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Author Topic: Memetics  (Read 1330 times)

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Kyubi

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Memetics
« on: June 22, 2008, 02:27:12 am »
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Look at it this way. There is a parasite- worm-like creatures, that lives in snails. Now, these snails' tentacles become extremely swollen and begin to appear as pulsating, obvious "targets". However, they also take over the snail's brain. And well, the video explains what happens better, of course.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw</a>

By doing this, the worms have spread to many other snail's brains, and the process will continue. When we look at memes, they are that which is imitated, and they are just pieces of information. Someone's earrings, clothes, household decorations, common technological design features, memes are everywhere. Now of course it's common sense these are human made, however these are just memes again. Pieces of information that replicate, regardless of origin, they all have the same purpose- to replicate.

Going back to the parasites, it's obvious they're spreading genes, which are a little different, of course. Yet both memes and genes are the two replicators on this planet, and indeed across the cosmos, that continually spread. Darwin's theory, summed up is this:

If you have:

-Variation
-Selection
and
-Heredity

You MUST get evolution, or "design out of chaos without the aid of mind". Any information that is varied and selected will produce design, be it genes, memes, or language. In fact languages are just more memes. Memes, therefore, are continually evolving and trying to spread round to be passed on, just like genes. Throughout our lives we do nothing but replicate memes and pass on genes, it's what we do. But then if parasites and virii will do anything to pass themselves on, regardless of consequence, memes will also do this. After all, the bare basics of micro-organisms is to pass on genes, which are just pieces of information. They can't care about what happens as consequence, because they have no conscience or awareness. But genes want us not to waste time doing pointless things so they can get passed on, while on the other hand memes want us to do just that so they can be passed on. Now there's a sort of "arms race" going on between the two.

Parasites can either kill us, or we can develop symbiotic relationships with them and co-evolve. This is what languages were- parasites waiting for a host, essentially. So we both use each other to pass on genes and all is well, yet if the parasite is passing on memes instead, we are simply its meme machine. We have no use to it, it is our master. There are also technological memes, or "temes", which are beginning to affect us. We are rapidly approaching a point where memes can be replicated independently of humanity, children are learning to read faster, they learn to use machinery faster. In the future, we can have all sorts of implants and drugs to make us stay awake and operate machines. We think it's our choice, but the temes are making us do it. We are simply being forced to pass on skills and become more skillful at replicating them ourselves. Skills are memes, of course. Now think about that parasite in the snail, how it "takes over the snail's brain" and forces it to deliberately be eaten by a bird. It's occured to me that the snail may have seemingly been doing it voluntarily. Now prepare to !@#$% bricks. When we learn something interesting- say a funny story of what happened at work or school today, or something interesting you've heard about, you feel a sort of craving to tell someone. At the dinner table every night, my parents, and so many other people, exchange information they have picked up, memes, of course. That nagging urge to tell someone a story or whatever isn't actually our brains or our free will that just voluntarily wants us to do it. It is a meme in fact- a selfish replicator. Something that wants to replicate, regardless of whatever happens. The meme is controlling us to find whoever it needs to be spread to, and spread it. Just like the parasite with the snail. Languages and linguistic idiosyncrasies are spread just like this, too. We pick up new words and go through phases of using a certain word or phrase often. In fact, I'm not sure why I didn't think of this first- but habits we pick up.

What am I getting at with all this? Well think about it. It's not you voluntarily saying these words, getting into habits, etc, why do you think you have to make a conscious effort in an attempt to suppress a bad habit? Why do you crave to give out gossip? It's frightening. It is memes controlling us. They are forcing us to spread information on an incalculable scale under the guise of free will. We are infested with parasites, all using us to replicate themselves.

Lol, I'm going to talk about something unrelated now, but we all like the idea of it. A zombie outbreak. Hordes of mindless people, a la Resident Evil, ooh yes wouldn't that be exciting? Hordes of mindless drones trying to spread the T-Virus or Plaga wherever possible! It's already happening. All over the world. That is a genetic zombie outbreak. Possible in animals as our friend the snail demonstrated, yet impossible in humans. Why? Animals exist only as gene machines. It is we alone that exist as both gene and meme machines, and of course, one out of genes and memes must reign supreme. It is undeniable we are primarily meme machines, and a zombie doesn't go around "dishing out the latest goss", since it is pre-occupied on its one purpose of gene reproduction, as it has become strictly a gene machine. In the same way, we are almost strictly meme machines.

