57 Thinking Model: Memetics —— Thinking Virus VS Cultural DNA

On the grassland in Africa, thousands of ants climbed up the grassland. Climb to the top, then fall, then climb up, fall from the top, and then climb up. It always wants to reach the top. What on earth are these ants doing? Is it doing something for other ants? What is the purpose of climbing this grass?

The answer is, no, ants can't get anything at all.

Then why did it do it? This is because a trematode (a brain parasite) lives in the brain of ants, and it must enter the stomach of sheep or cattle to survive. In order to enter the stomach of sheep, Cladocera will manipulate the brains of ants and drive them to climb the grass, waiting for the arrival of cattle and sheep.

In the whole process, ants can't get any benefits from it. Its brain has been invaded by parasites, which will cause ants to commit suicide. This kind of thing also happens to human beings, such as suicide attacks by extreme terrorism, which is an act of hurting yourself. From an evolutionary point of view, it is not good for your own genes, but why?

Because in the human world, it is not parasites that invade our brains, but some thoughts that kidnap our brains. For example, many people have contributed their lives to freedom, justice and truth. These ideas are implanted in the human brain and control their own hosts. Their only mission is to copy and spread, and finally realize their own eternity. This concept is "meme".

Dawkins, a great biologist, first put forward the concept of meme in the book selfish genes published in 1976. He believes that meme is the basic unit of cultural communication, and meme is spread through imitation and replication. Psychologist Blackmore believes that the development of human language and even brain is driven by memes. Dawkins believes that man is one of the organisms on which genes depend, and the carrier through which genes can be continuously copied and continued. Similarly, human beings are the carrier on which memes live (but not the only carrier) and the most convenient and effective meme spreading machine.

1, the definition of meme

Biological definition (Dawkins): Meme is the basic unit of cultural transmission and imitation.

Definition of psychology (Plotkin): Meme is the basic unit of cultural inheritance similar to genetic genes, and it is the internal expression of human knowledge and learning.

Definition of Cognitive Science (Dennett): Meme is an idea, which is a complex idea composed of many independent and memorable units. The medium of this thought is the objective expression of meme.

In short, memes are information units stored in the human brain and spread through self-replication.

Dawkins pointed out that meme is more like a simple virus. A virus is basically a string of nucleic acids with "attitude" and a protein shell. Similarly, meme is also a kind of information with "attitude", wrapped in a coat. Meme is composed of a series of information, and any material medium can be its carrier.

2. The origin of meme

Memes can evolve constantly, and there are two driving factors behind them (generation engine).

First-class driving factors: four driving forces: fighting, feeling escape, looking for food and mating. Zoologists like to sum it up with four "F's". The stronger the basic survival driving force of these four animals, the more human beings can survive. Anger, fear, hunger and sexual desire have also spawned more "survival memes" for human beings.

Secondary driving force: consciousness

The profound thoughts and subtle intellectual models of human beings are based on the higher brain functions of survival and mating. These advanced functions are based on the most primitive functions of survival and mating-fear, anger, hunger and sexual desire.

Evolution is in full swing. Our brain has been producing countless secondary buttons, which not only enables us to survive and reproduce better, but also meets the needs of the four primary buttons.

These auxiliary buttons include:

Sense of belonging: Memes that bring people a sense of belonging are superior to other memes.

Different: making some new, innovative or significant changes can make it easier for an individual to find food or shelter, thus making him or her stand out from many potential spouses. Any meme that makes human beings realize their Excellence, particularity or importance has an advantage in the evolution of memes.

Caring: Using the meme of human caring nature can always win a place in the battle of thinking.

Identification: It can drive you to do what others or yourself identify with. Being recognized will make you more motivated, and not being recognized will make you feel guilty, ashamed and hurt.

Obey authority: Obeying authority can increase your chances of DNA survival and replication. On the contrary, it will lead to extinction or exclusion.

