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The word ‘meme' was first popularly used by Richard Dawkins in his book, ‘The
Selfish Gene'. The word ‘meme' has come to mean a cultural accretion of
knowledge, a package of several ideas that can be passed onto others.
It's usually more complex than a single idea, and can represent a fashion/music/lifestyle
or a belief. It is the mental equivalent of a gene whereby a package of
many attributes is passed on.
The science or study of memes in action has come to be called memetics.
A meme has been regarded too narrowly I believe, and I am interested
in broadening the ideas of what a meme is or can do. No matter how narrow
a definition you give to a meme, sooner or later you have to consider
more nebulous or abstract ideas as having acquired enough cultural accretion
to have become memes. It's easy to conceive of a visual fad such as
the hula-hoop as having a chartable spread through society and calling
it a meme, but surely socialism, futurism or a new political idea are
also memes that spread through society and are all the more interesting
despite being invisible.
Memes like these, just as in any fad or fashion have a zenith before
arcing into decline. There will always be a few adherents of any -ism
who may be the actual carriers of the meme, but eventually they may
find themselves beached upon a shore that has no tides.
When something has been described as instinctual, there seems never an
explanation of how this mechanism works. Memetics also explains how instinct
and innate behaviours operate.
So how do memes work? Well something done consciously builds a meme.
They aren't something you can point at, and to devolve them (or use
them) happens in an unconscious way.
Like a plate resting upon a table, where there are only a few disparate
molecules in direct contact. Or a brain where an idea can lodge in one
of several areas, a meme could be said to lodge in some of many possible
minds. It may change minds often and doesn't have a constant localisation.
The conscious effort builds a meme so that it can be said to have a
growth period, and once built, is able to be devolved, by others often
unconnected to the building process. This devolvement works best by
unconscious effort and is a way for knowledge to become distributed
in a way once thought to be science fiction. The potential of telepathy,
although fantastic, can be explained in memetic terms. Similarly, memetics
does enable unconnected people to have a shared knowledge or belief
system. As when scattered cultures built pyramid structures, there was
a memetic diffusion of similar goals.
Let's consider a body of knowledge, a recently evolved meme such
as ‘heart surgery'.
A new or trainee heart surgeon consciously learns the craft, but he/she
is also memetically guided by the prior experience of others. Like acting
or any trade, this memetic devolvement is best felt to be working when
the subject is relaxed and have ‘let themselves go'. The examples of those
that did it before us are like invisible spirit guides once we are ‘in
the groove'.
Great men may be said to sit on the shoulders of others before them,
but so it is with all activity whether it is carpentry, mothering, lying
or fighting. No matter how harmful or mundane, others have built tramlines
of the mind. In careers, apprentices or trainees can experience this as
an arbitrary choice ‘fitting like a glove'. They have discovered an aptitude
or just somehow ‘picked it up' without really being able to explain how.
In animals of lesser consciousness, this becomes a pure instinct so that
all will eat, fight and sleep in a practically identical way.
Is there evidence that learned behaviour is carried to others? One
example would be when a rat finds it's way through a maze. A second
rat seems to find its way through the maze even quicker. In experiments,
the rats have been killed (to prevent telepathy) or identical new
mazes substituted (to prevent scent trails), yet despite this, rats
are progressively able to get through these mazes faster than the
earlier ones. Where does this knowledge reside? They are able to access
a meme that is being built, a meme of knowledge about the maze.
I doubt that a meme is entirely independent of living things, but the
crucial thing is that it acts as if it is. A meme has an arc of existence
that like the life of a living organism is a self-contained pocket of
energy.
Perhaps the best analogy of memes in the world is that they are akin
to numbers. The fantastic science of mathematics has enabled us to go
to the moon and inspire computers. Yet we wouldn't be able to point
to a number or say, “this is a six”, we could just say there are six
of something. Like memes, we use the concept of number to find linking
commonalities and to make something have sense for us. To grasp that
which has no real handle.
One of my favourite examples of memetics in action is that referred
to as the 100th monkey effect. It's covered in Primates 6 (1965),
and was about studies of monkeys living on a string of Japanese islands
1952-1958.
What happened was that one monkey started washing the sand off sweet
potatoes, and then others started doing it. At some point, a critical
mass was reached and even monkeys on other islands, though there was
no obvious contact, started washing their food to remove the sand.
This is almost a perfect example of a meme growing and then becoming
accessible to all. A way for knowledge or learning to become transmitted
to others not in physical contact. In human affairs, this is best
seen in fashion, whereby there just seems to be zeitgeist (spirit
of the age) sweeping through disparate and otherwise unconnected populations.
