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Ayy lmao

does this hurt you winy

does this physically cause you distress

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Guys, have you watched the news recently? If you haven't noticed, the world's a horrific mess. A huge mess. Beheadings, school shootings on a rampant scale, fake bomb threats to get out of class, race wars, earthquakes and erupting volcanoes (have you seen Iceland lately?). It's crazy out there. And coincidentally, all of these messes and problems we see everyday in the news were actually prophecied in advance by Jesus Christ and the Bible over 2000 years ago. Just one of many proofs that the Bible is divine (coincidentally, no other "holy books" predict the future as specifically as the Bible does. The Qur'an made a few but they're vague and some turned out to be false. The Bible has a 100% accuracy track record when it comes to prophecy and future events). This all means that Christ is about to return. Which is great if you're saved but it'll be hell on earth if you aren't. You don't want to be here for the Tribulation period. Though many prophecies will reach fulfillment during the Tribulation, we can see right now that all the end time signs foretold by Jesus and His prophets have emerged and are converging (all coming together at once). Here are some of these signs: · Israel has become a burdensome stone and is at the center of the world?s attention. · Unrestrained anti-Semitism is forcing more and more Jews to return to Israel. · Israel is literally surrounded by enemies who want to destroy the tiny nation. · The nations that will participate in the upcoming wars are aligned as prophesied in the Bible. · Everywhere you look ethnic group is against ethnic group. · Wars and rumors of wars abound on earth. · Russia has risen, has a hook in its jaw and is allied with Iran. · There are many false religious movements and false prophets. · The kings of the east are a threat. · The Euphrates River can be dried to a trickle due to the Ataturk Dam, which will prepare the way for the kings of the east. · There is a move towards global religion, global government, and global economy. · Global communication, increase in knowledge · Ability to travel to and fro in all the earth · Nuclear capability · Signs in the sky · Signs in the earth; creation groaning · Return of diseases previously eradicated and the worrisome world Ebola threat · The world is like it was in the days of Noah, corrupt and filled with wickedness. · Horrible terrorist acts are causing fear in the hearts of people worldwide. They're even beheading people here in the U.S. When we combine current events with the fact that ISIS controls 1/3 of Syria, and many terrorist organizations have a base in its city of Damascus, it appears evident that we will soon see the fulfillment of Isaiah 17. (Thanks C.N. for this listing!) We're going to see all prophecy be fulfilled soon! People! Wake up! You can watch real-world news and see these prophecies coming to a head! The Bible isn't a bunch of fairy stories! Archeology, geology, and even topography confirm these people, places, and events existed and happened! The Wall of Jericho fell outward despite being such a fortified city. The Book of Acts for has over 80+ historically verified facts. Acts was written by Luke, who is considered as one of the most credible historians who ever lived. Coincidentally, Luke is the same guy behind the Gospel of Luke. And the fact that Christ's words are coming true means He's God!! Only God knows and can prophecy the future 2000 years in advance. Yet all this phenomenon we see going on baffles our would-be government overlords. For instance, they are in a perpetual tizzy because the American people laughed at John Kerry?s recent announcement that climate change, of all things, was America?s greatest security threat. And they're baffled that the general public refuses to give up their cars and move into caves because of global warming. Or climate change. Whatever they're deciding to call it this week. Given that prophecy is coming true 100%, did you know the Bible also states that Jesus will soon reign over the earth for 1000 years? We can rest confidently assured that the earth is gonna stick around. The freak weather we're all seeing is actually called birth pangs, not climate change. Turbulent, violent weather is a major prophetic indicator. Even creation itself is screaming at us that Christ is about to return! That's why creation is in such an uproar! I'm telling you the truth: Krishna won't save you. allah's just an amalgamation of all of islam's different gods rolled into one. And being a good person won't save you (we've all sinned in some capacity in our lives- how many people have you cussed at and hurt by trolling online this week alone?). The fact that Jesus Christ's words are coming true, prophecied in advance over 2000 years ago, proves He is the