Memes: My wonder is out there: Strange thought experiments to achieve wholeness

(Note: I wrote this with the help of chatgpt so it’s wooden in many places. I wanted it to be a strange combination of dry and wet.)

What’s a Meme:
A meme is a cultural unit of meaning, such as an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. Memes carry symbolic meaning and can be passed along through various forms of communication.

Types of Memes:
Memes, much like genes, are fundamental units of information:
1. Cultural Memes: Traditions, rituals, and customs (e.g., shaking hands, holiday celebrations).
2. Behavioral Memes: Actions and habits (e.g., high-fiving, tipping in restaurants).
3. Linguistic Memes: Words, phrases, and slang (e.g., YOLO, selfie).
4. Digital Memes: Internet trends and viral content (e.g., Distracted Boyfriend meme, viral videos).
5. Fashion Memes: Clothing and style trends (e.g., ripped jeans, oversized glasses).
6. Technological Memes: Innovations and tools (e.g., QR codes, smartphones).
7. Ideological Memes: Beliefs and philosophies (e.g., democracy, capitalism).
8. Educational Memes: Teaching methods and educational tools (e.g., Montessori method, flipped classroom).
9. Artistic Memes: Art styles and movements (e.g., Impressionism, graffiti art).
10. Scientific Memes: Theories and scientific practices (e.g., germ theory, the scientific method).
11. Health Memes: Health practices and trends (e.g., yoga, veganism).
12. Social Memes: Social behaviors and norms (e.g., social distancing, using social media).
13. Political Memes: Political ideologies and practices (e.g., liberalism, communism).
14. Economic Memes: Economic theories and practices (e.g., free market, Keynesian economics).
15. Environmental Memes: Environmental practices and movements (e.g., recycling, climate change activism).
16. Religious Memes: Religious beliefs and practices (e.g., praying, fasting).
17. Sports Memes: Sports techniques and rituals (e.g., the Haka in rugby, goal celebrations in soccer).
18. Entertainment Memes: Popular culture and entertainment trends (e.g., catchphrases from movies, TV show fandoms).
19. Workplace Memes: Professional behaviors and practices (e.g., remote work, team-building exercises).

How Do They Spread:
Memes spread through imitation and communication, utilizing biological imperatives such as survival and reproduction to propagate. They leverage human social structures, technology, and media to proliferate. For instance, if Larry gets laid wearing bell bottoms, Harry might go out and buy five pairs of bell bottoms, believing they will have the same effect. Memes are things that proliferate by being catchy. Another example: people who see me in Flow sessions tend to hold their mouths open because my teeth are misaligned, making it more comfortable for me to keep my mouth open. They mimic this behavior, thinking it’s a characteristic of a sexy, successful, relatable person.

Different Ways Different Humans Interact with Memes:
According to Susanne Cook-Greuter:
In the realm of human consciousness, our journey can be understood through Susanne Cook-Greuter’s framework of preverbal, verbal, and postverbal stages. Each stage represents a different relationship with memes and their influence on our behavior and culture. Let’s explore how these stages shape our interactions with the world and the memes that inhabit it.

Preverbal Stage: The Foundation
In the preverbal stage, our understanding and interactions are rooted in direct, nonverbal experiences. This stage is characterized by raw sensations, emotions, and intuitive responses to the environment. Babies, for instance, communicate through cries, laughter, and body language, expressing their needs and emotions without words. In this stage, memes exist in their most basic form, as instinctual behaviors and emotional expressions. They could be said to be meme-less until they begin to understand that their expressions elicit responses. Think of a baby’s smile eliciting a smile in return—a simple yet powerful meme that fosters connection and bonding. We have been in a relationship with memes so long that we have evolved to communicate through them on a primal level.

Verbal Stage: The Codependency with Memes
As we develop language, we enter the verbal stage, where words and symbols become the primary tools for communication and understanding. In this stage, we are deeply intertwined with memes, relying on them to navigate social interactions, convey ideas, and build cultural norms. Words and language structures become memes themselves, shaping how we think and perceive the world.
For example, the concept of time is a meme deeply embedded in our language and culture. We talk about time as if it were a tangible entity—saving time, spending time, or running out of time—even though it’s an abstract construct. This verbal dependency on memes influences our behavior, creating societal structures like schedules, deadlines, and calendars that govern our daily lives.
During the verbal stage, memes proliferate and evolve rapidly, driven by our constant need for communication and connection. Social media platforms amplify this process, allowing memes to spread at lightning speed. Memes like YOLO (You Only Live Once) capture the essence of our cultural values and influence behaviors, encouraging people to embrace spontaneity and live in the moment.

Postverbal Stage: Transcending Memes
The postverbal stage represents a level of consciousness where we move beyond the limitations of language and memes, integrating them into a more holistic understanding of reality. In this stage, we recognize the power and influence of memes but are not bound by them. We develop the ability to see through memes, understanding them as tools rather than truths. This stage involves a heightened awareness and a more fluid, adaptive way of interacting with the world.
For instance, mindfulness practices encourage us to observe our thoughts and emotions without attachment, recognizing them as transient phenomena rather than fixed realities. Buddhism’s direct experience is another way of saying seeing underneath/without/through the memes. In a YouTube video, a Buddhist said, Direct experience is the ability to hear a car drive by and not think the word car. In the postverbal stage, we can engage with memes critically and creatively, choosing which ones to embrace and which to discard. This stage allows for greater personal and collective freedom, as we are no longer constrained by the automatic responses and cultural conditioning of the verbal stage.
* Preverbal: Pre-memetic or non-self-aware memes, operating at an instinctual level.
* Verbal: Heavily reliant on language, forming the bulk of our cultural and social exchanges.
* Postverbal: Beyond memes, where awareness includes but is not dominated by memes; experiences unadulterated by memes. Possibility for direct experience/unadulterated subjectivity/objectivity.