Another form of memetics in action would be the phenomenon known as
the stigmata. On my model, the conscious dwelling on Christ's wounds
say by catholics or other Christians creates a meme that grows like
a cloud that gathers moisture. When it has reached an optimum size,
then like lightning, the meme devolves or is discharged upon some
unwitting subject. This explains why the stigmata phenomenon can appear
on people who aren't especially religious or even Christian.
This meme devolving upon unwitting subjects concept can be added
to our interdependence on others and us all being victims of circumstance
to suggest that perhaps ‘moral stance' is our only true area of free
will. It's possible that memes choose us rather than the other way
round, and I would like to develop experiments or tests that investigate
this hypothesis. Possibly studies of large families may shed some
clues in this area, as I've been fascinated how large families can
often contain both a crook and a cop. When we say that in life, we
have to play the cards that we're dealt, memetics may indeed show
this to be truth.
Having intimated that memes may choose us, reflective and self conscious
people are able to attract certain memes. You can consciously do a
simple test to show this. Think of something like a first world war
soldier, something you wouldn't normally think about or come across.
Think of this subject several times during the day. Now very shortly
(usually a three day window) thereafter, I've personally found several
references to whatever it was I thought about. Maybe it was just a
magazine in the newsagents or a TV advert or someone incongruously
discussing the subject. Now I know this can sound a bit like hoodoo
voodoo or sympathetic magic, but it is a very simple test anyone can
do that shows the fabric of memetic correspondence.
This is also the reason that a customs officer knows a smuggler
without really knowing why a hunch works. This is why people who lose
a wedding ring can catch the very fish that swallowed it or cook it
for dinner. Or a man studying unusual weather can have a block of
ice fall onto his car. Perhaps why lovers were made for each other.
Some people have a developed lightning rod that attracts phenomena. We
might tag them ‘lucky' or ‘unlucky', or just marvel at how certain things
always seem to happen to them.
Some people may even be able to create their own reality. Haven't
we all had the experience of wanting something (say a particular colour
and model of a car) and just about when we've given up hope of finding
one at a price we can afford, a friend of a friend turns up with one
at a deal of a price. This potential to affect the world in ways that
we wish things to be may be an evolutionary strategy. Is it only wish
fulfilment or is it something else? When I see a bluebottle housefly
wait patiently on a door to enter the house, is it a tactic or does
it instigate what will happen?
ADVANCED MEMETICS
This is where my developed thoughts are more controversial. The tenets
I hold, or the conclusions that I've reached aren't as obvious and so
not part of any other memetician's theories that I've come across. Maybe
a gestation period of thinking about it is required or the sudden flash
of inspiration whereby you ‘get it'.
1) LONGEVITY.
By incorporating a little bit of its opposite into itself, a meme inoculates
itself. So it can allow evil to come out of good or vice -versa. Ironically,
a desired effect can be achieved by doing the exact opposite. In political
terms this could be a system attuned to selfish greed giving rise to a
society that has achieved the greatest good for all, whereas a society
built on principles of doing things for the people can degenerate into
one of dog eat dog.
In divine or holy grail terms, you could say that only those that
don't seek it will find it. All this seems initially contradictory,
but is the key to understanding the survivability of memes. Without
incorporating or inoculating itself to a bit of its opposite, a meme
would grow but then burst as a bubble.
2) THE FUTURE.
It has been said that ‘coming events cast their shadows before them'.
This shadow of the future that lies in the past can be understood and
interpreted with the help of memetics. I've been successful with mundane
and pithy examples, and I'm convinced that by being alert to wordplay
and the potential for irony, that we can predict events on a national
and global scale.
Our destinies can be seen as ironical twists of fate, but usually
best in retrospect. I've noticed scores of times how the unconscious
connotations of words can guide the reality. Life imitating art, if
you like. And there have been so many bizarre coincidences involving
wordplay, that memetics is the only theory that could explain it.
An example that I've had, is meeting someone that has an unusual
name of foreign origin. Let's say for example, they were a baker.
Now being interested in words, at some later point, I come across
their surname someplace else and then discover that it is greek or
somesuch for ‘bread'. Next time I saw them, I'd remark on the coincidence
of their surname being linked to their employment. I can't quite recall
the specifics right now, but I do recall the subjects were surprised
by the linguistic linkage and said they had no idea that their name
had any relation to their career.
