>Some very sad news. Ben made a wonderful pair of presentations at
>"Einstein Meets Magritte" last summer and was working on developing
>"Cultural Virus Theory", a really interesting concept similar to memes.
>He shall be missed.
Yes, indeed. I am quite shocked by this unpleasant surprise.
Ben was a young, very smart and dynamic guy from Australia, who had
recently defended his PhD in archeology, and now seemed to have found a
position at the University of Belfast where he could further develop his
"Cultural Virus Theory". I met him 3 years ago in London at a conference
on "Evolution and the Human Sciences", where we were both presenting meme
inspired models. We were obviously on the same wavelength and had several
long discussions after the lectures and in restaurants. Afterwards, we kept
in touch by now and then exchanging new papers. Just a few weeks ago I got
a preprint of his which he asked me to "really read, not like some others"
which I interpreted to mean that many people misinterpret his ideas and
quickly classify them in the wrong pigeonhole.
When he got the announcement of the "Einstein meets Magritte" Conference he
submitted a paper without being aware that I was also organizing one of the
Symposia there. Only after his contribution was classified in a different
symposium he understood I was organizing the "Evolution of Complexity"
symposium, and asked for this paper to be transferred there. Since it was
too late to change the program of the other symposium, we arranged for him
to have two presentations, one in each symposium. I did not hear his
presentation in the other symposium, but judging by the one he gave on
"Chain Letters, Corpse Flowers and the Evolution of Religion"
(http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Einmag_Abstr/BCullen.html), it must have been
enthralling.
I just hope that he still found the time to finish his paper for the
proceedings. Otherwise I will arrange to have at least the notes he read
for the presentation published posthumously.
________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Francis Heylighen, Systems Researcher fheyligh@vnet3.vub.ac.be
PESP, Free University of Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
Tel +32-2-6292525; Fax +32-2-6292489; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html