Guide:
I. Introduction ← you are here
II. Components of thinking
III. Mechanisms of cognition
IV. More mechanisms
V. Types of memes
VI. Meme2Meme2Gene interactions
VII. Human2Human transmission
VIII. A Bigger World
IX. Gravity of 'plexes
X. Three is a crowd
XI. Third scenario
XII. Religion and philosophy
XIII. Mental disorders of the new age
XIV. True vs Fake
XV. Outsourced Me
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In the year 1976 Richard Dawkins, a well known evolutionary biologist, released a book called "The Selfish Gene". The book states that evolutionary forces apply not just to whole species, groups, or individual creatures, but to lower levels, - genes, too. Most of the writing was dedicated to explaining how behavior influences genes and vice versa, how some behaviors are more advantageous than others, and how it all ultimately leads to "evolutionary stable strategies" of survival, - patterns of habits that allow creatures, by themselves and as a group, to take advantage of their environment while not letting other animals to take advantage of them in the long term.
However, the book also states that to achieve "stability" genes have to influence animals, because if the creature dies, so do it's genes, and if no reproduction takes place until that moment, then the entire DNA sequence gets naturally selected out of the gene pool. So "better" genes have better chances of getting replicated and passed down through generations, so animal bodies are optimized exactly for that. But the influence doesn't just end at "peacocks with prettier tails get to score a mate", no, the book posits that DNA has patterns of behavior encoded in it. For example: cuckoos, birds famous for their methods of raising offspring. The apparently-evolutionary-stable-strategy for those birds is made of finding the nests of other birds where parents are temporarily absent, due to going for hunting, for example, and laying eggs there, flying away, and never looking back. Procreation is achieved while successfully avoiding all burdens of parenthood. But the story doesn't end there - the cuckoo chick after hatching doesn't just sit there, continuously lying to "parents" that it's not adopted. No, the thing immediately, while nobody is watching, even if it's own eyes aren't properly open yet, starts pushing other eggs from the nest, to eliminate competition. That brings the question: where did the bird learn that, what people in evolutionary biology would call, a "dick" move? Certainly not from relatives, cuckoos aren't known for their stellar methods of raising the young. So that, and a bunch of other factors, leave only one option: cuckoo is a shitty bird on a genetic level and "dick moves" are transmitted sexually.
And yet, not all behavior is stored in chromosomes, - plenty of animal species have to teach their kids how to survive by showing them how to hide, how to hunt, how to everything. Wouldn't it be more convenient for children to know "ins" and "outs" of survival from the very inception? Seems not to be the case. Apparently, there are two methods of transmission for information that tells animals how to act.
One of them is genetic, the other - "memetic".
Dawkins coined a term "meme" to describe how living beings learn how to behave by perceiving their surroundings and members of their group. Wolf cubs learn how to hunt by watching how their mother hunts, and cats learn how to groom themselves by mimicking their parents. The same is true for humans - the whole concept of schooling relies on homo sapiens' ability to acquire skills via observation. Just like a gene is a unit of information of how a body should be made, memes are units of learned behavior. A scientific field dedicated to research of this topic was created and called "memetics". It's main finding can be summed up like this: Memes behave like bacteria. Which is why a lot of the terminology is borrowed from biology. As you will see - a lot of brain's functions developed for the spread and conservation of memes as if they are living things.
Although, these days, the field doesn't seem to be doing very well. At all.
Hello.
These pages you are about to read are an aggregate of my knowledge on the topic of properties of information, as it handled by humans.
They are written for multiple reasons:
1) It's too much information for my brain to contain it all, so to avoid forgetting it i'm using a more concrete medium.
2) It's easier to examine your own knowledge once it can't escape you and has more solid form.
3) Help from outside is necessary, because i can't do everything on my own. It will be convenient to have a thing to point at and say "i need help here".
4) Perhaps my efforts can help people.
I’m definitely not the first one to try to use the concept of “memes“ to explain how society works, nor do i seek glory and avant-garde titles (i do like $ though), but i’m doing it mostly for myself. There’s no credentials to brag about, no PhDs, no diplomas, no friends in higher places to back me up, so the only thing i can offer is my word.
Many words, to be fair, and i hope all are true.
Any attempts to get my personal info will be met with a response that your mother knows me very well. Intimately.
Please, keep in mind, this whole set of texts is a work in progress. There's going to be a lot of holes and incomplete info. Some things should be placed in different categories, some - outright removed. A lot - rewritten (already happened once). I'll try to be as comprehensive as possible, but "help from outside is necessary". If someone can offer better data - be my guest.
I fear and welcome critique.
First three pages(after this one) aren’t stricly dedicated to memes themselves, and the focus is mostly directed at explaining why memes work the way they are via explaining how human brain processes information. It’s not important for the most part, so feel free to go straight to chapter V, i gave space to describing mechanics mostly because some may want to know how perception works.
So let's talk memetics.