Ego Sickness

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

thought experiment:
In the above diagram, the I AM meme has an open spot. Let's visualize a political affiliation going there. Based on the chemistry of this slice of memeplex, what political memes do you think are most likely to form bonds?

Well, the "likes shooting guns" memetic particle that's already attached would probably repel the current US Liberal political meme. It could be attracted to a republican meme, but phish concerts might repel it, depending on how many memes that flaot around in phish concerts the person has attracted or attached to (getting stoned, tripping, anti-authority, anti-authoritarian (not the same thing)) I think a look at any religious memes might have an influence here. Maybe Libertarian, but that might depend on their existing social memes (do they feel as though they have a responsibility toward society, or do they feel that they must be self-reliant?) Maybe some form of anarchist might fit as well (anarcho-communism, collectivism, etc.)

It's interesting how complex this can get.

[Payne]

It gets complicated, but it DOES seem that there is a simple 'mechanism' that drives it.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

It gets complicated, but it DOES seem that there is a simple 'mechanism' that drives it.

Well, I think it's like RAW's description of it as "Causal feedback loops" and "interacting processes". The basic mechanism may be simple, but it deals with so many variables that mapping it can become complex (predicting which memes will stick may require knowing which memes are currently stuck there and how they effect the individual).

We don't know if a carbon atom will stick to a given molecule, unless we know the composition of the molecule. Maybe its similar?

[Triple Zero]

large networks of non-linear yet simple interacting elements often produce emergent or at least very complex behaviour.

[Cramulus]

do you guys think the diagram in my last post is effective at conceptualizing this?

I wrestled a lot with how to visualize a memetic system
and almost cramped my brain trying to remember anything about high school chemistry 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

large networks of non-linear yet simple interacting elements often produce emergent or at least very complex behaviour.

Precisely! However, to understand the behavior (or to modify the behavior to fit requirements) we must understand the interacting elements.... my engineering mentor used to make us do this sort of thing with "black boxes". We would examine the input to a system, the output from the system and figure out what was going on inside. Sometimes it was possible, sometimes it was not possible (without some access to the components). I think that our meme analogy here may be like that in some sense. We can look at the actions of an individual and make guesses about the memes that they have attached to them... however the more memes we KNOW that they hold, the more likely it is we can figure out which memes will likely be attracted.

This concept could open up a pretty interesting model for marketing and targeting ads. Imagine a sort of demographics based on molecular meme structures rather than age and disposible income. Perhaps we could customize memes to be attracted to specific meme clusters. If that's possible then we could try to develop viral payloads that would play off of existing memes that the person would likely have. If we got really insane, we could develop multi-part meme bombs wherein bits of the bomb were hidden in seperate memes that we considered likely to attract one another... with the payload being within a composite of multiple memes.

But that's just crazy!

PS -I liked the molecular model Prof. maybe we could add + / - to show attraction and repulsion between memes?

[Payne]

do you guys think the diagram in my last post is effective at conceptualizing this?

I wrestled a lot with how to visualize a memetic system
and almost cramped my brain trying to remember anything about high school chemistry 

I liked it. It was pretty.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

To continue with my thought about attract/repel memes and modeling them...

It seems that the best way to start would be to find a way to assess the average human and which memes they hold. Maybe some sort of survey to determine any tendency for specific memes to attract or repel. Some might be easy:

IF religious_meme = Fundamentalist Christian
THEN pro_choice_meme = ~repel
IF religious_meme = Progressive Christian
THEN pro_choice_meme = flat (unknown, will depend on other memes?)
IF religious_meme = null
THEN pro_choice_meme = ~attract

[Forteetu]

To continue with my thought about attract/repel memes and modeling them...

It seems that the best way to start would be to find a way to assess the average human and which memes they hold. Maybe some sort of survey to determine any tendency for specific memes to attract or repel. Some might be easy:

IF religious_meme = Fundamentalist Christian
THEN pro_choice_meme = ~repel
IF religious_meme = Progressive Christian
THEN pro_choice_meme = flat (unknown, will depend on other memes?)
IF religious_meme = null
THEN pro_choice_meme = ~attract

I think a lot of this work may have already been accomplished in one way or another. Personality typing tests, like the ones given to law enforcement candidates or other "high risk" jobs. These tests go WAY beyond the demographic types of age, race, religion, blah .... they look at motivators, detractors, likely responses, etc, etc ... I had to take a few of these tests before during some jobs.

