A self-propagating idea or thought contagion, similar to a virus spreads via effective programming for a retransmission. It should be noted that belief affects the retransmission. In consequence, the term memes has emerged involving the science of memetics. However, there are modes of thought contagion, which includes quantity, parental, efficiency parental, proselytic preservational, adversative, cognitive and motivational ones. Each involves a thought contagion carrier or a host, serving to increase the “infected” group or host population. Any idea influencing its hosts have more children than they would have otherwise exhibits quantity parental transmissions. Due to the receptivity to the parental ideas, increasing the number of ideas, increases the number of the projected number of host offspring. Any idea, increasing the fraction of its hosts children, who eventually adopt their parents meme exhibit efficiency parental transmission. For instance, the majority of Amish individuals choose to live separately from those that do not adhere to the same faith, consequently it may intensify the beliefs experienced by the children. In addition, phenolytic cloning, describes parentally replicated memes in humans and other animals. And it is widely known that thoughts spread fastest via the proselytic transmission. A proselyte idea hosts generally pass the idea to individuals other than their own children. Host populations seldom double parentally every ten years, yet a proselytic self-propagating idea under suitable conditions can double its host population in a year or less. The conviction often illustrates proselytic advantage, as the idea strikes fear in its hosts and their fellow man. That fear then drives them to persuade others of military weakness to build pressure in order to act. With the side effect of fear, the belief triggers protelytzing. In the preservational mode, ideas influence hosts to remain hosts for a long time. The belief substantially immunizes its host, for instance, it could possess characteristics that are argument avoiding, hence the belief is preserving its own existence by the avoidance of conflict. The belief may achieve majority status in those that remain “unconverted”, leaving proselytic movements to solicit an increasingly resistant strain on non-hosts. In the adversative mode, ideas influence their host to attack or sabotage competing movements, hence they can either be harmed or remove other memes ability to spread. Nonetheless, within the cognitive advantage, if an idea appears to be well-founded, exposing a group of individuals to them, then non-hosts have a tendency to adopt it, as hosts tend to retain it. That perceived cogency to the total populatiuon provides an idea with its cognitive advantage. However, ideas can also passively amass their host population through the motivational mode, in which individuals adopt or retain an idea due to some form of motive for doing so. Different modes of thought contagion usually occur together. Henceforth, a singular idea has a propagative profile, consisting of any advantages that it may hold in each mode. In conclusion, meme propagation drives memetic innovation by helping generate and recombine ideas. The beliefs spreading most vigorously prevail in the natural selection, providing them with the most suitable opportunities of spawning new variants and combinations.
Memetics
In the structure of scientific revolution, Thomas Kuhn, distinguishes between normal science and revolutionary science. In general science, individuals will build upon the work of others, expanding and easing conceptual paradigms to account for more phenomena in more detail. In revolutionary science,aspects of existing paradigms are adopted. At times, a paradigm shift may be added, as a new manner of comprehending the phenomena. Memetics represent such a shift. Like memetics, economics can measure the success and failure of ideas. Economists typically consider an ideas success in term of how much wealth has been accumulated as a consequnece. Memetics on the other hand measure the success of an idea by how much of the population it accumulates. With average ideas, one may expect that the most lucrative variants can also become the most populous variants. For instance, by taking a route of self-propagation, certain movements may spread exponentially when measured by population, yet poorly when measured by wealth. The historic contest between communism and capitalism provides a grand illustration of memes propagating at differently in the dimensions of wealth and population. The different fates of economic fates of the two movements arose largely from their opposing rules of ownership. Ownership itself is not a meme, as it consists of information stored at the community level. The individual cannot merely own a car by believing in it, it would require an entire community for her to hold a car in order for her to hold true ownership. As the data resides more at the community rather than the individual level, ownership qualifies as a kind of transcendent meme, yet not as a ordinary one. However, rules of ownership are ordinary meme stored in the mind of the individual. For instance, memes emphasising wealth as a criterion for reckoning an individuals value can create an immense drive in order to accumulate wealth. Truth be told, these memes view and pursue wealth as a means of bettering themselves. Nonetheless, while memetic reasoning applies to social stratification, it addresses class neutral types of belief transmission most forcefully. When a meme achieves situational invariant replication, it stands a better chance of spreading recursively enough to develop into a mass thought contagion, hence transitioning countless individuals into a differing state of mind than previously applicable.