Thus, I prove we are already zombies, zombies cannot exist within human society, and that of course, freedom is an illusion. We are controlled by genes and memes. They are what give us our urges and impulses, those things aren't just coincidence. And now, I have proven we are zombies living in a 1984-esque society with a much better disguise of freedom. I shat a brick house when I realised this, no joke. It quite literally blew my mind. It's really altered my entire perception of reality and how people work.

As I typed that I realised another thing. We don't even have minds. Our "minds" and "memories" are just banks of memes for further reproduction, they are to memes what sex organs are to genes. I could go on, but I have a headache from all of this, and I can't really think of anything else before I cross the fine line between interesting theory/interpretation and talking out of my arse.

Just thought I'd share that with you all- pretty interesting.
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Re: Memetics
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2008, 02:40:45 am »
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tl;dr - memes are dumb, but we use them anyway
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Kyubi

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Re: Memetics
« Reply #2 on: June 22, 2008, 02:46:38 am »
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tl;dr - memes are dumb, but we use them anyway
You're missing the whole point. Memes use us. And please, no /b/ !@#$% in a serious topic.
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Re: Memetics
« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2008, 05:07:58 am »
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Moving this to off-topic.

And by off-topic, i mean other discussion.
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Re: Memetics
« Reply #4 on: June 22, 2008, 09:38:56 pm »
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tl;dr - memes are dumb, but we use them anyway
You're missing the whole point. Memes use us. And please, no /b/ !@#$% in a serious topic.
I'm not missing the point.

It's someone who has too much time on their hands saying MEMES ARE DUMB, DON'T USE THEM. Also, just because people on /b/ use tl;dr doesn't mean I can't use it in a serious topic. It's like when people say w/e in a serious topic. You don't jump on them for not spelling out "whatever."
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Re: Memetics
« Reply #5 on: June 23, 2008, 12:39:48 am »
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tl;dr - memes are dumb, but we use them anyway
You're missing the whole point. Memes use us. And please, no /b/ !@#$% in a serious topic.
I'm not missing the point.

It's someone who has too much time on their hands saying MEMES ARE DUMB, DON'T USE THEM. Also, just because people on /b/ use tl;dr doesn't mean I can't use it in a serious topic. It's like when people say w/e in a serious topic. You don't jump on them for not spelling out "whatever."
tl;dr seems overly dismissive, however, and somewhat mocking with the inherent tone of "GIANT WALL OF TEXT DON'T CARE"
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Re: Memetics
« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2008, 04:28:59 pm »
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tl;dr - memes are dumb, but we use them anyway
You're missing the whole point. Memes use us. And please, no /b/ !@#$% in a serious topic.
I'm not missing the point.

It's someone who has too much time on their hands saying MEMES ARE DUMB, DON'T USE THEM. Also, just because people on /b/ use tl;dr doesn't mean I can't use it in a serious topic. It's like when people say w/e in a serious topic. You don't jump on them for not spelling out "whatever."
tl;dr seems overly dismissive, however, and somewhat mocking with the inherent tone of "GIANT WALL OF TEXT DON'T CARE"
Pretty much every time tl;dr is used, the person actually read through the entire post. Which I did. The only people that use tl;dr in the sense of "GIANT WALL OF TEXT DON'T CARE" are people who simply put "tl;dr" and that's it. Those are usually trolls, as well.
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Kyubi

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Re: Memetics
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2008, 01:12:06 am »
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Indeed, but I find it has a tendency to discourage others from reading it. The whole meme thing's pretty interesting though, really. I'm not really so enthused over it anymore though- but it does make you think about people and the way we lead our lives and such.
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Re: Memetics
« Reply #8 on: June 24, 2008, 01:35:12 am »
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Yeah. I think part of it has something to do with the whole idea that copying something is the greatest form of flattery, but whatever. Eventually it just gets old. I think the only thing I use anymore is tl;dr, but I catch myself using a few other ones here and there.
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