Memes

All things that are alive replicate but not all things that replicate are alive. There are structures in nature that replicate without being alive.
Crystaline structures replicate.

To survive the ravages of time, anything with form and order must replicate. It must produce copies of itself or it will eventually be destroyed. There is a concept called memetics which applies this concept to information and ideas. There are ideas that survive and continue because they pass from person to person because they provide something that the host desires or needs. The idea that you should wear a seatbelt increases a person’s survival. The idea of an entire religion can provide the protection of a community or internal peace and purpose.

There are many sizes and complexities of memes and they can range from an entire worldview like democracy to a simple saying such as “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. A more complex meme is usually a compound meme just like a complex organism is made of many smaller interdependent organisms; IE cells.

The purpose of the study of memes is to study ideas in the way we study organisms. When we do this we can see organic behaviors as ideas pass though population. Competition and mutation are just two of the most obvious organism-like properties of memes. One of today’s most popular marketing concepts is called “viral” marketing and it is an apt term in more than one way.

It is easy to see that a human mind can be thought of as a meme and is certainly made up of other memes. Using this model we can describe internal turmoil as incompatible memes that compete for resources inside the storage place that is a human brain. We can see the mutation of meme’s from the child’s game “telephone”. And we can see adaptive mutation in religion when we consider how individual education and reading was once a heresy punishable by death in the catholic religion but now the catholic church is one of the worlds largest educational institutions. Would the catholic meme be as successful today if it had not changed in this way? Religion is an especially good example in the study of memes because of the complex aspects of organisms it shows: from strong reproductive skill and focus, mutation and adaptation, to speciation and competition.

Meme’s can also be thought of as parasitic or symbiotic. If a child is often told it is evil and worthless it can alter the survival rate of the host in a negative way causing dangerous behavior. Abused children become abusive parents, so the meme can still replicate. Perhaps this meme, if studied, can be credited with a rise in fatherless children, teen pregnancy and perhaps a rise in child production itself. In this way perhaps it benefits itself more than the host. Just as many parasites do.

A virus infects a cell and causes the cell to stop its normal function and to instead begin creating more copies of itself. Fear can be described as a virus of the mind. Fear and inadequacy lead to overly protective and paranoid behaviors and therefore abuse. Abuse leads to fear.

Along with the strong desire to spread our genes and reproduce a copy of our physical body, every human has the need to replicate their spiritual body. Every person desires to spread their own meme. Each person has an intense desire to be understood and to be agreed with. Each human has an innate desire to be remembered and to leave a mark or legacy. Children are the perfect clean slate for our meme and nothing makes a parent happier than to see their child copy them. Nothing bothers a parent more than to see their child deviate from the ideas they themselves have. But the survival of a species of organism depends on mutation and so children begin to combine not only the memes of their parent but others as well.

If we as adults can change repeatedly and dynamically and still consider ourselves the same person then we must also face the fact that as we communicate our ideas to others, they literally become a storehouse for portions of our soul. We, in turn, do the same for them. Though they mix with other experiences and priorities, it is still what we think of as “me” but housed in parts in different bodies. The more we are believed and the more people agree with us, the more we pass on a portion of our self. When a person trusts you and believes the things you tell them, they agree to take on a part of your meme and replicate it. They agree to become part of the same data organism. They integrate parts of you into their own decision making processes and make it part of their idea of “self”. This leads to further replication and mutation.

The dark side of this process is lies. When we lie about our feelings, opinions and our behavior we pass on a false meme. When we hide how we truly feel through small misrepresentations and omissions we destroy our soul a little at a time. When we keep our opinions to ourselves we do not replicate our true being. The urge to only use small talk and commonalities is a fear that what we are on the inside will not be accepted so we simply pass along and reinforce the common memes. It allows us to show connection between us without the risk of showing the differences and possibly having to resolve them. When we lie, we create false ideas of reality that pollute minds and cause cognitive dissonance and unhappiness. When someone fudges on how much they won at the casino and never mentions the losses, others believe them and try to emulate their success. When they fail they believe they are unlucky and become dissatisfied or obsessed. When a person boasts about their golf game and lies about their scores, others find themselves insufficient and also lie to hide their inadequacy and therefore a resonance of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and lying can spread from person to person.

Even a lie to protect a person’s feelings only causes harm in the long run. When a dress looks bad on a woman and you do not tell her, after a number of times she will detect that you are not giving your full opinion. Because she knows you have lied in the past she doubts you when you tell the truth and therefore never feels that she can trust you when you give a good opinion. In turn she begins to never feel that you believe she looks good and eventually believes that same falsehood.

When we die, all that we have not communicated dies with us. If we have lied many times, people know it and do not believe us. If they do not believe us then they do not carry as many parts of our meme forward. Lying destroys the soul.

When we submit to conformity we become a repeater of common memes. Though in some cases this can be good, it must not become all that we are or we are nothing more than a collection of other people and their contribution. We are nothing other than a repeater and a storage medium. When we fear to share those things about us that are strange and unique because we fear being an outcast, then we never pass on a part of us that is uniquely us. When we hide those unique parts even from ourselves, we destroy our gift to humanity.

Humanity itself is one great brain with each individual being like a neuron. Humanity as a single entity makes some decisions but because there is so much cognitive dissonance, humanity cannot yet awaken as a whole complex mind. With the advent of greater communication techniques we have come much closer to becoming one mind but we must solve the fear, hate, greed and malignant self-interest before we may become a conscious entity.

Examine yourself. Examine your thoughts, ideas and actions. Change yourself in this life and you change yourself in the next. Speak and act in a truthful way and you will live forever. Be aware of yourself and you will decide how you live your next life.

We carry the souls of our ancestors inside us and we change it and mix it as we hand it on to the next generation with the hope that our changes will be more useful to them. We are our parents and we are our children. We are our ancestors and we are our descendants. The abusers become the abused and when the abused do not learn they become abusers. We suffer at our own hands. We are one but we do not yet recognize it.