As Dawkins stated “When you plant a fertile meme in the mind, one literally parasitize the brain, turning it into vehicle for the meme propagation in just the same way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.”
Within the family structure: Parental replication favours the decision to pursue the construction of a family unit, on average, individuals of this kind transmit their family values to more children than those, who hold indifferent or avoidant family values. Over generations, this ensures that the majority of the population become family orientated. However, non-hosts of the family meme do not face extinction, even if no children are raised. It is of no consequence how many children are brought up within a family-minded environment, a fraction of the children do not imitate their parents values. Nonetheless, the individuals that do imitate their parents constitute the family memes imitation ratio. Natural selection generally favours high imitation ratios, as well imitated memes outpropagate poorly instated ones. Still, the acquirement of high imitation ratios can collide with the achievement of high fertility rates, which are also favoured by natural selection. For instance, after the baby boom as a result of the war, numerous offsprings of “baby boomers” eventually decided to remain childless. However, it should be noted that the birth rate only began to calm down over the last decade. Henceforth, the family orientated viewpoint spreads by favouring reproduction, yet less propagation occurs when too much reproduction is promoted. Evolution, therefore, may favour a degree of moderation. Overall, imitation rates are dependent upon the details of the family structure and the specific types of parental guidance, nonetheless these also obey the forces of evolution by natural selection. In conclusion, the degree to which the children are loved by their parental guardians is a rather profound determinant of the imitation ratio. If a healthy relationship is present, the child would be more recipient to memes provided by the parents. Yet, if the child becomes convinced that the family values are presented for self interest, the child may become less responsive to them. Even, the notion of loving and caring for ones own child is a meme in itself that is passed on by the family orientated approach. In regards to non-nuclear family structures, the tribal orientated conceptualization constituted the joint child-raising and sexually open marriages. Although these tribes would also discard of genetically “unfit” infants as it would endanger the survival of the collective, most tribal bases possessed a degree of order within the elders in order to avoid inbreeding, which may result in a visibly differing genetic code or deformities. Conversely, nuclear family structures, also known as biparental, holds both biological parents responsible for the upbringing of the infant, in its pure form it relies upon the commitment of sexual monogamy, ensuring that the father becomes the child’s familial father. The nuclear family meme set creates economic motives for retransmitting to the offspring and other relatives. Yet, one fertility advantage arises from memetic diversity among its adherents. Biparentalism propagates by ensuring that the individuals, whose mating behaviour produces the most children also raise those children personally. In frequency, the parent with the most profound bundles of quantity parental memes are the ones imparting ideas to the most children.