all-knowing, all-seeing, ONLY God! And guess what? He LOVES you! Goodness does He love you and He knows every jot of information there is to know about you. And guess what else? He loves you... even though you shop-lifted that one time. He loves you even though you get a sick thrill out of trolling people or watching japanese hentai. He loves you even though you suffer under the idea that you did something that you assume is unforgivable. He loves you even though you've slandered and hurt others. And He'll forgive anything. For instance, people have burned His Word. Yet, He's forgiven them! And He wants to forgive you and help you get out of your sinful lifestyle! It doesn't matter if you're black, white, asian, or indian. Ethnicity isn't a barrier to Him. You're His child! We're ALL His children! And if you'll believe in Him, accept Him as your Lord and Savior and repent of your sins, He'll save you! Simple as that. Do yourself the biggest favor of your life: TAKE THAT OFFER!!! Why settle for mud pies here on earth when Jesus offers you an eternal feast? Don't be left behind to endure the Tribulation. Save yourselves now while the Ark doors are still open... because they're about to shut. And you do not want to be left here when they finally close. The judgement of God is a terrifying thing and if you think God is unfair for judging sinners, need I remind you that He's given humanity the opportunity to escape His coming judgement for over 2000 years if they would simply believe in Jesus and repent. We're talking about the fate of your eternal life here... and eternity is an awful long time to be on the wrong side. Don't let satan drag you down into the lake of fire with him. That's his end game. He doesn't care about you. His attitude is, "If I'm going down, you're going down with me!" He wants to destroy as many people as possible. What else can explain the insane evil you see increasing everywhere on a daily basis? Satan knows his time is short and he wants to cause as much damage and ensnare as many souls as possible- yours included. Don't let that monster win your soul! Now, I'm sure some of your responses to reading all of this will probably be firing off the typical f-bombs and insisting none of this can be real. That it's the delusional, mis-conceptualized ranting of a religious fanatic. I don't blame you for thinking that way. I wonder if Noah felt like he was a fanatic as he built the Ark and everyone mocked and ridiculed him for his message... that is until the flood suddenly came. Suddenly Noah wasn't that misguided, God-crazy person everyone thought he was... If you doubt me, that's fair. You're allowed to doubt all of this if you want to. But the writing is on the wall every day in the news. It's getting harder and harder to deny... If you have doubts but deep down want to be saved, I recommend the following authors. Ravi Zacharias is great if you're sensitive to issues of race and ethnicity and how Jesus can save you. William Lane Craig and Norman L. Geisler are great if you're an atheist or agnostic who believes that science is the end-all, be-all answer to everything. They'll give you answers and evidence to really chew on if you'll be open and honest to what they have to say (basically, they're great for if you've ever demanded hard scientific evidence for God's existence). And Lee Strobel is great for those of you who have a curious interest into whether everything about Jesus and the Bible is true or not. For more readily available answers, the "One Minute Apologist" here on youtube is great for quick answers to tough questions about God. If you're still in doubt about all of this, take this to heart: the Bible says Damascus (that's in Syria) will be DESTROYED. A ruinous heap. Test God's word against Him! Read Isaiah 17. If Damascus never falls, then the Bible is flawed. But when Damascus does soon fall... then you'll know God is no liar. And how can an all-knowing, all-seeing, inerrant God get anything wrong? If He says Jesus is the only way to heaven, then Jesus really is the only way. If there were any other way to heaven, even ONE alternate way, then why did Christ have to die? If there's no hell to protect us all from then His death was pointless. That's why we spread the Gospel: to tell you that there's a way to save yourself. And it's completely free if you'll simply accept Christ's offer! In any other faith you have to work to secure your salvation. The Bible says our works are as dirty rags. None of us could ever produce enough righteous acts to earn our way to heaven. That's why Christ's offer is so great: all you have to do is accept it and He'll cover you with His righteousness! So, you can either argue about all of this... or better yet, you can humbly admit that you're a sinner, turn and repent of your sinful lifestyle and believe in Jesus and ask Him to save you. He'd be delighted to. But there's not much time left. Save yourself while you still can.?

