A SOCIAL EXPLORATION
What Are Memes?
Not just internet jokes, but units of an evolving culture.
Mimicry is responsible for the genesis of the omniverse — how humans learn and observe, how kingdoms rise and fall, how particles and cells interact, etc.
Memes are a form of mimicry which compel us to hold ideas to a universal set of values.
The term “ethics” comes from the Greek term ἔθος (ethos), meaning roughly “habit” or “custom”.
ἔθος is analogous to another Greek term μιμέομαι (mīméomai) which means to simulate, or to mimic.
So, μιμέομαι is the ancient etymology of the term meme.
In current English, meme grammatically works like the word “gene” — i.e. genesis, genetic transfer, genomic identity; memesis, memetic transfer, memetic identity; etc.
Memes are units of pattern, process, and evolution within culture.
To meme, we first have to prescribe an ethic or aesthetic, then describe it, and finally apply it, all within context of a collective sense/feeling/value.
The “memetic triad” is: prescribe, describe, apply, repeat.
Memes are the driving force of nature, even down to the most fundamental particles copying the patterns and behavior of neighboring particles.
All things that “self-compose” — like thoughts or clouds— do so by copying their surroundings with slight variations (memesis).
So memes are the fundamental catalyst for nature; a bootstrap for evolution and selection; one that’s powered by cognition.