Attitudes Towards Sexuality
Throughout history, the mating processes have adapted to the lifestyle of humanity. Before the industrial age, it was favoured to foster many children in order to maintain the farm, not to mention the death rate of infants. However, within modern western society that are not strictly religious, the choice of whether to engage in premarital sex or remain in celibacy. This naturally motivates marriage at an earlier age, yet there are drawbacks to either scenario within modern living. The notion of celibacy or premarital sex becomes a deterrent for individuals, which can lead to swaying from one extreme to another. One should not shun the idea of premarital sex in order to prevent it, as it has lead to the suffering of countless of individuals in loveless marriages without the possibility of divorce. Often, women were not briefed in regards to sexual proceedings or child-birth, and numerous were merely dropped intro their wedding night without knowing the results of their actions. Professionally, I have spoken to a few women that unfortunately suffered similar circumstances. The shock of pregnancy literally can destroy marriages due to the lack of intimacy and sex afterwards. The pure idea of sexual contact with a male after that point can trigger anxiety attacks and negative belief structures towards the male gender. Nevertheless, certain individuals experience sexually motivated proselytism, whether driven by lust or status, often hold the proselytic advantage over monogamists. However, sexual monogamists and “pluralists” both wish to spread their memes to anyone that they consider attractive, although monogamists tend to cease this attraction-based proselytism once they have discovered their one sexual relationship. Meanwhile, pluralists continue proselytising potential partners, even after having begun one or more relationships. Conclusively, sexually transmitted beliefs, such as the promiscuity meme, prime their host populations for analogously transmitted diseases. Once a sexually transmitted disease epidemic occurs, the motivational and proselytic stories are altered for the promiscuity meme. Hosts develop health motives for converting to the monogamy meme, and then for spreading it to the potential or actual sexual partners. Health motivated monogamy memes stormed the population during the herpes scare, and greatly intensified with the chilling news of AIDS. Expectedly, within the progress of mankind, evolution influenced the eligibility meme fiercely in matters of homosexual or heterosexual mating. These memes may interact so profoundly with genetic evolution that the fates of memes and genes cannot be entirely separated. Prehistorically, genes favouring homosexuality would perhaps fade due to lack of reproduction and lack of a suitable mate, however it is increasingly common in the animal kingdom. Nonetheless, this sexual taboo would become compounded over generations until the inclination towards it would grow less intense, yet with the civil rights movement it became possible for them to pursue their core desires legitimately. In conclusion, memes and social expectations have always held a firm grasp around the legitimacy of action. In certain family units, it would be considered more appropriate to mate with an individual of the same social class and standing, in other countries it would be socially despicable to consider the marriage of an individual from a different country. In conclusion, the epidemiology of ideas in combination with the intensity of will, it is dependent upon the individual which path would be pursued as it may, however the stronger the drive or inclination towards the meme, the greater the desire for it becomes.
Health Memes and Their Consequences
There are a variety of religious customs and belief structures that have persisted throughout generations, such as the practice of circumcision. It was exercised by the Hebrew community for thousands of years, before it was transferred to early forms of Christianity that then continued to circumcise male offsprings, whilst abandoning numerous other customs of the Jewish faith. Conclusively, the preventative value of circumcision still remains questionable. Conversely, circumcision may have spread by raising the reproductive rates of the individual couples. Circumcision eliminates the self-gliding capacity of the penis, channelling more lust to vaginal intercourse by limiting non-lubricated arousal methods. Activities ranging from masturbation to vaginal sex become more challenging without the application of lubricant. In ancient times, the requirement for additional lubricant may have posed difficulties, leading couples to continue and perform intercourse vaginally. The circumcision meme would therefore have flourished parentally. Nowadays, the wider availability of lubricants reduces the reproductive advantage of the circumcision meme. In regards to female customs, differences in fertility exert their influence on the culture of infant feeding. In the old-fashioned manner of keeping the infant at the mothers breast day and night, where they feed at an average interval of six minutes. This methodology, breast-feeding acts as a natural contraceptive. The frequently nursing mother does not ovulate until the infant is weaned off the breast-feeding a few years later. The biological mechanism provides birth spacing to prevent the infants starvation under primitive or critical conditions. Memes that shorten the natural duration of birth-spacing can proliferate parentally when the mothers possess extra nutrition for the infant. A certain amount of these memes act by altering breast-feeding schedules to the degree of a diminished contraceptive effect; others dispense with breast-feeding altogether. Any meme can be health orientated within moderation, although the obsession with a set of memes may cause undesirable consequences. In conclusion, the belief in negative side-effects to ones health, resulting from dietary temptations or lack of exercise and so forth, can yield an exponential amount of power. The meme becomes emotionally charged with feelings of guilt, worry or fear, that with certain individuals may lead to self exertion in order to catch up on lost time. Not all memes in regards to health will be positive, yet like any idea or belief structure that upholds negative consequences, it can be transitioned that may influence the emotional, physical, genetical and mental side of the individual to blossom.