Quote from: ℳℰℳℰS on March 02, 2015, 04:54:38 PM

Quote from: Winy on March 02, 2015, 04:51:52 PM

Ayy lmao

YouTube

does this hurt you winy

does this physically cause you distress

I'll be honest, I don't really get what's suppose to be bothering me so much.

is this not the first time you've been shown that song in an attempt to bother you

Nice pasta

*sips tea*

Quote from: Winy on March 02, 2015, 05:05:15 PM

Quote from: ℳℰℳℰS on March 02, 2015, 05:04:11 PM

Quote from: Winy on March 02, 2015, 05:00:27 PM

Quote from: ℳℰℳℰS on March 02, 2015, 04:54:38 PM

Quote from: Winy on March 02, 2015, 04:51:52 PM

Ayy lmao

YouTube

does this hurt you winy

does this physically cause you distress

I'll be honest, I don't really get what's suppose to be bothering me so much.

is this not the first time you've been shown that song in an attempt to bother you

Do you think I'm still the fedora-tipping hardcore atheist I was back in ye' oldie times?

are you saying atheism's not a widespread cult where owning a funny hat is mandatory due to their central role in ritual sacrifices

I bow only to Satan.

A meme (/ˈmiːm/ meem)[1] is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture".[2] A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.[3]

The word meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme (from Ancient Greek μίμημα pronounced [míːmɛːma] mīmēma, "imitated thing", from μιμεῖσθαι mimeisthai, "to imitate", from μῖμος mimos, "mime")[4] coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976)[1][5] as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches.[6]

Proponents theorize that memes are a viral phenomenon that may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution. Memes do this through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, each of which influences a meme's reproductive success. Memes spread through the behavior that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.[7]

A field of study called memetics[8] arose in the 1990s to explore the concepts and transmission of memes in terms of an evolutionary model. Criticism from a variety of fronts has challenged the notion that academic study can examine memes empirically. However, developments in neuroimaging may make empirical study possible.[9] Some commentators in the social sciences question the idea that one can meaningfully categorize culture in terms of discrete units, and are especially critical of the biological nature of the theory's underpinnings.[10] Others have argued that this use of the term is the result of a misunderstanding of the original proposal.[11]

Dawkins's own position is somewhat ambiguous: he obviously welcomed N. K. Humphrey's suggestion that "memes should be considered as living structures, not just metaphorically"[12] and wanted to regard memes as "physically residing in the brain".[13] Later, he argued that his original intentions, presumably before his approval of Humphrey's opinion, had been simpler.[14] At the New Directors' Showcase 2013 in Cannes, Dawkins' opinion on memetics was deliberately ambiguous.[15]

Contents

    1 Origins
    2 Memetic lifecycle: Transmission, retention
    3 Memes as discrete units
    4 Evolutionary influences on memes
    5 Memetics
    6 Criticism of meme theory
    7 Applications
    8 Religion
    9 Memetic explanations of racism
    10 Architectural memes
    11 Internet culture
    12 Meme maps
    13 See also
    14 Notes
    15 References
    16 External links

Origins
Richard Dawkins coined the word meme in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene.

The word meme originated with Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins cites as inspiration the work of geneticist L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, anthropologist F. T. Cloak [16] and ethologist J. M. Cullen.[17] Dawkins wrote that evolution depended not on the particular chemical basis of genetics, but only on the existence of a self-replicating unit of transmission — in the case of biological evolution, the gene. For Dawkins, the meme exemplified another self-replicating unit with potential significance in explaining human behavior and cultural evolution.
"Kilroy was here" was a graffito that became popular in the 1940s, and existed under various names in different countries, illustrating how a meme can be modified through replication.[18]

Dawkins used the term to refer to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator. He hypothesised that one could view many cultural entities as replicators, and pointed to melodies, fashions and learned skills as examples. Memes generally replicate through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient copiers of information and behaviour. Because humans do not always copy memes perfectly, and because they may refine, combine or otherwise modify them with other memes to create new memes, they can change over time. Dawkins likened the process by which memes survive and change through the evolution of culture to the natural selection of genes in biological evolution.[6]

Dawkins defined the meme as a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation and replication, but later definitions would vary. The lack of a consistent, rigorous, and precise understanding of what typically makes up one unit of cultural transmission remains a problem in debates about memetics.[14] In contrast, the concept of genetics gained concrete evidence with the discovery of the biological functions of DNA. Meme transmission requires a physical medium, such as photons, sound waves, touch, taste or smell because memes can be transmitted only through the senses.
Memetic lifecycle: Transmission, retention
See also: Diffusion of innovations

Memes, analogously to genes, vary in their aptitude to replicate; successful memes remain and spread, whereas unfit ones stall and are forgotten. Thus memes that prove more effective at replicating and surviving are selected in the meme pool.

Memes first need retention. The longer a meme stays in its hosts, the higher its chances of propagation are. When a host uses a meme, the meme's life is extended.[19] The reuse of the neural space hosting a certain meme's copy to host different memes is the greatest threat to that meme's copy.[20]

A meme which increases the longevity of its hosts will generally survive longer. On the contrary, a meme which shortens the longevity of its hosts will tend to disappear faster. However, as hosts are mortal, retention is not sufficient to perpetuate a meme in the long term; memes also need transmission.

