[Qingu]

Richard Dawkins coined the word "meme" to describe an idea that behaves like a virus. Certain ideas seem to use humans to replicate and spread themselves. For example, you might hear a jingle on an ad, whistle it to yourself, and then someone else will here you whistle it, repeat it, and then spread it to someone else.

A lot of "ideas" can spread like this. Advertisements. Political slogans. Philosophical movements. Religions. The ideas that, when believed by humans, make the humans repeat them and spread them to other humans, are the ideas that spread the best and often last the longest. If you think hard enough about it, you can even map traits to certain ideas in terms of memes. For example, what we call "fads" are memes with a high rate of spreading but a low rate of retention. Some memes have been described as parasites (Dawkins seems to think religion is such a meme), which pray on the well-being of their human hosts to spread and propogate themselves at the host's expense.

The purpose of this thread is to ask: what if we take the metaphor further? What if, instead of comparing memes to viruses, we compared them to organisms or even beings?

If you think about it, the only thing separating a meme from a biological organism is the lack of a physical body. But when it comes down to it, "physical body" is an arbitrary distinction based on lines drawn in the sand. What does it mean to say that I, Qingu, have a physical body? Yes, I have arms and legs and a brain, and those things are made up of cells. But what the hell are those cells doing? I am more than simply the sum total of my cells. Somehow, through a combination of processes all throughout my body, I can control what many of those cells do. I can make my cells work together to propogate myself. Oftentimes I can do this at the cells' own expense, killing off individual cells to make room for new or better ones. What ruthless masters we are towards the individual cells that make up our body!

But ultimately, what binds our physical body into an "identity"? How has our identity become distilled into our mental consciousness? The word "I" is simply the vocabulary we use to identify our own conscious willpower. But in reality our physical bodies are so much more than the "I" that drives them and in fact are made up of many "individuals" in our cells. The "I," our consciousness, is sort of like a group consciousness among our cells, controlled by a specific group of cells (the brain) that drives all the rest of the cells in our colony to action. The fact that we are animals and we have willpower—unlike plants or protozoa—is simply an accident of evolution.

So what if human memes represent the next "step" in evolution? Maybe "step" implies progress to much and is too linear—perhaps a better word is the "next abstraction"?

To explain: biologists divide life into 6 kingdoms, based largely on phenotype—bacteria, archaea, protists, fungi, plants, animals. But this system of classification is based on lines in the sand, since everything ultimately spreads out from a common ancestor. Maybe a better way of drawing the lines between organisms is based on their levels of abstraction.

• A cell is its own individual; it is its own "I." It is born in time and dies in time.

• A plant is an "individual" in the sense of shared purpose amongst its smaller individual components, its cells. It is an "I" consisting of many tinier "I's" all unknowingly working together.

• An animal is an "individual" in the sense of its consciousness. Like plants, it is an individual consisting of many tinier individuals, all unknowingly working together. But an animal also exhibits a greater level of abstraction than a tree because the "individual" of the animal is self-aware. The "individual" of animals can consciously control the group consciousness that directs the tinier "I's" of its cells.

• A "meme" is an individual in the sense, like all other "individuals," it is born in time and dies in time. Like plants, the "I" of a meme consists of many smaller "I"s—all the humans who adhere to it. Like animals memes are often self-aware of their own nature as an organism—religious people talk of "spiritual battlefields," we have "wars of ideas." To a large extent, memes control individual humans' consciousnesses, which control their choices about physical actions, which in turn control the actions of their individual cells. If there ever is a 100% collective consciousness in human society, it will probably resemble the most powerful and long-lived memes, such as Islam.

To put this an even other way:

• Cells are masters of their molecules.
• Plants are masters of a group of individual cells.
• Animals are the masters of a group of a group of plantlike beings (our subconscious functions) which are in turn the masters of groups of individual cells (our body).
• Memes are masters of a group of animal-like beings (humans) who are in turn masters of a group of plantlike beings (subconscious functions), which are in turn masters of groups of individual cells (their bodies).