A recent example of how wordplay can predict a future event would
be the Harry Potter hype about the recent movie. If you had played
around with the words, ‘Harry Potter' as a headline, you may easily
have come up with a similarity such as ‘Harry Pothead'! An astute
person could have predicted that a drug scandal involving the actor
or prince Harry was about to break. Now this may seem to be a ludicrous
coincidence but actually is all part of the correspondence in memetics
that allows us to predict the future.
Just as with astrology, it's not a moon in Leo that causes something
to happen, but an indicator of the correspondence of human affairs and
destiny. All coincidence is a type of memetic correspondence.
Words are a potent unconscious linker of memes. You can change your
name and thereby change your luck. Or consider the divinely stipulated
name changes in the bible…of Saul to Paul or that of Israel. Maybe
it's that words can attract or devolve certain memes better than others.
Of course, irony is a key ingredient that can twist or frustrate our
intentions. Consider someone like Canute who demonstrated to his courtiers
that it was impossible for a king to turn back the tide. Ironically
this demonstration has come to mean the opposite of that which he
intended. He will forever be known as the king that tried to turn
back the tide and got his feet wet.
3) BLOOD SACRIFICE.
I've noticed that the establishment of memes seem intertwined with the
demise of certain people. The development of new ways of thinking seems
to have a type of blood sacrifice associated with its gestation. Whether
the meme is of Christianity, air travel or a new nation, blood seems to
be inevitably spilled on the road to establishment.
A new meme is ever fragile but as accidental, ritual or combative deaths
rise, the meme seems to strengthen. The first rat to run through a maze
cautiously senses the danger more than the thousandth to do so. Same for
us with air or space travel.
All new activity is dangerous and breaking the mould. It is only when
established that we can treat it as routine.
It's probable that our ancestors instinctively felt this memetic
truth, which prompted animal and human sacrifice. This never ensured
the desired results and was always a religion that was usurped. Nevertheless,
some memes do seem to become much more cemented into our psyche by
body count (think martyrs) and some memes seem to generate a steady
toll. An example could be said to be a river, one that had a personality
attributed to it. Once upon a time, a water sprite may have been blamed
for a steady harvest of drownings, but now we could view it as a meme.
Memes like those for nations or political viewpoints almost require
a certain amount of conflict to persevere.
4) GOD.
I thought I could explain everything via memetics and believed that the
meme pools of good and evil were vast memes that could also explain God
and the Devil. Surely I had cracked the cosmic puzzle and found the universal
key.
In my desert cabin where I developed the more advanced parts of my memetic
theory, I was surprised by a vision or visit from the Holy Ghost thereby
demonstrating an independently vigorously real existence. This was a devolvement
of a sort I hadn't anticipated and my jaw was paralysed for three hours
following. There was a telepathic communication of approval, of some incongruous
foreknowledge and in response to a specific question from me, I was referred
to a piece of scripture not part of the current bible. From this experience,
I became convinced that this memetics is God's governing system in place
so that he isn't required to constantly tinker with our lives. Everything
that will transpire and all of destiny is a memetically governed phenomenon.
Just as a universe can be said to be contained in a grain of sand, so
all of human affairs are known to Him by the least.
MEMETICS FOR TODAY
This system of memetics, regardless of its origins and outer limits,
can be used to explicate all kinds of esoteric phenomena like nothing
else. It can also make sense of some of today's baffling events. For
instance, the spectacular terrorist success in destroying the world
trade towers can be explained by operating on an auspicious date (for
them) of 9/11. The meme of calling 911 emergency created an empowerment
to their goals. I'm sure they hadn't picked the date for any numeric
quality, but just because a Tuesday flight would have less passengers
to subdue than a Monday or a Friday. Their bold plan was correspondingly
enabled by memetic forces, which they weren't conscious of. Another
date may have had more stumbling progress towards their goals. The
unconscious energy in the meme of 911 empowered them, but now that
everyone is conscious of the date, it won't work again.
Memetics does suggest that there are auspicious and inauspicious
dates or days for various activities.
Cloning seems to have run into some problems such as producing animals
that age prematurely and/or are more prone to disease such as Dolly
the sheep's arthritis. I would explain this memetically as the biological
organism ‘tapping into' an already existing meme for itself. Normally
an animal generates a meme of itself with a fresh arc of existence,
that grows as does its own life. A clone doesn't need to do this so
joins with a readymade meme, where the groove has already been trammelled.
So it joins the meme already into an arc of existence and travels faster
along it for not having to blaze a new path.
The above points show that memetics is a unique and universal theory
of explanation. Surely more research can develop this potential and
make all phenomena, even that once considered esoteric and occult into
an understandable paradigm.
Memetics holds the promise of the philosopher's stone. By explaining
all things, it can be the key to the secrets of the universe
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