Life-forms can transmit information both vertically (from parent to child, via replication of genes) and horizontally (through viruses and other means). Memes can replicate vertically or horizontally within a single biological generation. They may also lie dormant for long periods of time.

Memes reproduce by copying from a nervous system to another one, either by communication or imitation. Imitation often involves the copying of an observed behaviour of another individual. Communication may be direct or indirect, where memes transmit from one individual to another through a copy recorded in an inanimate source, such as a book or a musical score. Adam McNamara has suggested that memes can be thereby classified as either internal or external memes (i-memes or e-memes).[9]

Some commentators have likened the transmission of memes to the spread of contagions.[21] Social contagions such as fads, hysteria, copycat crime, and copycat suicide exemplify memes seen as the contagious imitation of ideas. Observers distinguish the contagious imitation of memes from instinctively contagious phenomena such as yawning and laughing, which they consider innate (rather than socially learned) behaviors.[22]

Aaron Lynch described seven general patterns of meme transmission, or "thought contagion":[23]

    Quantity of parenthood: an idea that influences the number of children one has. Children respond particularly receptively to the ideas of their parents, and thus ideas that directly or indirectly encourage a higher birthrate will replicate themselves at a higher rate than those that discourage higher birthrates.
    Efficiency of parenthood: an idea that increases the proportion of children who will adopt ideas of their parents. Cultural separatism exemplifies one practice in which one can expect a higher rate of meme-replication—because the meme for separation creates a barrier from exposure to competing ideas.
    Proselytic: ideas generally passed to others beyond one's own children. Ideas that encourage the proselytism of a meme, as seen in many religious or political movements, can replicate memes horizontally through a given generation, spreading more rapidly than parent-to-child meme-transmissions do.
    Preservational: ideas that influence those that hold them to continue to hold them for a long time. Ideas that encourage longevity in their hosts, or leave their hosts particularly resistant to abandoning or replacing these ideas, enhance the preservability of memes and afford protection from the competition or proselytism of other memes.
    Adversative: ideas that influence those that hold them to attack or sabotage competing ideas and/or those that hold them. Adversative replication can give an advantage in meme transmission when the meme itself encourages aggression against other memes.
    Cognitive: ideas perceived as cogent by most in the population who encounter them. Cognitively transmitted memes depend heavily on a cluster of other ideas and cognitive traits already widely held in the population, and thus usually spread more passively than other forms of meme transmission. Memes spread in cognitive transmission do not count as self-replicating.
    Motivational: ideas that people adopt because they perceive some self-interest in adopting them. Strictly speaking, motivationally transmitted memes do not self-propagate, but this mode of transmission often occurs in association with memes self-replicated in the efficiency parental, proselytic and preservational modes.

Memes as discrete units

Dawkins initially defined meme as a noun that "conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation".[6] John S. Wilkins retained the notion of meme as a kernel of cultural imitation while emphasizing the meme's evolutionary aspect, defining the meme as "the least unit of sociocultural information relative to a selection process that has favourable or unfavourable selection bias that exceeds its endogenous tendency to change".[24] The meme as a unit provides a convenient means of discussing "a piece of thought copied from person to person", regardless of whether that thought contains others inside it, or forms part of a larger meme. A meme could consist of a single word, or a meme could consist of the entire speech in which that word first occurred. This forms an analogy to the idea of a gene as a single unit of self-replicating information found on the self-replicating chromosome.

While the identification of memes as "units" conveys their nature to replicate as discrete, indivisible entities, it does not imply that thoughts somehow become quantized or that "atomic" ideas exist that cannot be dissected into smaller pieces. A meme has no given size. Susan Blackmore writes that melodies from Beethoven’s symphonies are commonly used to illustrate the difficulty involved in delimiting memes as discrete units. She notes that while the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (About this sound listen (help·info)) form a meme widely replicated as an independent unit, one can regard the entire symphony as a single meme as well.[14]

The inability to pin an idea or cultural feature to quantifiable key units is widely acknowledged as a problem for memetics. It has been argued however that the traces of memetic processing can be quantified utilizing neuroimaging techniques which measure changes in the connectivity profiles between brain regions."[9] Blackmore meets such criticism by stating that memes compare with genes in this respect: that while a gene has no particular size, nor can we ascribe every phenotypic feature directly to a particular gene, it has value because it encapsulates that key unit of inherited expression subject to evolutionary pressures. To illustrate, she notes evolution selects for the gene for features such as eye color; it does not select for the individual nucleotide in a strand of DNA. Memes play a comparable role in understanding the evolution of imitated behaviors.[14]

