Memes, Mascots, and Meaning—A Rational Exploration
Why We Laugh, Share, and Remember: The Meme Machinery
These are my thoughts after reading Chapter 15 of David Deutsch’s book The Beginning of Infinity. This text summarizes my previous ideas about the mascot and memes within our community and its culture. My goal was to include a system concept for memes and then design the structural features of the mascot.
A meme is information (a holon) that has certain traits and functions. For something to be classified as a meme, the information must cause the holder or recipient to behave in a specific way. This behavior, in turn, makes the meme be expressed externally, whether by speaking or acting differently. This expression results in a two-step process where the original meme is replicated, which is a core feature of memes. Since the recipient cannot physically see the meme, it can change during the replication process. If an idea is not replicated or spread, it can only be considered an idea (this is where we can start to model the states of our meme::alpha).
We also use the term anecdote, which refers to “a story with a point” but specifically relates to rational memes, according to David Deutsch's classification (rational and anti-rational). In Russian culture, the term “anecdote” refers to a joke—essentially a meme—whereas in American English, it describes a story that more closely matches our meme concept.
So, we can say that we have a meme, which in different cultures might be called by synonyms such as idea, anecdote, or joke, each with its own traits. We can categorize our memes as follows:
Meme::idea::class — a single copy of an idea that represents a hypothesis: capable of being replicated.
Mem::mem::class — when the meme has been successfully replicated multiple times and spread.
We also need to consider architectural traits for our successful memes:
Replicability — how well a meme duplicates, transfers, and how easy it is to activate.
Evolvability — how likely and how much a meme can mutate during replication and spread.
Rationality/Anti-rationality — how beneficial or harmful a meme can be for its recipient, holder, activator, or user.
Deutsch further describes the society, ecosystem, or environment where rational and anti-rational memes flourish as either static or dynamic. The main structural difference between these environments is the presence or absence of creativity. In a dynamic society, memes tend to evolve toward optimal rationality. Conversely, in a static society, anti-rational memes may dominate temporarily, trying to preserve a non-natural, irrational dominance that blocks the natural laws of validation.