Memes

Memes

Page Contents

 Introduction

 Defining "Meme"

 Memes, Life-Goals, & Life-Rules

 Memes & Genes, Similarities & Differences

 Memes are Important to Individuals

 Memes are Important to Civilization

 How are New Memes Created?

 How are Memes Passed On to Society?

 How are Memes Passed On to our Children?

 Why are Families Failing in Passing on Good Memes?

 What happens if memes are not passed on?



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Introduction

Life-Goals and Life-Rules are ideas and ways of thinking. In this curriculum, they are

introduced in the 4th grade.

Life-Goals are conscious or unconscious descriptions of what you want to be like, and of how

you want other people to think of you.

Life-Rules are the rules for guiding your own life to reach the Life-Goals you set for what kind

of person you wish to become and be. They guide you in everyday living and activities.

Life-Rules often encompass* your impact upon others, and their reaction and subsequent*

impact upon you. They can deal with virtually everything* you think of or do.





Defining "Meme"

Memes are virtually anything that can created in the mind

 ideas

 mental constructions

 concepts

 goals

 methods for doing something

 ways of organizing

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 ways of thinking about something

 perspectives*

 rules

which we hold to be true.

Memes come is all sizes and "shapes."

 A single short sentence about life.

 A piece of music.

 A complicated formula

 The plans to build a 747 airplane

 Memes can apply to individuals, groups, or to (most of) a society.

 Memes can be about thinking processes. That is, algorithms* which guide us to clear

thinking.

 Memes can and should be redundant*, supportive, and complementary between

themselves.

 Memes should NOT be contradictory, but sometimes they are! Contradictory memes

create problems for the person holding them and for the people they deal with.

Societal memes are those which have been widely spread through a society. They constitute*

a base which determines, to a considerable extent, how most individuals in that society think.

They can be called societal perspectives or societal viewpoints. Thus, they can have a

profound* impact, either positively or negatively, upon that society.

Example: The strong emphasis placed upon marriage.

Example: Democracy is a meme. There have been many societies where this idea did not

exist. In those societies the operating meme was probably something like, "the king makes all

the important decisions."





Memes, Life-Goals, & Life-Rules

Life-Goals and Life-Rules are some of the memes that a person has in his own mind.





Memes & Genes, Similarities & Differences

Memes function in a way similar to genes (as in DNA!). Both effect "Who" we are, and how

we behave. The table below acts to compare and contrast genes and memes.



Genes Memes

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Change only by accident of mutation*. Can be created or improved by thinking.

Change is VERY slow. Change is VERY fast.

Passed only downward through the family Can be passed downward through the family

tree. tree, and to anyone in any generation.

Impact only individuals within the same Can impact entire societies and the whole

family tree where the original mutation world.

occurred.

It takes many many generations for a gene to Major impact upon society can take only a few

spread widely. years. The Internet is a good example.

Evolution via genes is slow and slowing even Evolution via additions to and changes in our

more. The existence of many new medical and memes is accelerating* very rapidly. New

social support memes suppresses evolution memes stimulate and facilitate the creation of

through genetic changes. Our memes very other new and even more powerful memes. The

often remove the force of the "survival of the idea of gene mapping, and its now successful

fittest" pressure that selects good mutations, completion will lead to a virtual explosion of

and deselects bad mutations. new knowledge and fantastic advances in

medicine and biology.

There has not been any really significant Evolution due to the creation of new memes is

changes in our evolution due to genes in the occurring at an incredibly fast pace. New

last 50,000 years! memes are created daily at a furious rate. They

are responsible for the advancements made in

civilization over the last 50,000 years!

It is completely impossible to learn all the

memes available to us. Making good use of

memes requires that we have mastered how to

find the memes we need when we need them.

The meme we call "The Internet" allows us to

do this.

Our future development will be because of new

memes.







Memes are Important to Individuals

Some memes are the mind-tools you need to live life. Without a good set of mental tools, your

life can be difficult. Memes are the overwhelming mechanism by which you grow up and

become competent in every area of life. Very nearly all of the memes you will need in life

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were created before you were born. You must either learn them, be able to quickly find them

when you need them, or be able to reinvent them. Many memes are learned in

school.

You don't have to memorize all the memes you will have to use. Many times memes can be

found when they are needed. This is much easier now with the Internet and our powerful

search engines.





Memes are Important to Civilization

Our civilization improves because the memes created in one place by one person can be

transmitted (taught) to the next generation, and also they can be transmitted form one corner

of a society to another corner in the same generation.

Memes are EXTREMELY important! Civilization has advanced ONLY through the creation

and evolution of memes, and NOT the evolution of genes.

Without new memes having been created, learned, and used, we would still be cavemen.

Without new memes created in the future, we cannot advance beyond were we are now.

In your life you may be able to create new memes which never existed before. If they are good

ones they may spread throughout society and pass downwards for many generations. The

memes you might create may help mankind.





How are New Memes Created?

People think them up. One of the greatest and most powerful attributes of humans is their

ability to solve problems. We do this by creating and applying new ideas. We can create new

ways of doing things. We can create new ways of thinking about old things. The idea of

memes is itself a meme!