Usually about 2000 or 3000 fill in the bubble questions with lots of repeats and rewordings of the same questions. I still thought it was pretty easy to work around, the intent of the test questions became fairly apparent when looked at in groups. But then this is also the same series of interviews where I beat the polygraph (anyone can, they are actually quite easy).

Leary helped develop some of these tests. You know, the one he then took after being arrested and being sent to lock up? He purposefully put himself in that non-rebellious, follow orders category so they'd lock him in low-security .... and then he hopped the wall.

[Bu🤠ns]

To continue with my thought about attract/repel memes and modeling them...

It seems that the best way to start would be to find a way to assess the average human and which memes they hold. Maybe some sort of survey to determine any tendency for specific memes to attract or repel. Some might be easy:

IF religious_meme = Fundamentalist Christian
THEN pro_choice_meme = ~repel
IF religious_meme = Progressive Christian
THEN pro_choice_meme = flat (unknown, will depend on other memes?)
IF religious_meme = null
THEN pro_choice_meme = ~attract

well, i remember listening to a...ahem..particualr podcast where someone was discussing how our political structure that if our views are entirely moderate that depending on who we talk to, we're forced to side on the extreme of what they disagree with. (did i say that right?). so how would the chaos variable fit into this.  the if/then structure seems to push a particular view to one side or the other depending on the circumstance.  is there a variable that one can include...perhaps the "maybe logic" or the "eris" variable?  i'm assuming here that if someone tries to have a fixed structured world that at some point an apple comes along and destroys that fixed view. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

To continue with my thought about attract/repel memes and modeling them...

It seems that the best way to start would be to find a way to assess the average human and which memes they hold. Maybe some sort of survey to determine any tendency for specific memes to attract or repel. Some might be easy:

IF religious_meme = Fundamentalist Christian
THEN pro_choice_meme = ~repel
IF religious_meme = Progressive Christian
THEN pro_choice_meme = flat (unknown, will depend on other memes?)
IF religious_meme = null
THEN pro_choice_meme = ~attract

well, i remember listening to a...ahem..particualr podcast where someone was discussing how our political structure that if our views are entirely moderate that depending on who we talk to, we're forced to side on the extreme of what they disagree with. (did i say that right?). so how would the chaos variable fit into this.  the if/then structure seems to push a particular view to one side or the other depending on the circumstance.  is there a variable that one can include...perhaps the "maybe logic" or the "eris" variable?  i'm assuming here that if someone tries to have a fixed structured world that at some point an apple comes along and destroys that fixed view. 

Oh quite possibly... my example was of a single interaction among (insert big number) memes. IN any sort of model one would have to create smoething much more complex... and even then a golden apple might make the whole calculation null and void.

In this instance, I'm thinking more of examining what memes, or groups of memes tend to be attractive or repellent. The ~ was meant to represent "about" or "maybe"..  So If a person is known to have a particular religious meme, their reaction to some memes may be similar (mosbunall?).

Besides... podcasts are full of liars, cheats and know nothings.

[Bu🤠ns]

To continue with my thought about attract/repel memes and modeling them...

It seems that the best way to start would be to find a way to assess the average human and which memes they hold. Maybe some sort of survey to determine any tendency for specific memes to attract or repel. Some might be easy:

IF religious_meme = Fundamentalist Christian
THEN pro_choice_meme = ~repel
IF religious_meme = Progressive Christian
THEN pro_choice_meme = flat (unknown, will depend on other memes?)
IF religious_meme = null
THEN pro_choice_meme = ~attract

well, i remember listening to a...ahem..particualr podcast where someone was discussing how our political structure that if our views are entirely moderate that depending on who we talk to, we're forced to side on the extreme of what they disagree with. (did i say that right?). so how would the chaos variable fit into this.  the if/then structure seems to push a particular view to one side or the other depending on the circumstance.  is there a variable that one can include...perhaps the "maybe logic" or the "eris" variable?  i'm assuming here that if someone tries to have a fixed structured world that at some point an apple comes along and destroys that fixed view. 

