Memetic Essays LIST - Manga Index
Introduction
Okay, I'm starting to get a bit far afield from my project of working my way step-by-step through the principles of macromemetics. I ran across an essay I wrote on another Macromemetic Monday about how "free play" is an activity outside of the memetic universe.
I don't think I've written anything about the connection between immunomemes and residual memetic debt. I don't this is a new idea, per se, but I don't know that I've written anything about it explicitly so far. Residual memetic debt appears to be closely related to immunomemes, indeed, it may be a critical defiition of what constitutes an immunomeme.
Immunomemes & Alliance Memes & Symmetry-Breaking
Alliance memes and immunomemes function in a very similar way. I've found that my deployment descriptor notation works the same for both. In my triangular baseball studies, I've found that you can think of a second baseman actually "helping" (1) a runner to get out. You can also think of throwing a ball to a base that causes a runner to get out as a "bullying activity" or deploying an immunomeme.
If we apply the symmetry-breaking factor of residual memetic debt, then we see an important difference between alliance memes and immunomemes, namely, whether the "target" agent "gets what they want." This is closely linked to residual memetic debt.
According to the first law of memetics, an agent deploys memes in hopes of maximizing resonance. Resonance consists of more and more agents reacting more and more strongly. One of the nasty properties of immunomemes is that they are unassailable, which implies that a single agent may deploy one without fear of non-support by the cohort, which implies that they have minimal resonance, which defeats the original agent's resonance hope in the first law.
When an agent deploys a meme, they open a memetic loop for which they incur memetic debt. The debt is "paid back" when other agents resonate with the deployment. If they do not get the desired response, then they are left with residual memetic debt. For lots of reasons, residual memetic debt appears to be the root of all human unhappiness.
On the other hand, if other agents deploy alliance memes, that "lower the catalytic barrier" of the original agent's deployment to reaching successful resonance, e.g., by pushing the agent's resume through the hiring process, or starting to applaud at the agent's speech, prompting others to follow suit, or just passing up a bullying opportunity and doing nothing or doing something more loving, and so forth. Structurally these two kinds of deployment--immunomemetic and alliance--but the immunomeme thwarts the system's transition to a state that pays back the agent's memetic debt, while the alliance meme supports that.
Imagine the meme "That's interesting." It can either be dismissive or supportive. The difference is in what happens, regardless of the "intend" of the utterer. The difference is whether the original agent resolves his or her memetic debt.
Memetic Hell, Immunomemes, and Residual Memetic Debt
Check out the essay I mention below. The point is that immunomemes defeat an agent's attempts to deploy memes and get resonance, and alliance memes help this resonance to happen. The thing is that any memetic deployment tries to get resonance and get towards at state more advantageous to the deployer, or fails in this or is thwarted by an immunomeme.
The fun thing is that "free play" or the kind of play that children engage in, or lovemaking (2), or possibly a few other things, is free of these problems. Actions taken don't need to be memes, they may be nonsensical, they don't have to be recognized by others, the games little children play don't have rules, so the state of the "game" doesn't change in a recognizable way, which means there are no problems of resonance, or immunomemes.
Escaping Memetic Hell Through "Free Play"
Summary
Residual memetic debt may be a kind of symmetry-breaking factor between immunomemes and alliance memes. Memes blocked by immunomemes don't get memetic debt paid back, while allied ones do. That may be all there is to an immunomeme. Of course both immunomemes and alliance memes determine the state the system transitions to, changes it, one way or another, so they are symmetrical and may be represented with the same deployment description notation, which is interesting, but immunomemes deny the deploying agent reconsonance, the repay of memetic debt, while alliance memes help them to get it.
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(1) In other words, a runner cannot get out unless he is "helped" by a fielding player ("the field" since I've modeled the field as a single agent) who throws the ball to a given base. If the field does not take this action, then a runner cannot get out, or stop at a certain base, etc. If the field does not take this action, then a runner has the choice to be safe.
(2) Talking about lovemaking, before during or after, or pornography, may represent departures from this memelessness, and there may be interesting ramifications for sexual therapy and so on.
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