Four basic survival drivers and consciousness evolved from the brain have produced a steady stream of memes.

3. Three categories of memes

From the perspective of anthropocentrism, memes can be divided into the above three categories.

Viral memes: Memes reduce the adaptability of the host. For example: pyramid schemes, cults, pseudoscience and other tricks.

Neutral meme: The existence of meme is neutral. Such as advertisement, gossip, etc. It's neither good nor bad for the host.

* * * Biological memes: The existence of memes improves the adaptability of the host. For example: life wisdom, scientific knowledge, rational knowledge and so on. It is helpful to improve the viability and adaptability of the host.

As far as the host human beings are concerned, as long as the memes that are beneficial to human beings are good memes, the memes that are harmful to human beings are bad memes, or virus memes.

From the attribute of meme, richard brodie thinks that meme can be divided into characteristic meme, strategy meme and association meme in the book "Thinking Virus".

Feature meme: used to distinguish things. Such as recognizing the mother's face, predators, food and so on. ;

Strategic meme: it is an analytical thinking about methods and skills and the cause and effect of things. For example, looking for food, looking for better ways and strategies to survive;

Associative meme: that is, attitude and preference towards everything in life. For example: mentality, thoughts, beliefs, beliefs, etc.

Richard brodie distinguished memes from the microscopic point of view. Different types of memes affect everyone's life in different ways.

4. Three characteristics of meme

Dawkins believes that imitation is the main way to copy memes, and many memes are more successful than others, that is, they can win the competition of self-replication. The meme of success is influenced by three factors: longevity, productivity and replication loyalty. In other words, successful memes have three main characteristics:

Longevity: The so-called longevity refers to whether memes can be circulated on paper or in people's minds for a long time. The life span of memes is long or short, and some memes may be "immortal", such as religious laws that may spread for thousands of years. And some memes may be just a flash in the pan. For example, advertisements, pop songs and fashion elements may disappear after a year of popularity. Therefore, the longer memes exist, the more likely they are to be copied. For example, Christianity was founded by Jesus around 27 AD. Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama in 600 BC and has a history of more than 2,600 years. Of course, sometimes some memes will go into a "dormant" state and then "resurrect" again under certain environmental conditions.

Productivity: Productivity is much more important than life span. We can even say that productivity is the most important factor. Successful memes must be guaranteed to be replicated continuously. The more popular memes are, the more they are copied. Therefore, many religious memes have their own missionaries, churches and missionary schools, which are convenient for spreading to more people. For example, about 2.3 billion people believe in Christianity, 654.38+06 billion in Islam, 654.38+00 billion in Hinduism and 400 million in Buddhism.

Replication loyalty: The so-called replication loyalty means that memes often retain the core or essence of the original meme in the process of replication, rather than completely unchanged. The so-called "loyalty" or "fidelity" is not the same as "authenticity, no distortion". Loyalty is only a matter of degree. Just as genes mutate in the process of replication, memes can constantly evolve and adapt to new environments. The variation of meme is mainly through mutation and recombination, which is also the main way of cultural innovation.

These three characteristics of successful memes often cross and restrict each other to complete their own replication and dissemination.

Kate Distin, a British philosopher, mentioned in The Selfish Meme that in the world of memes, the ultimate beneficiary must be meme itself, not the carrier of memes. So meme is selfish, and its purpose is to copy, copy and copy on a large scale. Even if it is incorrect, even if it can't help the meme holder in any way, it may be spread. For example, in WeChat, people often forward messages, "If you don't forward this message to five people, you will be in big trouble in the future."

This meme has two obvious characteristics. First, it is wrong. If you see this news and don't pass it on to anyone, you won't be in big trouble in the future. Secondly, the person who stores and disseminates this meme will not get any benefit from this practice, nor will he become richer, healthier and smarter. The core logic of this meme is "copy me". Memes don't exist to help the individuals they live in. They exist because the memes with the strongest fecundity, the longest life span and the highest replication fidelity are all evolved through memes.