As you can see, the above list is a progression of "individuals" based on metaphysical abstraction rather than phenotype. I'm not sure where the mitochondria would fit in, nor am I sure if the Planet Earth (the entire ecosystem) would somehow be a step above the memetic level of abstraction (or, for that matter, if individual molecules in cells would be a step below cells in memetic abstraction, and so on).

To what extent should we let memes be our masters? We all have ideas we want to propogate and spread. Many of you probably want to propogate Christianity. I want to propagate secular enlightenment values. Muslims want to propagate Islam. Throughout history, humans have gone to ridiculous and often suicidal lengths for no other reason than to propagate their memes. Where do you draw the line between a human controlling a meme, and a meme controlling a human?

[Jeffrey]

Interesting approach to memes, anthropomorphizing them. I can't imagine memes having any sort of semblance of consciousness, or rather, particular goals. That is, the dish soap ad jingle you whistle that I hear and begin whistling was designed by a human to be catchy. The idea of a cult that attempts to brainwash you with a weekend of intense programming were not self-created, but were developed in the mind or minds of the cult's leaders.

Do individual genes have goals? Or are they passed on as they prove useful? Does the gene for height have some ultimate goal, or is its success based on how it proves useful or attractive to the species passing it on or stifling it through the generations?

Same with ideas, I would think. People live and die for ideas because they seem useful to them, either as a naive way to find purpose or connect with a community, or for genuine commitment to an idea. People didn't eat tomatoes at a point in European history because rumor had it they were poisonous. The meme of "Tomato = poison" was successful for a while, adopted by many because it seemed useful (not dying be its usefulness). Once folks realized how healthy (and delicious!) tomatoes were, it became a wise idea to eat them and grow them.

The meme of iron weapons and technology passed because iron proved useful in gaining advantage over folks over bronze, or catching up with those using bronze.

It all depends how you look at memes. People select mates by recognizing consciously or subconsciously desireable genetic (or otherwise) traits: intelligence, athleticism, attractive features, etc. People often select ideas for the same reason. If you're raised in an actively and passionately (Catholic, Sunni, secular humanistic) home, you may passively accept those ideas because they're useful to keeping you fitting in with your family or community.

I don't see memes as masters, because I don't think we can attribute any sort of non-abstract function.

It's like our (offsite) discussion of morality. If I was the only person living on an island by myself, could I spread memes? Would I be useless to memes if memes are the overarching controllers of the planet? Without someone to interact with, doesn't meme theory fairly much evaporate? I still operate with ideas as part of my survival, but I have no ability to pass them on. There's a memetic potential, though. If I were to exist in a dimension void of other life, I would still have genes, but I wouldn't have the ability to pass them on. If I am rescued from that state and encounter mates or people with genetic technology (a world without women but with test tubes?), my genes now have an extended purpose.

[Jeffrey]

Also, if we externalize memes by comparing them to organisms, wouldn't there be multiple memes from each person, and a population of billions upon billions on the earth? Because no two people have the exact same idea. You and I might agree that vegetarianism is good, but our exact thoughts on it are necessarily slightly different because we are two different people.

So if I (and I didn't, but for example) convinced you to become a vegetarian, I have not passed on an exact idea to you, but merely a form of it because you and I cannot synchronize our brains, so our ideas are slightly different.

A completely digital sentience would pass on memes directly, and once memes were tested and adapted for perfection, they would pass them easily and directly back. Which is what we attempt to do with debate and writing and so forth.

In other words: can two people ever possess the same concept, or are there necessary infinitesimal differences in how each of us conceive even the most common and successful memes (such as emotions, or basic safety, etc.).


EDIT: As an addition to my last post, perhaps memes are not our masters, but symbiotic? We need useful ideas to survive, and ideas need sentience to pass on (sentience because animals seem to be able to share some ideas).