Oh quite possibly... my example was of a single interaction among (insert big number) memes. IN any sort of model one would have to create smoething much more complex... and even then a golden apple might make the whole calculation null and void.

In this instance, I'm thinking more of examining what memes, or groups of memes tend to be attractive or repellent. The ~ was meant to represent "about" or "maybe"..  So If a person is known to have a particular religious meme, their reaction to some memes may be similar (mosbunall?).

Besides... podcasts are full of liars, cheats and know nothings.

HA! okay. nice. i see what you're getting at. gonna think about it for a bit.

[Triple Zero]

This concept could open up a pretty interesting model for marketing and targeting ads. Imagine a sort of demographics based on molecular meme structures rather than age and disposible income. Perhaps we could customize memes to be attracted to specific meme clusters. If that's possible then we could try to develop viral payloads that would play off of existing memes that the person would likely have. If we got really insane, we could develop multi-part meme bombs wherein bits of the bomb were hidden in seperate memes that we considered likely to attract one another... with the payload being within a composite of multiple memes.

actually i'm pretty sure this has already been done.

marketing and advertisement are master-grade university studies these days.

it would probably be most efficient to just look up some scientific papers describing this sort of behaviour/techniques/things than to try and reinvent the wheel ourselves.

it probably has some ties with Cain's "opensource warfare" and that guerilla-typepad blog thing he has linked in the past (but you two are new guys so probably missed those things, use the forum search function)

but there's probably still a lot of new things to be researched in this area. like what if you combine the more mathematical-theoretical Systems Theory with social studies in memeplexes.
it would require
1) reading up about the social studies and marketing/ad studies
2) reading up about systems theory
3) conducting long and time-consuming surveys in order to collect test-data to test the system theory models on realworld data

would make for a nice PhD or master's thesis, i'd say.

[BumWurst]

Perhaps it,Äôs not so mechanistic, depending more on prior conditioning. Someone who was not desperately needy, confused, lonely and afraid would be an unlikely victim of the Christian Fundamentalist meme - more like seeds than viruses, needing exactly the right kind of conditions to take root, an organic system rather than a rigid, electronic one might be an interesting model.

Besides, the idea doesn,Äôt generally instil itself in each person in exactly the same way even if, for example, a group of people were all exposed to the same sermon ,Äì each would understand and receive it tailored slightly to his own needs, depending on his requirements. Ideas evolve as they spread, they diversify and specialise in the same manner as creatures evolve. Like an ordinary river fish which has evolutionary descendants in subterranean lakes, in isolated rock-pools, and in the sea.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Perhaps it,Äôs not so mechanistic, depending more on prior conditioning. Someone who was not desperately needy, confused, lonely and afraid would be an unlikely victim of the Christian Fundamentalist meme - more like seeds than viruses, needing exactly the right kind of conditions to take root, an organic system rather than a rigid, electronic one might be an interesting model.

Besides, the idea doesn,Äôt generally instil itself in each person in exactly the same way even if, for example, a group of people were all exposed to the same sermon ,Äì each would understand and receive it tailored slightly to his own needs, depending on his requirements. Ideas evolve as they spread, they diversify and specialise in the same manner as creatures evolve. Like an ordinary river fish which has evolutionary descendants in subterranean lakes, in isolated rock-pools, and in the sea.

I agree... I think if we were to use the memetic model (it's just a model), then we would say that each person had their own set of memes and each of those memes would be attractive or repellent of other memes (like a Christian Fundamentalist meme). That is, if 5 people heard a sermon, they would each have pre-existing memes which would attract or repel the memes in the sermon. If more memes attracted, rather than repelled, then the meme may attach, if more of their existing memes repel, then the meme may have a much more difficult time attaching.

The seed model might be useful to flesh out as well, so that we don't get stuck with a single model.