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Meme
 Image from Steve Bowers |
Self-reproducing and contagious idea, thought structure, or other information pattern which is propagated in ways similar to that of a gene.
Individual slogans, catchphrases, melodies, icons, inventions, ideologies, religions,and fashions are typical memes. An idea or information pattern is not a meme until it causes someone to replicate it, to repeat it to someone else. All transmitted knowledge is memetic.
Memes, like genes, pertain to tendencies (in this case belief or behavioural tendencies) and learned behavior. They are influences, but not determiners.
Memetics: The study of memes and their social and psychological effects.
Memeticist: 1. One who studies memetics. 2. A memetic engineer.
(term coined by Early Information Age scientist Richard Dawkins.]
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- Countersociomemetics - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Use of Social Psychology and Sociomemetics to reduce the effectiveness of social and memetic conditioning, or even turn the original conditioning into something completely different. An important element of memetic warfare and subversion. Sociomimeticists are either SI:1 or higher, or are SI:<1 sentients with implanted or augmented sociomemetic wetware, software, or firmware. - Cryptomemegineering
- Cryptomemetic Index - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
The degree to which an engineered meme cannot be detected, even by conventional memetic analysis. It is based on a complex of factors, most of which are incomprehensible to subsingularitan sophonts. - Embryomeme - Text by Max More, in Anders Sandberg's Transhumanist Terminology
Suggestion of a new meme to be used in a group with a shared set of knowledge. Usually made by somebody with an inflated ego trying to coin the phrase. - Meme Bug - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
A sentient modified to memetically infect higher toposophics. May be malicious or harmless. Meme Bugs are usually subsapient, but there are also sapient and even transapient variants. Their whole purpose is tied up with carrying the meme and infecting the target. Some types of Madverts are Meme Bugs that have been reversed engineered and given a different payload. - Meme Mule - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
A type of memenger, a sophont modified to transport memes from one place to another, but who is not aware of the purpose of the memes e carries. Often the memes are of a higher toposophic level than the mule emself. While having a strong sense of duty and service to the transapient or archailect on whose behalf they are transporting the memes, Meme Mules are not themselves affected by the memes they carry. They may unload the memes via docking stations (DNI upload), or even through their unconscious actions may trigger the desired responses in the target society or environment. - Meme Pool - Text by Glenn Grant
The full diversity of memes accessible to a culture or individual. Learning languages and traveling are methods of expanding one's meme pool. - Meme-Allergy - Text by Glenn Grant
A form of intolerance; a condition which causes a person to react in an unusually extreme manner when exposed to a specific semiotic stimulus, or meme-allergen. Exo-toxic meme-complexes typically confer dangerous meme-allergies on their hosts. Often, the actual meme-allergens need not be present, but merely perceived to be present, to trigger a reaction. Common meme-allergies include homophobia, paranoid anti-Communism, and porno phobia. Common forms of meme-allergic reaction are censorship, vandalism, belligerent verbal abuse, and physical violence. - Meme-complex, Memeplex - Text by Glenn Grant
Also sometimes called a memeticity. A set of mutually-assisting memes which have co-evolved a symbiotic relationship. Religious and political dogmas, social movements, artistic styles, traditions and customs, chain letters, paradigms, languages, and so on are meme-complexes. Types of co-memes commonly found in a scheme are called the: bait; hook; threat; and vaccine. A successful scheme commonly has certain attributes: wide scope (a paradigm that explains much); opportunity for the carriers to participate and contribute; conviction of its self-evident truth (carries Authority); offers order and a sense of place, helping to stave off the dread of meaninglessness. - Memegeneer
- Memenger - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
(Pronounced Me men jer.) A meme messenger; a sophont that acts like messenger RNA in transmitting memetic instructions from one society, polity, habitat, or civilization to another, as part of the message transmission within the ecology of an archailect. Usually the message is transmitted once, there is no replication or virus like behavior (unlike infectors. Depending on the target population, a memenger may be biont, cyborg, artificial (vec, aioid, ai, etc), or virtual. Among the many types are Meme Mule, Memoid, and non-replicating Meme Bug. - Memetacorp, Metacorp - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Not a corporation, but an "instructor" or "controller" that through memetic association or template that organises a number of corporations. Memetocorps are almost all transapient run and organised (often a metemtocorp is simply a transapient, or a group or loose association of such), and their suggestions and modus operandi can appear completely paradoxical, ridiculous, even counter-productive, to ordinary sapients. Nevertheless, they get results, often in the most unexpected way. - Memeter
- Memetic Art - Text by Anders Sandberg
Crafting skillful memes, spreading them into society. Partially a form of hacking, partially storytelling the form also has a somewhat competitive aspect. - Memetic Demons
- Memetic Drift - Text by Glenn Grant
Accumulated mis-replications; the rate of memetic mutation or evolution. Recorded data tend to slow the memetic drift of dogmas. - Memetic Engineering, Memgineering
- Memetic Infector - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
A sapient being used to infect societies or communities with a partiucular memeset. Memetic infectors resemble ordinary sophonts, but may differ psychologically, often having fanatical or one-sided enthusiasm for the meme-plex they are carrying. Infectors may be replicators (viruses) or non-replicators (memengers). - Memetic Self-replicating Swarm
- Memetic Totems
- Memetic War - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
A war of ideology and persuasion rather than weaponry or military might. Most transapients and archai uses memetics when dealing with lower toposophics and subsingulitaritans, few resort to anything as crude as actual hardware or software weaponry. Examples of memetic warriors might be PR agents, priest, poets, empaths. - Memeticity - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
A coherent aggregation of component memes that itself constitutes a larger meme. Philosophies, ideologies, worldviews, and religions are all memeticities. An alternative and somewhat more common term for memeticity is memeplex. - Memetoselection - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
The process whereby memes are favoured or selected against, according to darwinian mechanisms that favour the strongest memes. Memetoselection may be natural or artificial. - Memex - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
A meme designer expert system. Developed from the original advertising and marketing support systems of the Information Age into a sophisticated tool for memetic manipulation during the Interplanetary Era and the Federation Era. - Memicry - Text by Glenn Grant
An infection strategy in which a meme attempts to imitate the semiotics of another successful meme. Such as: pseudo-science, pseudo-rebelliousness, subversion by forgery, etc. - Memoid
- Multipart Memetic Assault
- Retromeme - Text by Glenn Grant
A meme which attempts to splice itself into an existing meme-complex. - Sapper Meme - Text by Keith Elis, in Anders Sandberg's Transhuman Terminology
An offensive (as opposed to benign or defensive) meme, intelligently-designed to infect a host, reduce the host's memetic immunity, and prepare the host for infection. - Sociomemetics
- Sophmeme - Text by Thorbørn Steen
A sophont memesystem, a specialized form of sophstem. Sophmemes are almost always created by high transapients as a way to secure the stability of a meme or memeplex. While a normal memeplex may fall out of use or be overridden by other memes, a sophmeme will notice the danger to its existence and try to survive. This is a function of the complex relations between the different memes of the memesystem. Sophmemes are usually used by transapients to establish a meme in a system to which they only rarely have access, such as systems far from the nearest wormhole.
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Initially published on 08 December 2001.
Initially published on 08 December 2001.