The 1981 book Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process by Charles J. Lumsden and E. O. Wilson proposed the theory that genes and culture co-evolve, and that the fundamental biological units of culture must correspond to neuronal networks that function as nodes of semantic memory. They coined their own word, "culturgen", which did not catch on. Coauthor Wilson later acknowledged the term meme as the best label for the fundamental unit of cultural inheritance in his 1998 book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, which elaborates upon the fundamental role of memes in unifying the natural and social sciences.[25]
Evolutionary influences on memes

Dawkins noted the three conditions that must exist for evolution to occur:[26]

    variation, or the introduction of new change to existing elements;
    heredity or replication, or the capacity to create copies of elements;
    differential "fitness", or the opportunity for one element to be more or less suited to the environment than another.

Dawkins emphasizes that the process of evolution naturally occurs whenever these conditions co-exist, and that evolution does not apply only to organic elements such as genes. He regards memes as also having the properties necessary for evolution, and thus sees meme evolution as not simply analogous to genetic evolution, but as a real phenomenon subject to the laws of natural selection. Dawkins noted that as various ideas pass from one generation to the next, they may either enhance or detract from the survival of the people who obtain those ideas, or influence the survival of the ideas themselves. For example, a certain culture may develop unique designs and methods of tool-making that give it a competitive advantage over another culture. Each tool-design thus acts somewhat similarly to a biological gene in that some populations have it and others do not, and the meme's function directly affects the presence of the design in future generations. In keeping with the thesis that in evolution one can regard organisms simply as suitable "hosts" for reproducing genes, Dawkins argues that one can view people as "hosts" for replicating memes. Consequently, a successful meme may or may not need to provide any benefit to its host.[26]

Unlike genetic evolution, memetic evolution can show both Darwinian and Lamarckian traits. Cultural memes will have the characteristic of Lamarckian inheritance when a host aspires to replicate the given meme through inference rather than by exactly copying it. Take for example the case of the transmission of a simple skill such as hammering a nail, a skill that a learner imitates from watching a demonstration without necessarily imitating every discrete movement modeled by the teacher in the demonstration, stroke for stroke.[27] Susan Blackmore distinguishes the difference between the two modes of inheritance in the evolution of memes, characterizing the Darwinian mode as "copying the instructions" and the Lamarckian as "copying the product."[14]

Clusters of memes, or memeplexes (also known as meme complexes or as memecomplexes), such as cultural or political doctrines and systems, may also play a part in the acceptance of new memes. Memeplexes comprise groups of memes that replicate together and coadapt.[14] Memes that fit within a successful memeplex may gain acceptance by "piggybacking" on the success of the memeplex. As an example, John D. Gottsch discusses the transmission, mutation and selection of religious memeplexes and the theistic memes contained.[28] Theistic memes discussed include the "prohibition of aberrant sexual practices such as incest, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, castration, and religious prostitution", which may have increased vertical transmission of the parent religious memeplex. Similar memes are thereby included in the majority of religious memeplexes, and harden over time; they become an "inviolable canon" or set of dogmas, eventually finding their way into secular law. This could also be referred to as the propagation of a taboo.
Memetics
Main article: Memetics

The discipline of memetics, which dates from the mid-1980s, provides an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer based on the concept of the meme. Memeticists have proposed that just as memes function analogously to genes, memetics functions analogously to genetics. Memetics attempts to apply conventional scientific methods (such as those used in population genetics and epidemiology) to explain existing patterns and transmission of cultural ideas.

Principal criticisms of memetics include the claim that memetics ignores established advances in other fields of cultural study, such as sociology, cultural anthropology, cognitive psychology, and social psychology. Questions remain whether or not the meme concept counts as a validly disprovable scientific theory. This view regards memetics as a theory in its infancy: a protoscience to proponents, or a pseudoscience to some detractors.
Criticism of meme theory

An objection to the study of the evolution of memes in genetic terms (although not to the existence of memes) involves a perceived gap in the gene/meme analogy: the cumulative evolution of genes depends on biological selection-pressures neither too great nor too small in relation to mutation-rates. There seems no reason to think that the same balance will exist in the selection pressures on memes.[29]