Richard Dawkins believes that evolution must meet three conditions: heredity, variation and natural selection.

Memes, like genes, have these three necessary conditions, namely heredity (behaviors and details are copied), variation (copying is accompanied by errors, modifications or other changes) and selection (only some behaviors can be copied successfully). Memes can be various forms of memetic information, including ideas, concepts, methods, skills and other information. Memes often spread themselves indiscriminately, whether they are beneficial, irrelevant or harmful to human beings.

Generally speaking, memes often go through several different stages in the process of replication and dissemination. Heiligen once discussed the four stages of meme replication:

The first stage: assimilation

The second stage: memory

The second stage of meme replication refers to the retention time of memes in memory. The longer a meme stays in memory, the more likely it is to spread itself by infecting the host. Like assimilation, memory is selective, and only a few can survive. The length of memory retention depends on whether an idea is very important and how often it is repeated. For example, many religious memes are implanted from children and are permanently preserved by repeatedly entering the long-term memory system of the brain.

The third stage: expression

Memes must be "expressed" if they want to spread to other individuals. Speech is the most obvious way of expression, which can be conscious or subconscious. People can walk, do things or dress up as memes. If the meme host thinks that a meme is very important and should be told to everyone, then the meme will be constantly expressed.

The fourth stage: communication

An expression that wants to reach more people needs more carriers or media. These tangible objects can be called meme carriers, such as books, photos, handicrafts, DVD, TV content and so on.

Successful memes are copied and disseminated through four stages: assimilation, memory, expression and dissemination, while failed memes will be slowly forgotten in this process, so the world of memes is also a fiercely competitive world, and only those memes that are tenacious and can adapt to the new environment can be preserved. Of course, what can be preserved is not necessarily beneficial to mankind. Some virus models have strong viability and reproductive ability, just like bacteria and viruses.

Hundreds of millions of years ago, a new type of life evolved on the earth. This new species has an unusual function, which is to invade people and use the reproductive devices of other creatures to serve their own reproduction. We call this creature a virus.

Viruses exist in three kinds of spaces.

The first kind of space is biology and organism. Viruses are active from the common cold to AIDS and even more serious diseases.

The second kind of space is the computer and network world invented by human beings. This virus is a program code invented or programmed by people.

The third space is human thinking, culture and thought. There are all kinds of ideas, pseudoscience, cults, pyramid schemes and extreme terrorism in this space. The human brain is fertile ground for meme virus reproduction, and human beings are particularly good at learning new ideas and information, so meme virus can easily invade our brain. Viruses invade our brains, and through interpersonal communication, they can replicate themselves, issue instructions and spread. And many mathematical memes are implanted into the brain without our conscious choice.

1. What are the common meme viruses?

Meme viruses exist in large numbers, which are full of human culture, including pseudoscience, divination and astrology, among which pyramid schemes, cults and extreme terrorism are the most harmful to human beings.

MLM-An Interesting Virus

China's reform and opening up has attracted all kinds of new ideas. As a meme virus, MLM has also entered China with the clarion call of reform and development. In 1990s, China was all the rage, and people were addicted to the fantasy of getting rich quickly, so they were cut by MLM Company as leeks. Although 30 years have passed, MLM still lives well in China. Grafting on the internet makes the spread faster and faster.

For example, five-element currency pyramid scheme, Quanjian pyramid scheme, Hebei Huaping acid-base balance instrument pyramid scheme and other companies are the disseminators of pyramid schemes meme virus. The name of this meme virus is "MLM scam". The owner of the MLM company packages the meme virus, puts on the coat of treating diseases and saving lives by Chinese medicine, and brainwashes leeks repeatedly, finally achieving the purpose of meme replication.