[Jeffrey]

Blah, since we're just philosophizing, last thought for now: if evolution is true, then memes developed after the first species gained sentience. If the gray goo scenario occurs, and the universe is eventually colonized and controlled by the machines man will perfect, will the machines be the last step in evolution, or will we one day find a universe where the highest or perhaps purest life is simply ideas or one perfect idea, existing on a digital cross-galatic information super-network?

[Qingu]

Hmmm ... I'm trying to make sense of what I originally wrote. It seems like my point was that since our bodies and identities are themselves abstractions, the fact that memes are abstractions should not be a hindrance to comparing them to bodies or identities....

Man, I don't know, Jeffrey. This all seems confusing as hell to me now. Maybe I should smoke some more before I respond to your points.

[Lightknight]

I think Dawkins was just bringing up some similarities between catchy tunes/ideas and viruses. The fact is, however, these "organizms" don't exist. They shouldn't be able to travel of radio waves or anything like that. It is just the way our memory works. Some things are easier to catch and harder to get off one's short term memory. But those things are equally less likely to be stored in the long-term memory that would allow them to be remembered for a long time. Ever started a catchy tune and realized you couldn't remember it? It may not happen often because the catchiest tunes are usually found in areas that we listen to a lot.

The major difference between plants, cells, animals and humans is that memes are not physical. Nor could we give them any type of body.

[Jeffrey]

Originally Posted by Qingu

Hmmm ... I'm trying to make sense of what I originally wrote. It seems like my point was that since our bodies and identities are themselves abstractions, the fact that memes are abstractions should not be a hindrance to comparing them to bodies or identities....

Hm, I missed this. I don't know if our bodies are abstractions, but if my thought is accurate that each meme is different from person to person, naturally changing the moment ideas form in our brain, even ideas influenced or introduced by others, then aren't memes part of each individual, like genes?

Because we choose memes consciously or subconsciously based off how useful we judge the memes to be, aren't memes tools for our survival? I pick the meme that one type of health insurance is better than another not because that health insurance needs to insure its survival, but because I choose that my survival will be better aided by that health insurance.

[Qingu]

Originally Posted by Jeffrey

Hm, I missed this. I don't know if our bodies are abstractions, but if my thought is accurate that each meme is different from person to person, naturally changing the moment ideas form in our brain, even ideas influenced or introduced by others, then aren't memes part of each individual, like genes?

Each cell in our body is different. Each cell carries the genetic code of the whole "person," but that code is manifested differently in each person. The code can also change, and a person's body changes drastically throughout its life. Cells die and new cells are born. Every seven years a person is a whole new person, on a cellular level.

Cells : People :: Bodies : Memes

So each meme, like each person's genetic code, is contained in each person that believes in it (like cells), but it's manifest differently in each person. The memes also can change over time, and the people holding the memes can definitely change. Overall its a lot more fluid than cells-bodies, but if identity is itself an abstraction than I wonder if memes can form a sort of superhuman identity.

Because we choose memes consciously or subconsciously based off how useful we judge the memes to be, aren't memes tools for our survival?

Do we rationally choose memes? The best memes certainly don't appeal to people's rational faculties.

And, comparing people to cells again, to cells choose to obey the will of the individual who controls their body? If you think of all the cells in your body as separate organisms than your body, and the individual mind that controls it, is sort of a supersymbiotic network, a hive. On the whole it's probably better for the average cell in your body, bending to the will of the individual. But certainly some cells end up dying for the will of the individual. Becoming a part of the "individual animal" can be seen a "tool for survival" for individual cells.

So natural selection works for the cells of the body—but because they're united under this abstract hivemind "individual", there's another layer of natural selection at work—the layer of the "animal" which is abstracted beyond the layer of the "cell."

Abstraction is really weird. Maybe the weirdest. I should read more about metaphysics.