Luis Benitez-Bribiesca M.D., a critic of memetics, calls the theory a "pseudoscientific dogma" and "a dangerous idea that poses a threat to the serious study of consciousness and cultural evolution". As a factual criticism, Benitez-Bribiesca points to the lack of a "code script" for memes (analogous to the DNA of genes), and to the excessive instability of the meme mutation mechanism (that of an idea going from one brain to another), which would lead to a low replication accuracy and a high mutation rate, rendering the evolutionary process chaotic.[30]

British political philosopher John Gray has characterized Dawkins' memetic theory of religion as "nonsense" and "not even a theory... the latest in a succession of ill-judged Darwinian metaphors", comparable to Intelligent Design in its value as a science.[31]

Another critique comes from semiotic theorists such as Deacon[32] and Kull.[33] This view regards the concept of "meme" as a primitivized concept of "sign". The meme is thus described in memetics as a sign lacking a triadic nature. Semioticians can regard a meme as a "degenerate" sign, which includes only its ability of being copied. Accordingly, in the broadest sense, the objects of copying are memes, whereas the objects of translation and interpretation are signs.[clarification needed]

Fracchia and Lewontin regard memetics as reductionist and inadequate.[34] Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr disapproved of Dawkins' gene-based view and usage of the term "meme," asserting it to be an "unnecessary synonym" for "concept," Mayr reasoning that concepts are not restricted to an individual or a generation, may persist for long periods of time, and may evolve.[35]
Applications

Opinions differ as to how best to apply the concept of memes within a "proper" disciplinary framework. One view sees memes as providing a useful philosophical perspective with which to examine cultural evolution. Proponents of this view (such as Susan Blackmore and Daniel Dennett) argue that considering cultural developments from a meme's-eye view—as if memes themselves respond to pressure to maximise their own replication and survival—can lead to useful insights and yield valuable predictions into how culture develops over time. Others such as Bruce Edmonds and Robert Aunger have focused on the need to provide an empirical grounding for memetics to become a useful and respected scientific discipline.[36][37]

A third approach, described[by whom?] as "radical memetics", seeks to place memes at the centre of a materialistic theory of mind and of personal identity.[38]

Prominent researchers in evolutionary psychology and anthropology, including Scott Atran, Dan Sperber, Pascal Boyer, John Tooby and others, argue the possibility of incompatibility between modularity of mind and memetics.[citation needed] In their view, minds structure certain communicable aspects of the ideas produced, and these communicable aspects generally trigger or elicit ideas in other minds through inference (to relatively rich structures generated from often low-fidelity input) and not high-fidelity replication or imitation. Atran discusses communication involving religious beliefs as a case in point. In one set of experiments he asked religious people to write down on a piece of paper the meanings of the Ten Commandments. Despite the subjects' own expectations of consensus, interpretations of the commandments showed wide ranges of variation, with little evidence of consensus. In another experiment, subjects with autism and subjects without autism interpreted ideological and religious sayings (for example, "Let a thousand flowers bloom" or "To everything there is a season"). People with autism showed a significant tendency to closely paraphrase and repeat content from the original statement (for example: "Don't cut flowers before they bloom"). Controls tended to infer a wider range of cultural meanings with little replicated content (for example: "Go with the flow" or "Everyone should have equal opportunity"). Only the subjects with autism—who lack the degree of inferential capacity normally associated with aspects of theory of mind—came close to functioning as "meme machines".[39]

In his book The Robot's Rebellion, Stanovich uses the memes and memeplex concepts to describe a program of cognitive reform that he refers to as a "rebellion". Specifically, Stanovich argues that the use of memes as a descriptor for cultural units is beneficial because it serves to emphasize transmission and acquisition properties that parallel the study of epidemiology. These properties make salient the sometimes parasitic nature of acquired memes, and as a result individuals should be motivated to reflectively acquire memes using what he calls a "Neurathian bootstrap" process.[40]
Religion
See also: Evolutionary psychology of religion

Although social scientists such as Max Weber sought to understand and explain religion in terms of a cultural attribute, Richard Dawkins called for a re-analysis of religion in terms of the evolution of self-replicating ideas apart from any resulting biological advantages they might bestow.

