a child of prophecy
  words spoken to us,
  words spoken about us,
  words spoken around us,
  words spoken for us
  words put in our mouths
  words left un-spoken.

what will you say today?
To the children around you, to give them a prophecy of hope, joy, and love?

Memetic Ancestors

We often speak of our spiritual ancestors. People who are not physically related to us but who have affected our lives. I think we can add another way of speaking about this class of people.
There are our genetic ancestors, and our memetic ancestors. The first have affected our lives in the nature sense. The second affect us through their nurturing of our minds and spirits.
If we are lucky our biological parents will also be a positive memetic force in our lives. But there are times when a memetic ancestor/parent will take a larger role than our biological parents.


I don’t believe that i am coming up with this out of whole cloth. I am giving another term for it that compiles a great number of archetypes under a larger banner.
The mentor, the wise-old-man/woman, the muse, the teacher, and to some degree the friend all can come under the banner of a memetic ancestor.

Evolution: semantics and gripes

Evolution is a hot topic in some circles. But what is it? Evolution by it self simply denotes that things change over time. Nothing more. So? How is that a "hot topic." I see at least 4 distinct types of evolution. First is on the micro/macro scale. Small changes over time and Large changes over time. The other is a difference of biological(gene) and informational(meme) change. Gene from genetic. Meme from memetic, and a similar root to memory.


SO:


Evolution of the gene on the micro scale is why you look like your biological parents, why we have different breeds of cats, dogs, and horses, etc. This, I believe, can be counted as fact


Evolution of the meme on the micro scale is why we are (hopefully) smarter at 15 than at 5 and smarter at 30 than at 15, ad nauseam. This, I believe, can be counted as fact.


Evolution of the meme at the macro scale gives us the "ages of ...." The Stone, Bronze, Iron, Industrial, Information. This, I believe, can be counted as fact.


Evolution of the gene at the macro scale gives us the evolution of the species. Birds evolving from certain dinosaurs. Humans as an advanced subset of apes. This is the particular point of "evolution" that is being argued. The argument is primarily on the part of literalist readers of the Chistian Bible who assert that the earth is too young for gene to have evolved on its own. And based on the work of one James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, who concluded that the Earth was formed by God in 4004 BCE. 
Those who question this literalist reading of the Bible or those who don't have a stake in the text argue the side of a much much older planet that would have the time for a gene to evolve on its own.