[Jeffrey]

Originally Posted by Qingu

Each cell in our body is different. Each cell carries the genetic code of the whole "person," but that code is manifested differently in each person. The code can also change, and a person's body changes drastically throughout its life. Cells die and new cells are born. Every seven years a person is a whole new person, on a cellular level.

Cells : People :: Bodies : Memes

So each meme, like each person's genetic code, is contained in each person that believes in it (like cells), but it's manifest differently in each person. The memes also can change over time, and the people holding the memes can definitely change. Overall its a lot more fluid than cells-bodies, but if identity is itself an abstraction than I wonder if memes can form a sort of superhuman identity.

But is there any sort of meme that is overarching over a group of people? You and I have both accepted the meme of a consciously vegetarian lifestyle, but that means slightly different things for each of us, and for different but overlapping reasons. The meme manifests differently for each of us, and if theoretically I was the one to convince you to be a vegetarian (of course I wasn't), unless you hold the exact same conception of the concept, I have been unsuccessful in completely passing on the meme as I possess it. In other words, individual manifestations of a meme mutate constantly.

So we may conceive that any given "meme" is just the average of the conceptions held about it by people who accept or practice it. Your idea and my idea of vegetarianism are slightly different, but we contribute to the idea. So when we speak of vegetarianism as a general topic, like Christendom or Islam or humanism, we're talking about the basic shared elements.

Maybe we're saying the same thing, but I just don't know if memes exist except as abstractions. Since they only exist as abstractions, they can't consciously support their existence. We may be saying the same thing.

Do we rationally choose memes? The best memes certainly don't appeal to people's rational faculties.

I didn't necessarily say "rationally," I just said chosen consciously or subconsciously. I love the taste of a special imported chocolate chai tea, but I haven't looked into its nutritional facts. It may be bad for me, so my choice of it as a regular part of my shopping isn't necessarily rational at this point, but I am consciously choosing to propogate the meme that this tea is worthwhile by purchasing it and telling others.

Subconsciousness plays into it. Many kids need to receive the idea through experience or instruction that hot surfaces or sharp objects shouldn't be touched. If they pick up the idea that touching a hot stove is bad because they do it once, they don't necessarily stop and say "From this day forward...," instead they immediately incorporate the idea into their consciousness.

Memes can be chosen rationally and irrationally. All that matters is that ideas are passing onto people, or being generated through experience and then supported.

Abstraction is really weird. Maybe the weirdest. I should read more about metaphysics.

Sartre! Rand! The world is at your fingertips. Or it's all in your ****ing mind!

[Jeffrey]

A note on my last post - the inability to speak of memes as seperate, consistent-from-person-to-person concepts makes them even more like genes. Two people with a gene for red hair will not necessarily have the exact same shade or consistency of color. Two people with a "tall" gene may not both be exactly six foot eight inches.

["BrooksB"]

Interesting post. I've been thinking about memes lately. I like the way you organized it biologically. Also, it's smokey in here.

I think of memes as not a virus but as a social force, a sort of network among people who think alike. I know in my interactions with people, if I connect with them I can feel it. Eye contact has a similar effect. And like every animal, which is an individual- but with a brain, that thinks and feels, perhaps multiple people can think and feel as one entity.

However, it is probably more useful to think of memes in this manner if you consider orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy. Memes as social forces are more like attitudes toward a set of vague categories of behavior or another, manifested in various superficial forms. Like a person's general life philosophy. And if you take a look at the history of thought and philosophy, especially the modern-to-present era, you can kind of see a dialectic interaction of memes.

I think a topological map of the human race and their particular orthopraxy (functional mode) would be something interesting to look at. I think you would've seen several centers around which others are situated thirty years ago. Today, I think memetic connectivity is more decentralized.

Memetic connections are probably always changing among groups of people, and erratically within all of mankind. Some evolve into hubs that have a genuine social power. For instance, media celebrity and politics has founded many hubs that have been motivating social forces. Check it- most people that watched Fox News approaching the invasion of Iraq thought that Saddam was allied to terrorists, particularly al-Qaeda. However, with the internet there can be more hubs.

