What is a Meme?

Part 1 - What a Meme Is

An Event is a dynamic relation of dynamic relations.

A Meme is an abstraction of an Event. To use quasi-mechanical language, a Meme is

an "encoding" of an Event.

The physical correlate of a Meme is an "instantiation". This is to be understood as an

abstract relationship. A Meme is never directly "instantiated". Rather every
instantiation of a Meme is the result of a causal "mediation" from one instantiation to
another.

Any given Event can simultaneously be an instantiation of an indefinitely large number

of Memes - depending on which portion of the Event you "encode".

Any given Meme can give rise to an indefinitely large number of Events - depending on
which portion of the Meme they "instantiate"

If we compare two Events, their union "as Events" is a Meme. If the presence of the
Meme in the second Event is causally related to the first Event, we can say that the
Meme has been "mediated" by the first Event to the second Event.

Example.

Event 1 - a physical bird singing on a branch.

Event 2 - a digital photograph of the bird

Event 3 - a copy of that digital photograph

Event 4 - an analog photograph of the bird derived from a different camera

Event 5 - an audio recording of the bird

Event 6 - the same physical bird flying away a tenth of a second later

As a simplification, we can start by saying that the Meme is the abstraction of Event 1.
Obviously, at the highest level, this Meme can contain an indefinitely large amount of
information (the quantum state of a particular piece of feather, the relative location of
different stellar events), but, of course, in practice we are always referring to a much
smaller set of information.

Each of the other Events is an "instantiation" of both "a" Meme and "the" Meme
depending on what portion of the Event you are looking at. The union of Event 2 and
Event 1 is a Meme. The union of Event 1 and event 3 is, largely, the same Meme
(although the lossyness of the copy will require that there be some loss of fidelity). The
union of Events 1, 2 and 3 is, largely, the same Meme. The union of Event 1 and Event
4 is a Meme. It will be a different Meme than the union of Event 1 and Event 2, but we
can clearly take the union of Events 1, 2 and 4 as the same Meme. And as we begin to
sharpen our ontological scissors, we recognize that if we step back from the Events and
identify our Meme correctly (that is, at the start only include the relevant information) we
can see that each Event (including Event 1) can be taken as the instantiation of the
same Meme. This becomes more rich when we consider Event 5 which captures an
entirely different set of information about the Meme under consideration - and yet it is
clearly the same Meme. As a demonstration, it is possible to perform an operation on
the information captured in Event 5 and interpolate some portion of the information
(spatial configuration of the bird) in Events 2-4.

And our ontological scissors get even sharper when we consider Event 6. The
relationship between Event 1 and Event 6 is what we call "identity" --- is simply a Meme
relationship over time mediated by a particular set of causal relationships. The
relationship between Event 1 and Event 6 obviously includes an enormous amount of
information that we would never consider to be part of the identity of "the bird". Which is
only to say that in practice we care about Memes that endure over many periods of time
and multiple instantiations. Clearly the Meme of Events 1-5 ("the bird singing") is
different from the Meme of Events 1 and 6 ("the bird"), although in this case it all comes
down to what we are talking about ("the bird" is the same).

Instantiation is, essentially, a statistical relationship comparing two Events. Event 4 and
Event 2 are related only because they are, in fact, instantiations of the same Event.
Mediation, however, is more interesting precisely because it is causal. Event 2
"mediates" the Meme to Event 3. The precise shape of Event 3 as a dynamic relation of
dynamic relations is tightly constrained by the causal forces that used Event 2 to
produce Event 3. It is clear that Event 2 mediates Event 3, but it is also clear that
Events 2, 4, 5 and 6 are all mediated by Event 1 - but each through entirely different
causal processes. These causal differences (which portions of Event 1 are selected
and how they are transformed through different media) are the differentiation between
Events 2, 4, 5 and 6. Note that it might be fruitful to think of causation as modulation or
permutation of the shape of the space of probability. This kind of idea might be able to
thereby link (through scale transformations) simple statistical relationships to the kinds
of relationships that we think of as causal. They are just highly constrained statistics.

