A master dies, his memes live on

I learned today that a great teacher of mine has died. I never got to meet the man that went by the internet alias of Fravia and now it seems that I never will.

Fravia was like those teachers of ancient Rome, sitting down on the Spanish steps and teaching anyone that would listen to them. He was always encouraging us to not merely trust his word, but to 'go' out there and look for ourselves. He often used bits and bytes, software and the internet as the tools to teach us, but what he actually taught us was to think critically !

Fravia put me on the path that would later bring me to the writings of Richard Dawkins. I do now wonder if the two ever met, the air would have been crackling with electricity at such a meeting, even though their 'fields' could not be more apart.

I once read an article describing Fravia as a dilletant (an amateur). Indeed, his knowledge-sharing brought him no riches. In that respect he was not (a) professional. But you'd have to search (which he taught us) far and wide to find even 1% of the solid, verified information that was (and still is for the time being) available for free on his site.

His final account, which you can read here, is gloomy. Not because he was not feeling well, not because he thought negative ... but because we live in gloomy times.

From Richard Dawkins I learned that next to genes, ideas and information can (and do) also live on. He used the name memes for that. In me and in many many others Fravia's memes (will) live on !