People create memes as new:

 Ideas

 Perspectives used to understand the world

 Patterns of behavior

 Solutions to problems in society

 Inventions

 Medical cures

 Kinds of organizations

 Etc









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How are Memes Passed On to Society?

A critically important and powerful attribute of humans is their ability to communicate. Thus,

when a new meme is created, it can be spread to other humans. We can do this with the spoken

word. The written word is usually used to pass new memes on to large numbers of the society.

Personal knowledge becomes personal memes. We can pass them on to our own children and

other family members, friends, and people we know or work with.

Sometimes new memes spread throughout most of society, and become societal memes.

Memes can evolve and spread very quickly, in time measured in decades. The implementation

of the ideas of the Internet, Email, web sites, and Google searches are very good examples.

Many modern people now carry these as part of their personal inventory of memes. They

didn't exist as societal memes only 20 years ago! The memes of the WWW are still developing

very rapidly! One of the most recent is the Blog, or Web Log.

If you in your life create a good new meme, having a good command of the English language

and the ability to write well will greatly help in spreading your new meme. If you succeed in

this, respect of you from others will grow.

This author has lived long enough to see an evolution in the memes of our society. True, some

of these new memes are not spread completely throughout the society. But because they have

power, and they are better solutions than the old memes, they will spread over the coming

generations.

Memes are passed on by the act of learning. Sometimes this is by the learner simply watching

what others do. Sometimes it is by direct teaching, as from a parent to a child, or teacher to a

class. Sometimes it is by self-teaching, say from reading a book. (See "Stages of Human Male

Development" for an example of a societal meme that has been around for many thousands of

years.)





How are Memes Passed On to our Children?

Local

It used to be that neighbors tended to help watch over and to teach the children in the

neighborhood. We are now tending to live our lives isolated from our immediate neighbors,

therefore this channel has greatly weakened.

Watching what other people do.

Church

Family

The family should be a major force for transferring memes from one generation to the next.

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Unfortunately, this channel has been weakened by both parents working, and the increasing

trend for there to be no other relatives nearby. Too many families are are not doing a good job

of imparting wise memes to their own children.

Peers

Children who are basically raising themselves will create memes, and share them with each

other. However, young people do not yet have enough experience to reliably create memes

with wisdom. Because of this, their new memes may have built-in problems or negative

aspects. They have not had time to be proof-tested!

Media, Entertainment, & Advertisement

These are only interested in memes which help corporations make a profit. On average they

are NOT interested in spreading memes which make the society as a whole stronger, safer, or

better.

Schools

Schools used to be a significant channel for transmitting memes to children. They have lost a

lot of that ability. This has happened because of these changes.

(1) A lot of children have not received the meme that education is something good for

them. In fact, many see school as their enemy. They are tuned out, and reject much of

the teachings.

(2) Some teachers did not receive a set of wise memes when they were children.

(3) Without the teachers realizing it, or not having the power to stop it, good memes are

being replaced by bad memes.

(4) There have been numerous examples in the news during the last few years which

show that there are forces at work in education which are specifically designed to

destroy memes which do reflect a wise basis.





Why are Families Failing in Passing on Good

Memes?

 The parents are both too busy.

 They don't know what to teach, because they did not learn those memes themselves.

 They don't understand the importance of memes.

 They don't know how to teach them.

 There are no other extended-family members around who can help teach.

 It never occurs to the adults to teach them.

 They assume the school will teach them.



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What happens if memes are not passed on?

Very many of our societal memes were created long ago. They have been fine-tuned over

many generations. They have improved. They have survived because they have wisdom and

they work.



Memes that have to do with subjects like physics have been written down, and are available to

anyone who needs them. If you are using physical laws in your school or your work, it would

be obvious when you are lacking a meme which is a law of physics. If you are in need of them

you can look them up. But if you do not know any of these laws of physics, you will not

function well because of the amount of time spent looking them up everything.



Another kind of meme has to do with living a good life and in smooth relationships. In the

past, but less often now, these were passed on within families. When families don't pass them

on, very often people don't realize they lack understanding (a meme), and don't realize they

should change. To them the meme they need is lost.



If too many people have lost the same meme, then that likely means that meme is lost for the

society. It has died out (is no longer a significant factor).



Lost memes can be replaced by new memes created by the new generation. Those new memes

are very likely not fully mature, and have serious problems. There hasn't been enough time to

remove the bugs.



Negative memes can move in and take over.



Society will go backwards.



The Bottom Line

The Bottom Line of the above paragraphs is that our society has lost a lot of its ability to pass

on wise and valuable memes. Because of this we are risking our civilization. Fortunately,

many people in our society are waking up and are successfully working to make real changes.







(Vocabulary on next page)









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Vocabulary (As used in this essay.)

accelerating Making something to go faster and faster.



algorithms A set of rules with steps to solve a problem



constitute Goes into making up something.



encompass To include or enclose something.



mutation A change in a gene for any reason.



perspectives Ways to view or think about or view something.



profound Of very great significance or importance



redundant More than on thing that can cause a result or outcome to happen.



subsequent That which follows



virtually everything Very nearly everything. Very little left out.









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