Before we move on to how Memes work, it is useful to look at the Universe through this
lens. An electron is a Meme. As is both "song" and any given song. As is "the steam
engine". As is a transistor. We can see how a transistor is a particular set of dynamic
relations of dynamic relations and how that set can be instantiated in a wide variety of
ways. (The relationship between the transistor and the pure function of mediation is
important.) As, of course, is DNA. My genome is a Meme. My phenotype is a Meme
and their union is a very particular Meme. The mediation of my genotype and
phenotype into my children's Meme is very much to the point.

Finally, I don't want to speak to the ontological status of an "uninstantiated" Meme (i.e.,
a Meme for which there exists no Event instantiating it). For all practical purposes it
certainly appears that an uninstantiated Meme ceases to exist. But this is not proven
and there are some interesting experiments that could be contemplated here. What is
much more certain is that the causal efficacy of an uninstantiated Meme seems to be
properly taken as zero.

Part 2 - How a Meme works

So, if we take a big step back, this set of concepts enables us to talk about Memes. We
can begin to form more concepts and rules about Memes and we can trace their
development.

Most Memes are not mediated (or are extremely lossy in being mediated). That is to
say, most Events are ephemeral. Note that there is an implicit time and space scale
here. "Ephemeral" is relative to what time scale you are looking at. Nonetheless, given
the fact that every Event implicates everything, the vast majority of that does not endure
for even the most infinitesimal amount of time. This means that the interesting Memes
are those which are in-fact mediated (those Events that endure or repeat).

I can't speak too effectively on the lowest level scales. But it certainly appears that it is
useful to observe everything through probability - that is to take the laws of physics and
biology as statistical in nature (and meta-statistical - i.e., the shape of the space of
probability) - and use this to describe the way that Memes behave. Thus, you can
walk up the periodic table of the elements as a series of Memes that represent highly
stable states of Events and therefore Memes that will present two important
characteristics:

1. A given instantiation of these kinds of Memes will tend to endure for a relatively long
period of time (the Event 1 Event 6 situation above). Relative here to the endurance of
other Events at the same scale. Thus, what makes an elemental Atom an interesting
Meme is that its instantiations endure for much longer than other Events composed of
protons and electrons (chance meetings).
2. The play of chance against the probability space will tend to instantiate these Memes
at a rate that is much, much greater than random chance.

It is apparent that at this level, the Meme idea seems entirely superfluous and that the
interesting action lies almost entirely at examining the causal factors that engender
these various nodes of high probability. This is largely physics inclusive particularly of
QM and thermodynamics. But bear with me - it gets more interesting and useful as you
start walking up the scale.

The third interesting characteristic of these kinds of Memes is that they seem to
generate very little feedback on their own space of probability. That is, the presence or
absence of hydrogen does not seem to have any effect on the probability space that
defines hydrogen instantiation. The introduction of the ability of particular instantiations
to feed back on (causally influence; "mediate") the instantiation of their Meme is the
added variable that leads to "selection". Again, strictly probabilistic -

3. Where a Meme is so constituted that its instantiation changes the space of probability
such that it is more likely to become instantiated, then that Meme is more likely to
become instantiated - to Endure.

As a side note, I can see a very large number of physical phenomena that seem to be
described by this rule. Most phenomena that are dominated by the additive
consequences of gravity fit into this category.

But we still are living in a Meme universe where "probability of instantiation" or

"endurance of instantiation" are the dominant functions. We've started the walk up, but
the real action starts when "mediation" becomes interesting. Mediation is always
present. A lightning-bolt causes a thunder-clap. A falling rock impresses itself on clay.
But the fidelity of these mediations is miniscule - capturing only a tiny fraction of the
event and largely being incapable of further mediation. This is where DNA becomes so
interesting. It is an instantiation that is precisely and particularly good at mediating its
Meme with very high fidelity. And, of course, the history of Evolution is the story of this
innovation and its dramatic probability-enhancing consequences.