Cult-A Power Virus

Cult is a kind of power virus, the essence of which is to provide power for cult leaders, so as to obtain money, sex and human energy. The cult's usual trick is to put on a religious cloak and pretend to be a kind metaplasia. All cult members become cult members unconsciously.

Cults generally have the following key characteristics: everyone is committed to a special mission, but these have not been chosen by personal consciousness; There are all kinds of serious consequences after members leave the cult. Swear allegiance to an all-powerful leader and believe that he is the savior; The leader's dictatorship determines the members' career and life; Oppose or prohibit rational thinking; Usually by cheating to attract new members; Cut off from the outside world; Members put all their energy and funds into the organization or leadership; Members work hard for the organization, but they don't get the rewards they deserve; Create a sacred and mysterious atmosphere; The financial situation is confidential; Usually violent or potentially violent.

Cults often flaunt their responsibilities, goals or sacred missions. Followers must believe that this mission is the most important career in their lives, and they can sacrifice everything to achieve higher goals. Once the meme is implanted in the human body, it is difficult for people to get rid of it.

Cult memes are constantly evolving with the development of society. Internet connects you and me, and it also makes cult memes spread faster and farther.

For example, according to the British "Daily Mail" reported on April 8, a girl aged 18 in Brazil was arrested for murdering her brother. According to Brazilian police, the girl killed her 5-year-old brother and dismembered his body for the "black magic summoning ceremony". The scene layout is very similar to the "Brazilian Satan Ceremony". The police suspected that the suspect might be infected and incited by "dark magic" fans, and used mobile video to remotely guide the implementation of the "dark magic summoning ceremony".

Extreme Terrorism —— A Political Virus

Extreme terrorism refers to the thoughts and behaviors that create social panic, endanger public safety, infringe on personal property, or coerce state organs and international organizations to achieve their political and ideological goals by means of violence, destruction and intimidation. For example, many extreme terrorists in the world absolutely believe that they can make a human attack on themselves and others for a meme virus by controlling their thoughts, implanting memes and repeatedly brainwashing training.

2. How did the virus penetrate into the brain?

At first, the human brain, like animals, existed for the sole purpose of assisting the continuous replication of its own DNA. Survival is the main way for human beings to copy DNA, combine with as many opposite sexes of the same DNA as possible, have as many children as possible, and continue to reproduce.

Therefore, evolutionary psychologists believe that the original purpose of our brain is

● Improve the probability of survival until you can reproduce or even live longer;

● Reproduce as many offspring as possible;

● Improve the probability of combining with excellent opposite sex.

With the evolution of the brain, humans have evolved a new cerebral cortex, and the brain is smarter and has stronger thinking ability. Of course, meme viruses are constantly evolving, and meme viruses generally occupy the brain in three ways.

The first way is domestication. If we often hear something, it will naturally become a part of our brain program. Therefore, the way to domesticate MLM organizations is to brainwash them every day and hold meetings all the time, so that members can't contact with the outside world, and finally achieve the purpose of brainwashing.

The second way is cognitive dissonance. When something can't be explained by common sense, our brain will try to come up with a reason to explain it. Even if this reason is wrong. This mechanism provides conditions for memeviruses. Because the world is full of uncertainty, and the human brain needs certainty, science can't explain everything, so we leave it to religion, because God is omniscient and omnipotent. Religion is also a meme, and a good religion is a meme, which can help the host to work and live better without causing harm to the host. In the process of exploring the world, science has encountered many unsolved problems.

For example, does a person have a soul? Science can't answer, but people need answers, so there are religious memes. Religious memes solve cognitive dissonance, thus alleviating people's mental stress. This is the value of religious memes.

Not only good religion can solve cognitive dissonance, but cults and pyramid schemes can also solve people's cognitive dissonance. For example, when spreading "meme virus", pyramid schemes and pyramid schemes specially select people with low education level, people who lack scientific knowledge and people who are too lazy to learn, and use people's psychological deviation and pseudo-scientific knowledge to fill the knowledge gap of the audience, solve cognitive disorders and enter the infected host. So ask the people who join the pyramid scheme. They generally say that although they didn't make money, they learned a lot of knowledge (in fact, many of them are fake knowledge).

