>What, then, are your ideas about the meme-brain interface? I've got a few,
>which I'll maybe post tonight, but haven't got the time this lunch-hour...
>have you got any crafty quick memes to seed the debate? Go on... mate...
>
[SNIP: An entirely peripheral, embarrassing, and completely sweet comment]
I am thrilled to find another meme-watcher! Once I was hiking through a
large and desolate volcanic crater when far in the distance a group of about
twenty boy-scouts emerged from the forest trail and had lunch. They made a
circle! That circle of individual blue uniformed humans sitting on the
black lava was so clearly a biological chain I about...well...I'm to shy to
say...
Here's a few crafty as quick as I can ideas on meme-brain interface. When a
rabbit seeks cover upon seeing a hawk, the rabbit is not responding to the
hawk per se. The rabbit carries pictures of hawks in its brain, and when
that picture and a real hawk get aligned this activates the nervous system
and triggers the "dive for cover" response. This hawk-picture evolved, along
with thousands of others similar images. These pictures have no
self-replicating ability, nor are they capable of heuristic interaction.
But they did evolve from a self-replicating system, the rabbit. So the best
and most useful pictures were transfered with the healthiest rabbits. Now,
I believe, the proto-human primate had similar images and therefore had in
place the system necessary to evolve a method where images could interact in
heuristic scenarios, the winners of which would activate the nervous system.
Behold the meme.
My guess is the original images and the self-replicating images are made up
of RNA produced electro-chemical codes, probably using four letters. It
must take thousands of these letters to produce a hawk-meme but once
constructed (through years of childhood trial and error observations) the
hawk-meme can interact, a decent imitation of a real hawk, with the rest of
the members of the brain's simuland universe.
Now the pre-meme primate was no simple creature. He and she were all ready
a complex of contending forces that had to resolve into specific actions. Do
I attack or roll on my back and act submissive? In fact much of what we are
attributing to memes may be just our good old primate genetically induced
internal competitions (The subject of another thread). But the meme
structure did create a whole new contender for the throne,that which
determines action. Though it is possible for memes to dominate, it is to
the detriment of the whole. We need all the diversity, but it has to be
balanced in order to function effectively. I think that memetics will teach
us to become less dependant on our ability to think, rather than more. We'll
put thinking in its place alongside, rather than above, the many other
marvelous systems within us.
For a specific example of meme/brain interface this group is a great
example. By entering this group and interacting over a period of time I've
allowed my mind to download (quite literally) each of your personaltys.
Dave, Tim, Tad, Richard, Reed, Kenneth, Glenn, Hakeeb, Vicki, James, David,
Lior, Wade, David, Corey, Erik, Tom....Oh! God! Help me!...et al now live as
separate individuals within my cortex. No telling who you've all usurped
because of limited space. As time goes by I will refine and develop more
accurate representations of each person. But all ready I can place you in
the bustling pub in my brain and watch us interact. Another Beer! Or, I can
become each of you in turn, taking on your nature and responding to the
others as you would. Or, I can mix you together and make a CofV personality
based on the whole group. What an amazing creation is this ideosphere! But
it isn't really you, and it ain't life neither.
This was fun!
---Peter