“Controversy supports the spread of memes about war, weapons and abortion.”
The current United States controversy in regards to handguns and other firearms arose during the time of gun control memes being propagated widely enough to challenge older, more permissive firearm memes. Pro-firearm memes had developed along with the manufacturing of the weapons themselves for the usage of self-defence and hunting. “After that, the demand for private guns stemmed largely from the knowledge that if others had them, then those who did not would live in peril”. Although one cannot cease the act of killing one another, one may be able to limit the availability of weapons. Yet, Kane and Abel did not possess any fire power, simply a rock. If the memes of murdering another are profound enough, no lack of weapon would stop them. In Europe, archaeological discoveries unravelled a man that had died from wet concrete hardening as it was poured down his throat. The controversy spreads as it is a form of hypocrisy and at time even threatens the personal rate of survival. Within the UK, countless individuals have been prosecuted for defending themselves against a burglar or thief, however more often than not, the law stands on the side of the criminal. For instance, an old lady heard an individual on her roof in the middle of the night, as she went to check the original location of the noise, the offender fell through the glass pane, injuring himself on the table he landed. Criminal charges eventually convicted the old lady for health and safety violations, allowing the perpetrator to receive financial compensation. In consequence, any meme that may threaten ones own personal safety and survival would result in a genetic or environmental change in behaviour. For instance, if one were to fall victim to a school shooing or a bombing, the previously conceived safety has become compromised until a later point in time. An individual that prior to the event did not approve of guns may be confronted with the probability of their own death without the faintest possibility of action. Weapons often provide a sense of control and security for men and women, however even in the occasion of war, countless prefer to spread pro-gun memes with the availability to prevent the loss of lives and necessity of survival. Nevertheless, within the United States, abortion ranks as the mother of all controversies, it simultaneously embroils moral, religious, ethnic, sexual, feminist and civil rights motives. Although abortion was effectively utilized in ancient Greek and Rome, as well as other ancient cultures. Certain more advanced methods included thin instruments for lancing a foetus, which would lead to the body being aborted within a twenty-four hour period, leaving foreign objects in the uterus and even abortifacient herbal drugs. As the antiabortion memes gained prevalence, they filtered into the most powerful positions in government and clergy. Both church and state inevitably acted against abortion, prohibiting it until the mid-nineteenth century. Doctorless abortions had become a common practice, often resulting in death and infertility, however they were slowly taking over the territory of medical physicians. These abortions bans removed a large amount of the reproductive differences that favoured the bans in the beginning. The more effective the ban, the higher rate of live births per pregnancy, even amongst permissive abortion memes. In conclusion, as one of the most profound forces of nature, the evolution of replicating entities by natural selection extends beyond biology, having newly found importance in the origin of beliefs. Where once one had thought ones origins above nature, a humbler truth of biological evolution is now available. Where once one thought ones belief and values above the laws of nature, now it is known that they are outcome of natural selection. A result of free will and probabilities created by choice.