But what if we are just like a different level of primordial ooze that needs just the right amount of an electric jolt combined with the proper quality of individuals in order to be bolstered into a collective consciousness. Then we will behave like a higher order biological being. What would be next, for us anyways? So what's the process that gets us there? If all orders of biological organization have a control center ( nucleus, brain, .?.) what (or should I say "who" or even "what group of people") will be our control center? If our political philosophy is a vicarious controller of the propogation of memes (by virtue of election for us lucky Americans, and plenty of others too) then would politicians be the "brains"? HA! I don't think that's what we want.

If Marx was right, then there would be no brain other than "the idea" itself. Everyone would possess that idea and act accordingly. Life would be poo because everyone would be the same person bouncing around their little grid-square doing pretty much nothing.

If Nietzche was right, there would be a hierarchy. For right now there still is a hierarchy, but it's flattening. There are still grand "spatial biases" in information even with the internet. I don't think you can really strip hierarchy from society, anyways. And so, we're out there battling it out for memetic connections, assuming one has a limited amount of potential memes.

Hell, as a college student, I see the movement of memes all the time. On all the college campuses I've been to, there's a quasi collective consciousness. The attitude- young and carefree, thirst for knowledge (practical or theoretical), the set of nuance and social norms. I've also seen the collective consciousness of a fraternity, and a church. Some characteristics of my hometown and even my state seem to be like a collective consciousness (although not with boundaries strictly drawn at political borders). Even America has been constantly developing into a beautiful young woman of a country. And by God, the shoes are expensive.

I don't think that the entire human race is going to fall into some collective consciousness, at least not to the authoritarian level of the biological animal. If a large enough group of people did, the result would be genocide against all others, I bet. And I bet it's been tried.

Fascism sucks. Lets keep the wheels spinning and not fall into a collective consciousness. Memes are fun, but I'm in no hurry to consolidate and submit.

[Jeffrey]

I'll approach more of your post in a while (it deserves a full discussion), but for now: do memes have to lead to a collective unconsciousness? Each individual just chooses which ideas are useful, like gene selection. Some people pick tall people as their partners, others prefer short, some people take intelligence into account. Nowadays we don't play it up as much, but there was a time in our culture where mates were selected for people based on the traits they would add to the family.

Likewise, people in a society can pick different memes. Qingu leans toward secular humanism, I profess Christendom. We're in the same society and we share many of the same values, but we have some major ideas that have been presented to us that we alternately accept and reject out of harmony with each other.

Memes don't have to be vague, philosophical ideas, either. Any piece of information that passes from person to person or is shared among a group can be a meme. It may be stretching it to say that our basic senses are memes, but trusting them has been questioned by some philosophers and one has to choose to accept or reject their idea. The meme that gravity is constant is based on reality. The meme that leaving milk for fairies will keep your home accident-free does not seem to be.

We may need to define terms in regards to "collective unconsciousness." There could theoretically be a point where all people accept the same ideas about reality, but would that be a collective unconsciousness or just a shared worldview?

["BrooksB"]

I completely agree. I don't think it will happen. Not likely, anyways. If it's a minute probability, we'll probably destroy ourselves before it happens.

But still, personally I prefer to think of the power potential of memes. I also like to keep an internal locus of control. That's probably why I'm so stubborn.

["BrooksB"]

I thought this was an interesting relation to what I was saying about a "collective brain" as they call it.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/...nce/12ants.php

[bryanfal]

I can't help but think about the assumption that we are masters of the cells that make us up.

What about cancer? Is that not a renegade cell that has decided on it's own to grow exponentially or to begin to exercise independence from the body?

So doesn't that single cell become our master quite quickly? (Unless of course you don't care about dying, but that gets into the religious aspect this thread does not have)

Perhapes memes are like that. They are renegade ideas that decide to act independently from the host organism. After all, ideas are very unpredictable.