Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id GAA02802 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 28 Jan 2002 06:25:08 GMT Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 22:20:53 -0800 Message-Id: <200201280620.g0S6Kr620515@mail21.bigmailbox.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary X-Mailer: MIME-tools 4.104 (Entity 4.116) X-Originating-Ip: [65.80.160.154] From: "Joe Dees" <joedees@addall.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Meme bonding Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)
>Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 23:54:09 -0500
> memetics@mmu.ac.uk "Francesca S. Alcorn" <unicorn@greenepa.net> Re: Meme bondingReply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>>Frankie:
>>> Has anyone written about "meme" bonding? That is: what causes memes
>>> to join together to form larger memeplexes? Why don't we just have
>>> billions of separate memes floating around in our brains?
>
>
>Philip:
>
>>Memes clutter together as most memes have parental memes. Coherence of
>>memes like social being often enhances survival rate compared to the loner
>>meme.
>>Thus generations of related memes tend to cling together. Examples:
>>computers and their parts, other inventions such as the airplane with
>>jet-engine, flight-computers, your own manifestation of your self is a huge
>>collection of related memes, religious memes taint your whole worldview thus
>>determining which
>>further memes should be adopted which always have to be compatible with
>>already
>>adopted religious memes, same goes for scientifically oriented minds. The
>>observation that memes are related to other memes, e.g. by composition, is
>>incorporated in my recursive definition of the meme. The use of memes acting
>>together is analogous to that of genes: take one gene and you have nothing
>>except
>>for perhaps the production of one type of protein, take 33,000 genes and you
>>may
>>build a human being.
>
>
>Yes, but what I am thinking about is something like gravity. Is
>there something like meme-gravity, that pulls them together? I know
>this sounds ridiculous, but I do have a serious question here. Do
>some memes have a greater powers of attraction than other memes? If
>we say that memes are like single cell ideas, then why do they get
>together to make an organism (memeplex) (why did single cells get
>together to form organisms)? Is it a result of our neural structures
>somehow - the combining of memes? I keep thinking that neural
>networks ought to fit in here somehow, but don't know enough about
>them to lay it all out. It is just a hunch. I understand that
>coherence of memes would enhance our survival rate, but what are the
>mechanisms of that coherence? There, that sounds like what I am
>trying to ask: what is the mechanism of meme coherence?
>
Some memes seem to naturally group together into memeplexes, because they either mutually reinforce or each contributes an aspect all of which are necessary to use the memeplex for some purpose. For instance, if your purpose is to control the behavior of others, the idea of a deity does not help if the deity cannot be proven to be efficient within the observeable world. Thus, the idea of a spirit life trancending the mortal coil, and the idea of discrete places to which this spirit is sent post-death depending upon the discretion of the deity, enforce the power of the deity to carrot-and stick obedience out of believers, making the faith a useful tool for its leaders to use in order to coerce desired behavior from the faithful.
>
>
>frankie
>
>===============================================================
>This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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