Is information alive? Memetics, show that information replicates, evolves and mutates.

I feel you bro, alway thought that since that second meaning of the word came up as 21tcentury was developing...

Dawkins? Jeez, you need to get out more.

Start with Saussure, then move to Barthes.

Stop re-inventing the wheel...


How is providing a little background info for people who know nothing about memetics, reinventing the wheel? If you know so much why don't you write something more meaningful?

I see memetics controlling people's actions everyday, influencing their thought patterns and behaviour. GLP is makes for a good observational tool for the spread of information and I'm not the only person to realize that. I'm sure that certain individuals and groups use this site to test how certain information spreads. Lies and insane beliefs run rampant on here and one can see what kind of effect it has on people and it's not a very good one... but they still spread, from person to person.


You didn't do what I suggested, did you?

*sigh*

After you take some time to actually look these guys up and situate yourself with their work, come on back and give me a buzz- we'll go from there.

Until them you are having conversations about forests without knowing what a tree is. Manifest some curiosity about some modestly subtle hints from a total stranger and stop projecting.

I'll do a bit of research later today, thanks.

Facebook Data Scientists Prove Memes Mutate And Adapt Like DNA

Memes adapt to their surroundings in order to survive, just like organisms.

*snip*

Facebook’s findings and my own have signficant implications for marketers or anyone looking to make a message go viral. Once you know memes are naturally inclined to mutate, and that these mutations increase sharing, you can try to purposefully structure your message in a remixable way. By creating and seeding a few variants of your own, you can crystallize how the template works and encourage your audience to make their own remixes.
[link to techcrunch.com]

The proof is all around us, one merely needs to open their eyes and look. Why do people get "hypnotized" by words? Why do people act out memes, almost without thinking? It's as if information takes over and controls them. Look at culture, tradition and language and how it influences and affects people, to the point of insanity. Look at the vampire myth, it's not a physical disease, it's more of a programmable informational code that infects people and the infected infects others with their actions. The abusee becomes the abuser.

nice posts
how ya going

Memes build self-defense complexes around
themselves, just like your cells have
anti-bodies.

These anti-meme complexes diminish or block
competing memes from displacing the dominant
meme.

Shitty and I thought I'd post this recent finding while I can, these ISP bans really suck.

One question I find myself asking, is that are we this information or merely the hosts, living in symbiosis. When we die, this information doesn't just stop existing, it goes somewhere. The root meaning of information is to give form to, so basically we give physical form to the information we collect with our senses. Something to think about.

Information has no purpose
unless it has a vector to influence.

A symbiosis with a physical vector.

Interesting article, I actually proposed
several of those ideas (with some crude data
mining graphs) in a national forum
ten years ago but most everyone was
skeptical.

you goof with this stuff enough
and eventually you realize that
most people don't actually *think*.

they believe that they do,
but most behavior from most people
is actually pre-programmed from
either genetic inclination or
outside influences like television,
religion, parents, etc.

It was kind of a depressing realization,
and the second realization was wondering
just how much of my own behavior is
pre-programmed.

Everything is information on the fundamental level, or maybe it emits it, hard to tell. And everyone has the capability to question their own actions and thoughts. I don't think it's possible for information to influence people's actions unless they let it. Unfortunately most people aren't aware of this and live on auto pilot, letting the information they retain control them. In effect they're zombies or robots that act and react a certain way to situations like a script and if they don't have the information for a situation, their brains short circuit and they faint/lose consciousness/crash. Beliefs are some of the most dangerous memes because they are so powerful and act as a filter to people's perception of reality.

People are so concerned with what they eat and drink in how it affects their bodies, so why are people not concerned with what information they absorb since it affects their minds? The information we retain from the experiences in life is what shapes us as individuals, it makes us who we are to some extent. Everyone is too focused on the wrong thing, privacy, the information other people gain from us, rather than the information people are exposing themselves to. It's no wonder so many people are insane, irrational or mentally unstable these days...

There is also the question of what the evolution of humans and the information we carry will result in ultimately. Our evolution is greatly influenced by extreme bursts of genetic mutation caused by radiation/information. We're doing a good job of being able to store and share the information we've collected so far, in our DNA and digitally.

Fantastic thread!.

I do believe that information has a purpose - remember its verb, not a noun.

Information can only exist through exchange - and that is The Purpose.

Last Edited by Comperio on 01/31/2014 04:09 AM

Rest of the world finally catching up to me.

Here's one that the author won't get around to for another few years. Religion is an artificial immune system. It enforces boundaries and beliefs which limit the spread of toxic memes.

For instance, the purpose of the 10 Commandments is to PREVENT the spread of memetic disease. And the varying success of different religions reflects their success at controlling disease.

As I pointed out originally in the beginning, there is no certain, commonly accepted definition of what information actually is. And I the dictionary disagrees with your statement of it being a verb.

[link to dictionary.reference.com]

noun
1.
knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance;

One definition is knowledge, so what is knowledge?

[link to dictionary.reference.com]

1.
acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation;

So knowledge are/is fact and truths.

[link to dictionary.reference.com]

2.
conformity with fact or reality

5.
actuality or actual existence.

[link to dictionary.reference.com]

1.
something that actually exists; reality; truth:

Now just from the definitions of the words I've been using, I come to the conclusion that information is/are bits of reality that we absorb into ourselves. Why is it that no one can agree, on one definite definition, of what constitutes life and what information is? And yet we use them all the time. The concepts of living and information are very complicated and connected, which is why I started this thread.