Resistance Against Memes
Dawkins defines the term meme as an idea, a pattern of behaviour or style that spreads from one individual to another within a culture. A meme acts as a unit, carrying cultural ideas, symbols, practices or religious ideologies that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard cultural analogues to the genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective environmental influences. Yet, how does one become infected by an idea? Within Neuro Linguistic Programming, the outcome of a verbal or physical interaction is dependent upon the individual. Linguistically, we all at one point or another pose suggestions to a fellow human. Ones opinions and viewpoints can easily become facts within the mind of an individual, they become beliefs. Dependent upon the length and intensity since the meme has been transmitted often determines the amount of resistance towards a concept that may entirely remove the formerly held concepts. In consequence, there are techniques within NLP that permits the practitioner to gradually pose suggestions towards a particular direction without the direct awareness of the client of the proceedings. As it is a practice that is based upon linguistics, the specific grammar and wording applied can make the difference between acceptance and rejection. However, it should be noted that a few of these particular NLP procedures have to be carried out without the knowledge of the client in order for the suggestion to be planted on a subconscious level over a regular period of time. As the placement of negative suggestions and beliefs is a rather dangerous move, since it can backfire in the extremes, upholding an ethical codex becomes of great significance. Memes, the notion has to first be embraced by the individual in order to form a similar unit to memes within time. However, each individual differs in suggestibility, there will always be those that are more easily led towards an objective than others. Consequently, certain memes will be much easier to process as truth than others. For instance, there are individuals that are convinced that the government has establish extraterrestrial contact a long time ago and even fought wars against them. This notion for a patriot would be most likely rejected with force, as it would physically collide with a meme that has much deeper roots. Each meme in a way also is a habit, an action performed with routine, a belief upheld with routine or a specific fact accepted in regards to social classes or races. In my professional opinion, the memes that have been parentally transmitted or transmitted during childhood are often the most challenging to overcome. In frequency, it requires years in order to gradually alter unhealthy attributes acquired at an early age. Truth be told, I have encountered few individuals that have gone through the suffering of the proceedings in order to accomplish such a task. The resistance that is experienced when attempting to influence the individuals towards a specific meme becomes equivalent to removing almost all that they have ever known. Through the years, I have learnt that the period of replacing the patterns is not necessarily the most difficult set of circumstances. For me, it is the almost literal shattering of their psyche in order to rebuild it, as it may. To release certain belief structures can equal an emotional death to the individual, they are almost entirely transformed and often not very fond of their previous personality, now having completely altered their mindset. Yet, ultimately it is all a matter of perspective. The truth of a meme can not necessarily be adequately proven, as it may include cultural, sociological, psychological or religious notions. In essence, countless wars have been fought over the most accurate belief structures without a more definite answer, merely higher conversion rates. Nonetheless, not many individuals change their original birth religion, yet in occasions it occurs, there is more often than not a rather intriguing reasoning behind it. Personally, I am of the outlook that the spiritual or religious memes would provide a sort of transpersonal foundation from which the individual is capable of operating. Once one removes faith or once an individual is robbed of their faith, a mental and emotional transition happens, which often causes them to seek for a new degree of meaning that allows them to further process the previous occurrences. It is a widely known fact that the environment influences the formation and activation of DNA. For instance, if an individuals survival were dependent upon upholding a particular meme, a large percent of the population would most likely cooperate for an extended period of time, dependent upon the level of discomfort the meme provides. In my professional opinion, the amount of depth required for the idea to sink into the mind would be relevant when posing the suggestions. Any individual can be suggestible to anything, if they are approached at the right point in time. For example, a young man has lost his faith, presenting himself in a vulnerable state of mind, wishing for anything to be able to avoid the suffering that he is in and regain his former faith. If he was approached by an individual of a religious order or particular belief structure that managed to swiftly build rapport with him and provided useful as well as inspiring ideologies of a practice that may suit him more in order to unfold his true potential. It is also possible for any psychology or NLP practitioner to induce a state of emotion by the use of anchors and other techniques to then successfully plant the suggestion, when the individual is visible distracted due to internal processes. As a matter of fact, there are a wide variety of methods with which one could convince or manipulate others to share ones viewpoint, yet there are more often than not limits to how far one is permitted to influence an individual. There are segments of life, which one may feel more resistant towards surrendering, and for each human being that may be a meme that is constructed out of variant unique components, forming a unique aspect of an individual. As the psyche is in itself unique, each individual possesses the free will in order to select the kind of information that they wish to maintain. Whereas certain individuals may be fascinated with the memes associated with a type of personality attribute, others would be intrigued by an entirely different sort.
