2016-04-30

模倣子 The Memetic Nexus and the Rock Star

Memetic Index 

It's clear that famous people inhabit what may be termed a "memetic nexus" in which they embody a MIAO which didn't really exist but which provides an attachment site for a collection of memes which can be said to "point towards it" in some sort of n-space elaboration of the memespace.

Examples of this are like stereotypes, although they can be much more subtle. A stereotype is a memetic nexus which an individual may inhabit. A "rock star" type, or a "pundit" or such personage may come to define and elaborate this stereotype, give it more depth and detail, than it had originally.

That's just an observation. At this point I'm not sure it's really true.  And that brings us to one of the several basic questions(1) of memetic systems theory, i.e., is it possible for an individual to escape from a memetic nexus...once it has formed/coälesced around them or pulled them into itself? That's another interesting question: does a memetic nexus "form" around a person or "pull them in"? It's probably a mere question of semantics.

It should be noted here that the memes that surround a memetic nexus are primarily, and perhaps exclusively, contact memes(4). For example, the "classic Native American", a "real, ghetto African American", a "W.A.S.P.", a "disabled person", a "typical politician", a "lesbian or gay", a "science student vs. liberal arts student", a "Frenchman (or other foreigner)", a "nerd or geek", and so on. These kinds of stereotypical identifications are mainly from the perspective of the out-group, probably not from the member(s) of the in-group (or at least that doesn't matter for our discussion).

They may also be faked.

In fact, this kind of fakery is probably the norm for people who find themselves in a memtic nexus. Even nominal in-group members in a memetic nexus within their own group, e.g., a "man's man" or "alpha male", such as a Rock Hudson, a JFK, or an FDR, may actually be pretending to be a great many things which they are not, e.g., sexually attracted to women, physically healthy and vigorous, faithful to a spouse, etc., in order to maintain this situation in the memetic nexus. Or the question becomes, are they forced to, whatever that may mean, that is, how much freedom do they have to leave the nexus, if any? Can a person influence the nexus, the memes that do and do not make it up, effectively (that's really the only was to define it, I think), or are they trapped, able to only enact the memes which make up the nexus? How able are they to participate in memetic hacking(2) vis-à-vis the memes that make up the memetic nexus itself? This may be the influence that drives famous people to "go on a runner", the Rolling Stones(7) to play obscure venues without notice or publicity, etc. It's also compels the individual to pander, that is, to conform the expectations of the out-group's ideology (or memetic make-up) surrounding the in-group, the stereotypes, in order to appear to be a member of said in-group. If one does not wear feathers and buckskins, speak with an affected tone, have "characteristic" ethnic features, espouse certain attitudes, get angry and upset (or enjoy) certain things, and so on and so on, then out-group members are "surprised" or reluctant, even resistant, to accept that one is, in fact, a member of the in-group in question. Of course, one isn't. That is, there is no such in-group, per se, since it is merely a collection of resonant patterns in the memetic fabric of some out-group, which may or may not have anything whatever to do with any real people anywhere, at any point in history.

This may all be researched in the same way as one would any other memetic system analysis(3), and so is not really anything new. It is a phenomenon subject to observation, an historical artifact, so to speak.

The "engineering" project is to ask whether it's possible to a) identify unoccupied memetic nexuses,  b) is there even any such thing as an "unoccupied memetic nexus" (and is this related to a memetic vacuüm?), and c) is it possible to create memetic nexuses, and if so, how? In short, this is a way to figure out how to "get rich and famous" through investigation of the memetic fabric of some chosen population, anywhere from a small group to the entire world, and then do something to insert oneself (or a chosen other or one's products) into that nexus.

Using memetic analysis to identify possible memetic nexuses, and using memetic engineering to insert oneself into it, or even to create one and then insert oneself, is the primary goal of all sales, marketing, and politics. Another question is how to keep oneself outside of a memetic nexus, dissociated from it, and yet still manage to exploit it, while preventing others from doing so. This leave the "outside" individual or organization still free to move in the memespace without the constraints imposed by the nexus. Again, this brings up the question of whether and to what extent a memetic nexus "traps" its occupant and whether they can ever excape. Must the nexus be somehow "destroyed" or "disrupted" or "dismantled" in order to allow such an escape, is that even possible, and what would it look like? Are there any historical examples?

More on this later...


==========================
(1) These questions include: a) "can [dominant] ideologies be changed without violence and the deaths of large numbers of people?", b) "can an individual escape from a memetic nexus?", and c) "are memeplexes (memetic systems) intelligent, do they have goals, can they purposefully adapt to changing environments and competition from other memeplexes in a way that resembles predicting the future?"

(2)Memetic Hacking: Alone, separated from the grand publique, a person may be interrogated, cross-examined, in order to judge their reactions to questions that evince their immunomemes, without the social bullying that keeps them beholden to the memeplex(es) to which they belong. The chosen environment should make them as circumspect as possible to the memeplexes in which they participate, what they perceive as their feelings about it, the nature of their participation, etc. In other words, engage the beholden individual in a meta-memetic exchange.

