What is a meme?

A joke is a meme. The alphabet is a meme. Religion itself is a meme. A “meme” is simply ideas that get passed down from person to person.

The word (rhymes with “deem”) is related to the word “gene.” And like genes, as an idea is passed around, the “meme pool” gets bigger. The ideas that spring from the first idea may be different, but still in the same lineage.

In internet contexts, however, a meme is simply a short way of describing those quizzes you see everywhere, the MySpace bulletins you see posted fifty thousand times, that same forward about the king in Nigeria who needs your investment…

How about instead of sending useless crap around the internet, we start some memes with a higher intention?

I found this really insightful webpage: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040213.html

It brings up an interesting point. “[Memes] remove the element of conscious choice, making the process purely mechanical.”

Is this what we're supposed to be breaking free from? The “groupthink” so to speak? But aren't memes helpful? They give us language, history, knowledge passed down from generation to generation…

To what degree are memes in control of us, and are we in control of memes?

Re: What is a meme?

Don't forget the classics:

   ”All you base are belong to us”    “Somebody set up us the bomb”

Re: What is a meme?

So after reading the article I can safely say that a meme is the same as collective consciousness, right?

You asked, who's in control; memes or us? It's not an issue of control! That's what I think. We are the product of the collective consciousness of our culture.  Yeah, the book wrote itself, but that doesn't mean that the meme controlled you when you wrote it. You were simply an open channel.

Re: What is a meme?

My question,

Like yours,
“Is this what we’re supposed to be breaking free from? The “groupthink” so to speak? But aren’t memes helpful? They give us language, history, knowledge passed down from generation to generation…

So I wonder,
In what way can memes help us To Change The World?

PJ

Re: What is a meme?

Memes can be thought of as viruses for the mind. But let me clarify one thing: there are memes, like fashion trends, or hip hop, or a phrase, or whatever, and then there are MEMES, like the developmental levels of Spiral Dynamics, or religions, which are collections of inter-connected memes.

Memes, either little or big, are only as automatic as we choose to let them be. If we are mindful people, then we choose whether or not to infect our consciousness with a given meme. And if we get infected against our will, we choose whether or not to get rid of it.

Many MEMES have built in virus protection to prevent them from being replaced by a different MEME or to keep those infected as carriers. For example, Christianity has one of the best virus protections ever devised: eternal damnation. Buddhism has a pretty good protection too: endless rebirths in samsara.

The original post hit the nail on the head: why not “start some memes with a higher intention”? Thus we have Zaadz, which is as much a meme – an idea – as it is a sorta-physical space in the cyber world and an actual physical piece of software and hardware. 

On my blog, I have been doing gratitude posts for a couple of months, posting something I am grateful for every day. In that time, some other bloggers have begun doing something similar, even if only once a week. I want to make gratitude a meme.

So here is the challenge: let's put the technology of memes to work doing something good in the world. Let's become more grateful people. Life really is amazing and joyful, even when we are hurting or sad. Let's all put a daily gratitude post on our Zaadz blogs. At least for a while. Give it a chance for a few weeks and see if it changes your outlook. It sure has changed mine.

Peace,

Bill 

Re: What is a meme?

I should clarify, I have been doing the gratiude posts at Integral Options Cafe. But I will begin to cross-post them on my Zaadz blog now.

Re: What is a meme?

An excellent idea! In fact, perhaps I can incorporate the theme of gratitude in the next Friday Five – another way to spread the seed!

Re: What is a meme?

I am taking you up on your challenge.  Hope it goes well.

Re: What is a meme?

Great!

Let's spread the meme!

Peace,

Bill 

Re: What is a meme?

Gratitude is one of my favorite themes for blog posts too.

I think that sometimes we hear criticisms (even when we “talk” to ourselves in our minds in a harsh way) louder than any external kindness. Taking a moment to acknowledge the kindnesses we receive gives them more heft and they won’t be dismissed in your mind so easily.

You don’t have to be grateful to a specific person to write about it either.You can be grateful for a situation, or the fact that someone created something on which you depend. Which sounds kind of vague, but isn’t really.

As a concrete example, in my case today, it could be something like the fact that Xcode 2.3 was released recently and fixed the compiler debugger which we use to develop Mac software. Yay! I’m incredibly grateful for that in my geeky way! I can write about that without knowing the name of the engineers who actually fixed the problem. So in my experience, even a mundane technical information blog entry can be fundamentally rooted in a spirit of gratitude.

Another thing that you might like which is along the same lines is something that I don’t post anywhere, but you potentially could. I try to write down two things that I enjoyed doing, found satisfying or did well each day. It helps to have these around to lift your spirits later when you run into a bad time. It also helps you spot trends, so you can say, how can I arrange to have more of that good stuff!

Best wishes,

–Catherine–*

Re: What is a meme?

Holy memes?

Oh yes, I got some for ya  :-)

Check out: Evolution in Southpark 

I guess it is in the SD vein but at least it has already changed the world

…   somewhat

 ;-) 

Re: What is a meme?

The book, The Coming Plague, talks about the interaction of viruses, bacteria, and our DNA. Viruses can be a source of disease or evolution. Laurie Garrett speculates that there is a free flow of genetic information occuring with viruses as the channel.

If we apply this concept to memes, then we see that there is some propagation of memes through a carrier similar to a virus. Certainly memes are carried through visible means as we have been discussing. If you look at the Hundredth Monkey paradigm, there are meme carriers that are beyond the physical. Stuart Kauffman, in At Home in the Universe, describes how there is something greater directing evolution.

What do you think is the invisible carrier?