Michael Allan’s files

Icon  Name                    Size  
[PAR] Parent Directory - [DIR] xhtml/ - [htm] note.xht 25K [mod] gene.mod 12K [jav] Gene.java 21K [jav] DocumentRT.java 2.6K [mod] document.mod 2.3K

Genes and genetic encoding of texts.

Genes are the fundamental units of recombinant text. They serve as: 1) atoms of communication, to convey compositional ideas from author to author; 2) building blocks, to physically compose and re-compose the text; and 3) conservative elements, to maintain the fidelity of information and its authorship in a changing population.

Each formula is made in view of the other formulas with which it is to be joined; and the formulas taken all together make up a diction which is the material for a completely unified technique of verse making. Milman Parry

Careful study of the sort Milman Parry was doing showed that he [Homer] repeated formula after formula. The meaning of Greek term 'rhapsodize', rhapsoidien, 'to stitch song together' (rhaptien, to stitch; oide, song), became ominous: Homer stitched together prefabricated parts... Walter J. Ong

About the real Homer... It can even be said that there is no evidence for the existence of a Homer... Gregory Nagy

... what Darwin himself had at one time dimly glimpsed, that heredity is particulate, not blending. Whether or not offspring are bodily intermediate between their two parents, they inherit, and pass on, discrete hereditary particles... Richard Dawkins