the meme as the basic unit of mind
the meme is the behavioural analog of genes first introduced as a neologism by Richard Dawkins in his book “the selfish gene”. like genes are the physical manifestations of genetic information, and through their expression into proteins we get cells, tissues, and organs, memes are the physical manifestations of the memetic information that through their expression we get instinct, habits, belief, identity, culture, social movements.
the meme is the basic unit of mental heredity that erases the boundaries between individual minds and allows us to model the mind as something that is shared through language.
meme classifications
there are two kinds of memes. behaviour coding memes and non-coding memes.
behaviour coding memes
behaviour coding memes “code” for some kind of behaviour that is expressed in their host.
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non-coding memes - memetic expression regulators
one function of non-coding memes is regulation of other memes.
When is a behaviour applied? You have many memes, many behaviours. There must be an if-this-then-that kind of structure that also is of a memetic nature that can regulate the expression of memes.
Regulators can upregulate or downregulate the expression of a meme. see memetic regulator classifications for more details.
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meme properties
verbality
one key characteristic of memes is verbality. verbality is a measure of how “verbal” a meme is.
see low verbality and high verbality
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