Language was born out of information and our need to communicate it and we're trying to explain what being alive is with something that IS alive. It's confusing but right now I can't explain it any other way.

If it was an immune system then why were most, if not all, religions spread by violence, which itself appears to be a memetic disease. Obviously it's failed but also raises the question, what exactly was it supposed to prevent from occurring? Beliefs are one of the strongest memes and the only way to get rid of it is to, well, kill the believer or replace it with a stronger one.

So what caused the immune system to turn on itself or turn into a disease?

Thank you for your reply, interesting.

I do maintain that "information" stems from "inform" - and that "inform" is a verb. Webster agrees: [link to www.merriam-webster.com]

"Information" seems to have self organising properties - and if that is true, this can only stem from exchange - thus exchange becomes a root cause.

My point was that, information exists without interaction or exchange, since ultimately my best explanation of information is bits of reality. Thanks for your interest, I hope it makes you think.

Yes, but if taken that way it still leaves out what is being exchanged. There's also the other root meanings which include to form and to shape. I think I'm having trouble explaining what I mean exactly because I see this exchange as communication and the "substance" being communicated as information.

Unlike a virus, which is encoded in DNA molecules, a meme is nothing more than a pattern of information, one that happens to have evolved a form which induces people to repeat that pattern. Typical memes include individual slogans, ideas, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions. It may sound a bit sinister, this idea that people are hosts for mind-altering strings of symbols, but in fact this is what human culture is all about.

Meanwhile, the memes themselves are evolving, just as in the game of "Telephone" (where a message is whispered from person to person, being slightly mis-replicated each time). Selection favors the memes which are easiest to understand, to remember, and to communicate to others. Garbled versions of a useful meme would presumably be selected out.

So, in theory at least, the ability to understand and communicate complex memes is a survival trait, and natural selection should favor those who aren't too conservative to understand new memes. Or does it? In practice, some people are going to be all too ready to commit any new meme that comes along, even if it should turn out to be deadly nonsense, like: "Jump off a cliff and the gods will make you fly."

Such memes do evolve, generated by crazy people, or through mis-replication. Notice, though, that this meme might have a lot of appeal. The idea of magical flight is so tantalizing -- maybe, if I truly believed, I just might leap off the cliff and...

This is a vital point: people try to infect each other with those memes which they find most appealing, regardless of the memes' objective value or truth. Further, the carrier of the cliff-jumping meme might never actually take the plunge; they may spend the rest of their long lives infecting other people with the meme, inducing millions of gullible fools to leap to their deaths. Historically, this sort of thing is happening all the time.

Whether memes can be considered true "life forms" or not is a topic of some debate, but this is irrelevant: they behave in a way similar to life forms, allowing us to combine the analytical techniques of epidemiology, evolutionary science, immunology, linguistics, and semiotics, into an effective system known as "memetics." Rather than debate the inherent "truth" or lack of "truth" of an idea, memetics is largely concerned with how that idea gets itself replicated.
[link to deoxy.org]

Just how many people are controlled by memes? You only need to look at the latest meme of knocking people out to see it can easily make people do stupid and dangerous things. Beliefs are not the only memes around.

This "virus" is just propaganda. If you're "virus protection software" is good enough, you want be infected.

Still curious to see what people think, not believe, about whether information is alive or not since it fits the commonly accepted criteria for life.

we have not got to that topic yet
first the changes to the structure and function of our universe had to become recognized to allow the nature of consciousness to become a topic of universal significance

happily last year the brain intuitive was launched on behalf of humanity thus we now center our dates around that 4.21.2023
the information on what occurs upon death is contained within the on going debate information in conjunction with the nature of our universe (structure/function) , bio electrics , epigenetics, non material structure, new meanings to language and philosophy (imaginal philosophy) and our new history of ourselves upon gaia via discoveries in our recent past and ongoing open disclosure including dating artifacts and megalithic structures. dna testing and dating of people of unusual shape once common in locations upon gaia and stuff like that

[link to www.whitehouse.gov]

see /z\ what your thread has become Thread: Petroglyphs, not just simple, crude drawings from ancient man. The truth is stranger then you could ever imagine.

nice to see you again

Last Edited by aether on 02/02/2014 12:26 AM

People have grown so comfortable of their version of reality, the infections of inaccurate information, that they're no longer able to tell what is real and what is not anymore. Behaving in ways that clearly show no or little thought, effectively becoming zombies controlled by the information they store inside their minds. I fear that there is very little anyone can do aside from dosing them with DMT and forcing a reboot of their minds... The saddest thing is, it was their choice, no one forced it on anyone.

Also I totally forgot about that post since there's no new information to add. One thing that did occur to me, is that what was the source of such information for the ancient people and why does it feel like humans cannot create anything new anymore. Just remake, rehash and regurgitate old ideas. Their information came from somewhere or something and either there's something preventing us from being able to access it or the source is gone...

Many new discoveries and inventions were "born" into the world out of dreams. Now it just feels like everything is being recycled in a loop and that goes against the very nature of an infinite and ever changing universe.

Information can only be changed and altered so many times before we run out of combinations and then what happens? Humans cannot create. They cannot create anything that did not already exist in some form. Humans can only change, mutate and combine. We're in an age where information is everywhere, so much so that most people are unable to tell what is real and what is not.

The biggest question is still what is information...?