The third road is Trojan horse. Bind unattractive memes with attractive memes.

Form sugar-coated shells and invade the host. For example, Quanjian Fire Therapy and Hebei Huaping Acid-base Balancer are coats that make families happier and make their bodies healthier. In the process of brainwashing, sugar-coated shells such as filial piety, love and responsibility are used to implant viruses into leeks. When a leek is brainwashed successfully, it will spread this "meme virus" to more people. In fact, the real purpose of the MLM leader is to empty your pockets and use your body to help him spread the meme virus.

3. How to identify meme virus?

In the book Rebellion of Robots, Yanu wrote that in order to make our life better, we must learn to recognize meme viruses and stay away from them. How to tell? Yasinu gave us four suggestions.

Suggestion 1. Avoid installing memes that are harmful to the host.

For example, tobacco manufacturers associate smoking behavior with "fashion" and "cool and handsome", and constantly publicize the relationship between smoking and charming image, and spread it to every young person through movie stars. Young people's brains can't resist this temptation. Under the influence of environment and culture, they gradually learn to smoke, which may eventually lead to physical addiction. This virus uses Trojan horse (virus as the core and charm as the coat) to invade the brain. Therefore, no matter how well the meme virus is packaged, you should see each other's true colors clearly. As long as you find it harmful to your health (such as self-harm and suicide), you must stay away from it.

Recommendation 2: Only install memes that reflect the real face of the world, and only install real memes.

Science has proved that knowledge that can withstand logical deduction and scientific argumentation can often reflect the objective world, so we should believe the mainstream scientific knowledge of this society, not metaphysics such as divination, divination and astrology, and not exaggerated pseudoscience such as some medical remedies and ancestral secret recipes.

Recommendation 3. Only install non-exclusive memes.

If a meme only makes you believe in it and doesn't let you believe in any other thoughts, then you must be more careful, think more seriously and question it.

Recommendation 4. What memes should I avoid installing to resist evaluation?

If an opinion doesn't let you evaluate it or question it, it is the truth. Please stay away from it.

Aristotle said: The mark of education is to learn to think about an idea, not to accept it.

In short, if meme won't let you question it, won't let you evaluate it, and tell you that "if you question me, bad things will happen", please be careful and grasp a rule: question it in all directions until you find its true face.

As a world view, both scientific memes and rational memes are examined and criticized with a completely open attitude, so that memes constantly evolve to explain this complex world. Therefore, science and rationality can help us better identify memeviruses and better understand the world.

Summary:

Meme is information with attitude, meme is DNA of culture, language is meme, information is meme, advertisement is meme, gossip is meme, popular fashion culture is meme, religion is meme, science is meme, culture is meme, and meme shapes our brains. Darwin introduced his great thought about natural selection with a genius explanation tool, which unified the biological world. Memetics opened up a brand-new picture for the understanding of cultural patterns and provided us with new ideas for studying culture.

As individuals, we should have a deep understanding of memes, use good memes to help us better cope with the complex world, and at the same time stay away from those memeviruses to prevent harm to our body and mind.

There are only two kinds of replication in this world, one is gene and the other is meme. They are all selfish, and the only purpose of their existence is to "make themselves eternal".

References:

Rebellion of Robots, by GarKeith Sinew.

Machinery industry press

Selfish meme, Kate Dustin

World Book Publishing Company

Richard Dawkins's selfish gene.

Citic publishing house

The "Thinking Virus" in richard brodie

Zhejiang People Publishing House

Three pragmatic theories: relevance theory, adaptation theory and memetics.

Author: He Ziran Xie Chaoqun Chen

Shanghai education publishing house

The Evolution of Culture (Paper) Daniel Dennett