(3)Memetic Analysis: Identify functional memes from the actions of beholden individuals, identify signal memes from messages, gestures of the beholden, identify MIAOs that attach signal memes (including written matierals, etc.), use thus-far identified memes and MIAOs to evince immunomenes (and identify further MIAOs) through interrogative interactions with beholden both in groups and via memetic hacking.

(4)Contact Meme: A meme that is meaningful to a usually larger outside group, or "out group", to identify and characterize the given "in group" and its members. Examples are racial, ethnic, sexist, classist, and other stereotypes (even "political"), e.g., clothing, behavior, speech (accents, special words, etc.), and actions that characterize a given group. The term derives from the fact that contact memes are significant to out-group members while they may or may not be nearly so significant to in-group members, or eclipsed by much more significant memes that outsiders may be unaware of. It could also be said that contact memes are the memes which outsiders attach to MIAOs universally accompanying in-groups, to which many (negative) stereotypical memes may be attached, but totally different memes (obviously) are attached to the same MIAOs by in-group members. An interesting case might be women's wearing of "provocative" clothing (or the significance of kissing in WWII Britain from the differing standpoints of American servicemen and British women -- an interesting case of intercultural misunderstanding). Other groups may attach memes, typically self-serving ones, to the MIAOs and behaviors (action memes). A woman may attach no especial significance to her wardrobe choices, or she may be trying to evince specific action memes from certain cohorts, i.e., push their members into another memetic state(5)

(5)Memetic State: A condition which characterizes the memetic inventory of a given individual or subgroup based on a given environment, including the memetic signals incident on that environment. For instance, a group of religious or other fanatics (e.g., graduate students) finding themselves in an isolated setting where only in-group members are present. They are now free to discuss specialized subjects, use jargon, and so on and so on, which would alienate, offend, or "give the wrong idea to" outsiders, were they present.  In other words, they are now in a different (nameable) memetic state, where a far greater memetic inventory is available (or just a different one, and such changed memetic states can even lead to things such as a memetic orgy(6).

(6)Memetic Orgy: A subjective distinction where a memetic state is reached such that all or almost all deployed memes resonate with the rest of the cohort, of the memetic fabric. An individual may be driven to escape and seek the society of out-groups for this purpose, or memetic cohorts may try to isolate or even suppress out-group members in order to allow themselves more settings where they can reach a memetic state where the memes deployed therein all achieve maximal resonance. The presence of out-group members in a mass of in-group members act like a "poison" or "neutron absorber" in a nuclear reactor -- many memes to not resonate with them, they do not emit many memes that sustain the highly-reactive, high-resonance state, and may even emit memes and immunomemes that curtail it.

(7)A friend told me how a friend of hers was in a bar with about three other people and the barman in an obscure town in Massachusetts after midnight when The Rolling Stones came out on the little stage and performed for about an hour and then left again. Blue Oyster Cult also performed in a small bar in Roppongi 六本木 one night when I was working there and I'm still kicking myself that I didn't try a little harder to find the place.

詩 Ideal Vivification

Mermaid
Drawn from murky depths
The bilge of my subconscious
All things to all people
A real fish, a real woman
Perched on rocky shoal
Passing on the road
Flashing in a pond
Then gone
Turned back to the foam
That you were always
Freudian mortification
Of one who never truly lived

2016-04-29

詩 La vente d'une âme

Pour la vente d'une âme,
que vaut mieux?
L'achat par le grand publique
ou celui d'un individu?
Peut-il l'aceuille du premier
Combler le rejet du seconde?

詩 Très Serré

Penché sur le bar à demi-saoul
sur lequel elle danse à demi-nue.

Au lieu de glisser
le billet dans son slip
je le roule très serré
et le mettre en arrière
de son oreille.

Elle est sans craint
Que je aille trop loin
Ensuite elle m'embrasse.

Une tendre échange,
une vraie intimitié
parmi des étrangers
au lieu d'une fausse
entre client et employée

2016-04-27

詩 Sparing Each Other

Voilà nous y sommes,
donnant et prennant du plaisir,
plutôt ôtant la douleur
par un moment bref
en donnant un répit
aux injustices du monde
en dehors de ces rideaux,
au délà de ces coussins.

Touchant et se faisant touché
encore ouvert à la possibilité
de se faire guérrir
mais uniquement par quelqu'un de ta genre
et toi, par la mienne,
sans s'en faire ridiculisé.

Toutes les choses tendres
sont un peu ridicule.

詩 Magdalena

Madonna and Magdalena
The Mother and the Whore
Both sides of femininity
The Western yin and yang
I want a woman
Who is just herself
Do we even have a name
For what that might look like?

2016-04-25

Jimmy John's Kills Rare Animals!!