Truth be told, there are a wide range of hypocritical memes within modern society, with the attitude of “Do as I say, Not as I do.” To build the foundation of an idea on a concept that borders on self-deception may often lead to self-fulfilling prophecies that may not be entirely positive or pleasant at all. In conclusion, I have become rather resistant towards insincerity and closed minded approaches by western religions that were altered by the Roman Emporer, such as the Islam, Judaism Jehova Witnesses and Roman Catholicism. I do not mock or reticule their memes, as it is their right to keep them. In my personal opinion, if an individual decides to adopt the Christian faith, they should be aware of the actions and misdeeds of their religion since its foundation. Countless are not aware that the scriptures were altered or even of certain parts of the scriptures, although there are not many positive reactions in regards to more old-fashioned verses that may not necessarily adhere to the human rights legislations or the Geneva convention. As Aaron Lynch wrote “Christianitys great proselytic expansion throughout medieval Europe eventually saturated that continent. So many people heard “the Word” that immunity to conversion replaced non-exposure as the prevailing reason for unbelief, among Jews, for instance. Put another way the survival of unbelief depended so much on resistance to Christianity that memetic immunity evolved by natural selection among the other religions.” It should be noted that intense religiosity can also confer resistance to the sexually motivated proselytism of memes favouring pleasure over reproduction. If men promote such ideas as premarital sex to females more assertively than vice versa, and if the ideas do diminish reproduction, then religion advances the females reproductive careers more than the males. “This would raise the number of daughters emulating a religious woman more than the number of sons emulating a religious man.” If the accumulation has persisted over generations, the effect can preferentially heighten female religiosity. A deeper purpose for gender correlated religiosity stems from its special involvement in marriage. The treatment of marriage by Roman Catholics as a sacrament automatically defines God, as the enforcer of the vows. To true believers, this enforcement becomes inescapable. No individual with solemn faith can expect to abandon a spouse or otherwise break the vows and flee without consequences. However, ultimately marital security becomes a pivotal role in the willingness to bear children, especially for females. Women commonly suffer much greater material and reproductive loss from desertion than their male counterpart. Therefore, any memes that cause female hosts to marry an unshakably vow-abiding husband tend to promote the women’s reproductive success. If the memes also aid the females to perceive their husbands as being intently committed to the relationship, loyal and entirely faithful, the resultant emotions of reproductive security can facilitate a higher rate of fertility. Overall, those individuals that hold moral taboos would seldom convert, even with a guarantee of financial security or success provided for them. For instance, Mormons and other fundamentalist groups may continue to resist conversion for generations, preserving the memetic patterns for generations. In consideration, this contest of religions would persist for a near eternity. In consequence, if each proselytic movement launches a resistance, the memetic contents would still eventually be concluded in stalemate. However, in practice that is a rare occurrence. In frequency, the only memetic variants that continue to spread are those that carry the movement to a more aggressive phase. In the adversative mode, ideas influence their hosts to attack or sabotage competing movements. The host has either the choice to harm non-host individuals or attempt to destroy their memes ability to spread even further. Both of these mechanisms occur with the Muslim faith, supported by the Koran and the Way of the Sword. It is stated that God rewards those that fight and kill for the belief of Islam. Provided that this meme does not rid itself of too many individuals during the process, the killing increases the relative size of its Islamic host population. Secondly, adherents frighten numerous non-muslims into silence, largely demolishing the idea of proselytic infectiousness. Additionally, this also reduces the projected number of non-hosts increasing the relative prevalence of Islam. Adversative replication advantages occur only when aggressive action results from the memes themselves, since only then it can favour one movement or another. In conclusion, the only manner in which an individual is capable of averting unhealthy suggestions or memes for inappropriate reasons would be self-awareness. To be aware of suggestions and rhetorical enquiries being posed in order to attain a form of agreement. In consequence, each individual possesses memes that are of a positive, open-minded and non-judgemental nature. To embrace a meme does not necessarily mean one will have to live by it for the rest of ones life, especially with the concept of religion. However, one always maintain conscious control over ones decisions, even if coerced in order to survive a peculiar set of circumstances. As Aaron Lynch famously stated “In every corner of our lives, from how we raise young to how we treat the ill, from how we seek pleasure to what we hold sacred, from how we make love to how we wage war, evolving thought contagions live with us and in us, telling us how.”