The next step is when we get to the nervous system. Driven by evolution (probability
enhancement) it was quickly discovered that recognizing regularities in probability
space (Memes) was an exceptionally effective way to enhance probability by being able
to convert high-energy low probability strategies (physical trial and error) to low-energy
high-probability strategies (simulated trial and error and simulated heuristics). Thus
arises the entire apparatus of "mediation-sensitive" systems and "Meme detection and
recognition" systems. This, of course, is hyper-critical because rule #3 doesn't care
about the nature of the medium. A Meme that is mediated with high fidelity into the
neural system is just as present and replicated as a Meme that is replicated into DNA.
So, to use our examples above - if a cat is watching the bird sing on the branch, the
Meme of the union of those two events (the bird on the branch and the neural
"encoding" of that Event) has just doubled its instantiations. Obviously, the cat's
memory is a "reproductive dead-end" for that particular Meme - it is not likely that further
mediations of the Meme will be generated from that particular instantiation - but the
environment has been created. That class of Memes that is capable of being mediated
and replicated from these new neural systems will find themselves a whole new niche
for expansion. "Learning".

It is important to remember that Memes are abstractions of Events. A given person is

an Event. And "throwing a rock" is an Event. But "person who knows how to throw a
rock" is also an Event and its abstraction is a Meme. Thus, when a person endowed
with a "mediation-sensitive meme-detection system" is able to "encode" the Meme
"throwing a rock", a new Meme has been constituted that - if it proves to be probability
enhanced, will enhance the probability of its constituents. We have then a co-
evolutionary linkage between "learnable Memes" and "learning systems". To date, the
success of the (biological) learning systems has been the dominant factor - and these
"learning systems" are highly complex Memes. The success or failure of a "learnable
Meme" is dependent on a number of different factors:

1. The Fitness Landscape in general - its complexity in relationship to the bandwidth,

fidelity of mediation and storage of the environment. Different media afford different
potentials for mediation to different kinds of Memes. We might call this a "fitness
landscape". Thus in a world where mediation in general is low fidelity, mediation "per
se" plays a minor role in the probability density (ecosystem) of Memes and those
Memes that are most able to take advantage of the available resources will succeed. In
a world where fidelity (encode,decode), bandwidth and storage are high, then mediation
will play an increasingly important role and a different set of Memes will tend to
succeed.

2. The specific relationship between the learnable Meme and the mediation system.
Our attention system filters out most Memes that we encounter. Only those that match
a certain sub-set of possible shapes are absorbed into our "Meme learning" apparatus.
Of those, they will encounter a tortuous landscape of causality in their "encoding"
including the physical structure of our neurons, the dynamic structure of our emotional
and feeling systems, our cognitive structures and higher-level semantic maps. All of
which is a filter on exactly what the encountered Meme becomes when it is finally
mediated. Those Memes that are most robust to this encoding will tend to succeed.

3. The absolute amount of available replication resources. If the Meme kills its host (the
"suicide Meme") then it will tend to fail. If it causes its host to proliferate ("be fruitful and
multiply") then it will succeed. Lots of different variables and strategies here.

4. The amount of replication resources that the Meme can command. Its a struggle for
resources and there are winners and losers in a highly complex landscape. Is it better
to command a small army of zealots or a large army of dilettantes?

In the end, however, this all seems very mappable to the kinds of tools that we have out
of biology, except that we need to unconstrain some of the assumptions around energy
and strategy. The "transistor" is a Meme, as is the Large Hadron Supercollider as is
"the theory of Evolution".

And this leads to the last point. To date the success of human beings has been the
dominant factor in the probability landscape of Memes. But that is only a historical
artifact of the shape of the probability space. Any Meme that can more effectively
shape the space of probability in its favor can certainly change this dynamic.