This is where your sandwiches come from...?!
If he went in with only a sack and a machete, I could maybe respect that, but this is reprehensible. We order a lot of their sandwiches, but after this, I think we should stop!





Japanese Class

We meet 12:00 - 1:30pm at Cafe Artista in Moscow (3rd and Main)
First four sessions FREE!!





詩 Canta Serena

Sirena canta
Canta Serena
Mujer de pez
Pecado de mujer
Puta pescada
Pez pecadoso
Si vea mujer
Mujer vera, sí

模倣子 Semiotic Liberation

The Science of Memetics proves the equality of men and women once and for all. This is great and welcome news. It also illuminates in detail how oppression, including internalized oppression, functions, and illuminates a path out of it. Slavoj Zizek's discussion of the liberation of minimal elements1 shows a way to do this, and this approach may be analyzed in terms of memetic theory.

By the way, I just finished voting a bunch of my corporate shares, where I invariably vote for all the women as members of the Boards of Directors, and abstain on all the men. I'm a lifelong feminist2, but I'm also just sick of all the complaining, so I'm doing something about it. Some corporations only list the candidate's initials, so you can't tell their gender (so I have to Google them).


1In his example of the German hard-rock band, Rammstein in the film The Pervert's Guide to Ideology.
2I like to think of myself as an ortho-feminist, i.e., someone who really wants to see real women's liberation realized, as opposed to what these 3rd-wave crypto-pseudo-feminists, who only seem to be interested in complaining, apparently only for the purpose of garnering political power and being able to target, attack, and bully people without fear of retribution, without any meaningful agenda of improving the lot of women (or of men, as they also claim to care about).

詩 Anything Less Than This

Like Japanese vending machines
Sperm banks take credit cards
And hundred dollar bills
With a swab inside my mouth
An image on the screen
This could be your future kid
Complementary dildo applicator

Anything less than this is not feminism.

Society accepting, nay, welcoming
My biology, my flow,
My leaking milk
The mob rallies to my blood-stained banner
"Hey, she bleeds, asshole!
So deal with it!"
Like sweat stains twixt other limbs
A sacred badge of labor
Free of dangling strings
My body uninvaded

Bluetooth earring, smartphone app
Take my temperature at waking
Graph my fertility cycle
Put a billy on that willy
I want no baby from you today
A worthy sire in my sights
My phone gives me the green light
I know what my kids will look like
How smart they will be
Today's fairest girl-children
Will fawn over my sons the same as me
I'll take the milk and leave the cow go free
Chewing cud in his hotel room
Or in the 'loo at thirty thousand feet

Anything less than this is not feminism.

My midwife sends invitations
To my After-birth Party
Placental hors d'oeuvres
Delight revelers who celebrate
This greatest show of female power
This third awakening, bathed in blood
Like my mother's gift of red roses
At my second one, my sanguine baptism
A girl from my own blood-soaked birth
Henceforth a woman

Banks cater to me with savings plans
Residual income
Extra taxes paid by men
High school students wash my floors
Do my laundry, cook my food
While I'm nesting
Part-time work from home
I serve no master
No Rumpelstiltskin
Takes my babies from me
Male roommates pay my rent, my food
For the privilege of my presence
To inhale my calming pheromones
And the odd coffee with mother's milk

Chairs with slings
All cars have baby seats
Robotic arms hold them to my breast
As I drive, or work behind my desk
At the wheel or twixt ardent sheets
I drive stick, mother-fucker.

Anything less than this is not feminism.

2016-04-23

俳句 ぱんぱん

やりたいの
自ら人生
に入り込む

俳句 時間を経つ

生く月日
積み重ねって
復帰出来ぬ

2016-04-21

詩 時間の川

時間の川
春から冬迄
流り続く

俳句 入り込む

人生に
やりたい事を
入り込む

2016-04-19

2nd Amendment



I'd feel safer getting my hair cut here than elsewhere...!

俳句 Urgency of Routine

My life consumed by
The urgency of routine
So little time left

俳句 River of Time

This river of time
Always forward, never back
Spring into Winter

2016-04-17

詩 The Lie of Eternity

This time on Earth
The myth of Heaven
Or of Hell
Both are the same
The lie of Eternity

Someday we shall have more
Selling short on that market
Our life now has no value
Against the time we are promised
By those who would buy us

Eat, drink, and be merry
For tomorrow we die
There is only today
To make lives for ourselves
Or pass on to our children

2016-04-16

詩 Make a Splash

I want to make a splash
Have people notice me
Pay attention to me
Why should I want this?

I need others to buy my product
Give me their money
I just want some respect
A little kindness even
It's what I deserve
Or is it, really?

If I don't get what I need
From whom I need it
I will curl up and die
But is that really the equation?

I have always been the one
Who defines my problems
What I need to survive
Rather than let God do it
Maybe that's the solution

2016-04-15

俳句 ただの注目

何もしない
皆の注目で浴びる
春の女子