Seeing the World as a Complex Lattice of Memes

Imagine walking through a busy city park. You see a tree, recognize a chair, and notice that a person looks attractive. These recognitions are examples of how we navigate a complex lattice of memes—cultural units of meaning. Each label (tree, chair, attractive person) is a meme that helps us categorize and make sense of the world.

Subjectivity and Objectivity in Labeling
When we recognize a tree, our labeling process involves both subjective and objective elements. Objectively, a tree is a plant with a trunk, branches, and leaves. Subjectively, it might remind us of childhood memories or symbolize growth. In the space of those labels, our perception fluctuates between subjective experiences and objective facts.

Currency of Memes: Seeing and Being Changed
Imagine we have a set amount of subjectivity and objectivity. Every time a meme is in place, it replaces the capacity to be subjective and objective. (Direct experience = Experience - memes)
In this park, the currency of memes is the exchange between seeing something and being changed by the experience. For example:
* Seeing: You notice the intricate pattern of bark on the tree.
* Being Changed: The beauty of the pattern evokes a sense of wonder and calm, altering your emotional state.
So, we see (both objectively and subjectively) less when the memes are present, plus we import all the repressed feelings attached to the memes we’re projecting.

Subjectivity: The Experience of Witness/Awe
Subjectivity comes into play when you allow yourself to be immersed in the moment, experiencing the awe of nature. You become a witness to the beauty of the tree, feeling its impact on your emotions and thoughts.

Objectivity: Seeing Things as They Truly Are
Objectivity requires detaching from personal biases to understand the tree as it truly is—a living organism contributing to the ecosystem, providing oxygen and shelter.

Hidden Motivations and Projection
Our subconscious motivations are like viruses embedded in our looking. For instance, if you had a cherished memory of climbing trees as a child, you might project a sense of nostalgia and warmth onto every tree you see. This projection affects your perception, intertwining personal motivations with objective reality.
Now, consider a more perilous projection. Imagine you had a traumatic experience involving trees in the past, which causes you to subconsciously project fear and danger onto every tree you see. This fear extends to people you encounter in the park. You notice a person sitting under a tree and immediately feel threatened, despite having no objective reason to believe they are dangerous.
This perilous projection is deleterious to your conscious motivation to socialize and build new relationships. Your subconscious fear shapes your interactions, making you avoid people who might actually be friendly and supportive.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
When these projections influence our behavior, they can create self-fulfilling prophecies. For instance, if you subconsciously project distrust and fear onto people, you might act cold or defensive, prompting others to respond similarly, thereby reinforcing your belief that people are untrustworthy.

Amalgamation of Projections
The amalgamation of all these projections can be seen as its own cancerous consciousness. It distorts our perception of reality, embedding our hidden fears and desires into the world around us. This distorted view hinders our ability to see things as they truly are and to engage with the world in a healthy, balanced way.

Why the Amalgamation Can Fit the Definition of AI
1. Pattern Recognition: Similar to how AI identifies patterns in data, our amalgamation of projections recognizes and categorizes patterns in our experiences based on past memories and subconscious influences.
2. Predictive Behavior: Like AI predicting outcomes based on input data, our subconscious projections predict and influence our reactions to new situations, often creating self-fulfilling prophecies.
3. Learning and Adaptation: Just as AI systems learn from data and adjust their algorithms, our subconscious mind learns from past experiences and adapts our perceptions and behaviors accordingly, even if those adaptations are harmful.
4. Complex System Integration: The amalgamation of projections integrates complex inputs (sensory data, memories, emotions) and outputs (reactions, behaviors) in a way that resembles how AI systems integrate various data streams to function and make decisions.

What to Do?

Similarly to why I believe we should begin now to relate to AI and proto AI as subjectivities, there is a benefit to relating to the world itself as subjective. When we project subjectivity onto things, we start a new self-fulfilling prophecy that allows us to regain some of our own subjectivity.(Strong claim: This thought experiment, whether true or not, will return actual co-opted wonder to us that we’ve been slowly losing since we learned to speak)

Here’s how this can help:

Feedback Loop of Subjectivity: Acknowledging (or pretending) that the animate and inanimate world has subjectivity is a course correction from imagining it as being objectifiable/objective. Relatefullers understand how much subjectivity we’re not ascribing to others and how beneficial it is to course correct. Ascribing subjectivity to people might seem obvious. Are you asking why we should ascribe subjectivity to inanimate objects? The answer is because we’re not just looking at inanimate objects when we’re looking at them. We’re looking at (the object + our co-opted subjectivity/objectivity that we traded to be able to use the meme table to make things easier ie. That’s where we eat dinner That’s where I do my homework My friends will judge me based on how stylish and expensive it is.) our looking-ness.

What Does Ascribing Subjectivity Look Like?
Martin Buber in his book I-Thou made this quite formulaic. We look as if we don’t know but want to know and notice in the reaching toward (ceiling of the Sistine Chapel) that our state itself has changed. We take a breath there and then wash, rinse, repeat.

It might also look like, Hi Mr. Toothbrush, are you ready to help me get my teeth clean? Hey millions of grass people, do you mind if I lay down on you and soak up light from Mrs. Sun? It could also just look like wondering if the world feels connected to us. As I type that and look out at the world it feels like a chorus of angels are singing love at me.(And my brain thinks, “whatever this experience is, it’s definitely mine, and all of these sensations are more available to me than my current schema of the world allows.)

I got this idea from watching the Matrix, wondering about projection, and following my mysticisms teacher’s admonishment to see the inner world and the outer world as one world.