    As an enthusiastic Darwinian, I have been dissatisfied with explanations that my fellow-enthusiasts have offered for human behaviour. They have tried to look for 'biological advantages' in various attributes of human civilization. For instance, tribal religion has been seen as a mechanism for solidifying group identity, valuable for a pack-hunting species whose individuals rely on cooperation to catch large and fast prey. Frequently the evolutionary preconception in terms of which such theories are framed is implicitly group-selectionist, but it is possible to rephrase the theories in terms of orthodox gene selection.
    —Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

He argued that the role of key replicator in cultural evolution belongs not to genes, but to memes replicating thought from person to person by means of imitation. These replicators respond to selective pressures that may or may not affect biological reproduction or survival.[6]

In her book The Meme Machine, Susan Blackmore regards religions as particularly tenacious memes. Many of the features common to the most widely practiced religions provide built-in advantages in an evolutionary context, she writes. For example, religions that preach of the value of faith over evidence from everyday experience or reason inoculate societies against many of the most basic tools people commonly use to evaluate their ideas. By linking altruism with religious affiliation, religious memes can proliferate more quickly because people perceive that they can reap societal as well as personal rewards. The longevity of religious memes improves with their documentation in revered religious texts.[14]

Aaron Lynch attributed the robustness of religious memes in human culture to the fact that such memes incorporate multiple modes of meme transmission. Religious memes pass down the generations from parent to child and across a single generation through the meme-exchange of proselytism. Most people will hold the religion taught them by their parents throughout their life. Many religions feature adversarial elements, punishing apostasy, for instance, or demonizing infidels. In Thought Contagion Lynch identifies the memes of transmission in Christianity as especially powerful in scope. Believers view the conversion of non-believers both as a religious duty and as an act of altruism. The promise of heaven to believers and threat of hell to non-believers provide a strong incentive for members to retain their belief. Lynch asserts that belief in the Crucifixion of Jesus in Christianity amplifies each of its other replication advantages through the indebtedness believers have to their Savior for sacrifice on the cross. The image of the crucifixion recurs in religious sacraments, and the proliferation of symbols of the cross in homes and churches potently reinforces the wide array of Christian memes.[23]

Although religious memes have proliferated in human cultures, the modern scientific community has been relatively resistant to religious belief. Robertson (2007) [41] reasoned that if evolution is accelerated in conditions of propagative difficulty,[42] then we would expect to encounter variations of religious memes, established in general populations, addressed to scientific communities. Using a memetic approach, Robertson deconstructed two attempts to privilege religiously held spirituality in scientific discourse. Advantages of a memetic approach as compared to more traditional "modernization" and "supply side" theses in understanding the evolution and propagation of religion were explored.
Memetic explanations of racism

In Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology, Jack Balkin argued that memetic processes can explain many of the most familiar features of ideological thought. His theory of "cultural software" maintained that memes form narratives, social networks, metaphoric and metonymic models, and a variety of different mental structures. Balkin maintains that the same structures used to generate ideas about free speech or free markets also serve to generate racistic beliefs. To Balkin, whether memes become harmful or maladaptive depends on the environmental context in which they exist rather than in any special source or manner to their origination. Balkin describes racist beliefs as "fantasy" memes that become harmful or unjust "ideologies" when diverse peoples come together, as through trade or competition.[43]
Architectural memes

In A Theory of Architecture, Nikos Salingaros speaks of memes as "freely propagating clusters of information" which can be beneficial or harmful. He contrasts memes to patterns and true knowledge, characterizing memes as "greatly simplified versions of patterns" and as "unreasoned matching to some visual or mnemonic prototype".[44] Taking reference to Dawkins, Salingaros emphasizes that they can be transmitted due to their own communicative properties, that "the simpler they are, the faster they can proliferate", and that the most successful memes "come with a great psychological appeal".[45]

Architectural memes, according to Salingaros, can have destructive power. "Images portrayed in architectural magazines representing buildings that could not possibly accommodate everyday uses become fixed in our memory, so we reproduce them unconsciously."[46] He lists various architectural memes that circulated since the 1920s and which, in his view, have led to contemporary architecture becoming quite decoupled from human needs. They lack connection and meaning, thereby preventing "the creation of true connections necessary to our understanding of the world". He sees them as no different from antipatterns in software design – as solutions that are false but are re-utilized nonetheless.[47]
Internet culture
Main article: Internet meme
See also: List of Internet phenomena

An "Internet meme" is a concept that spreads rapidly from person to person via the Internet, largely through Internet-based E-mailing, blogs, forums, imageboards like 4chan, social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, instant messaging, and video hosting services like YouTube.[48]

In 2013 Richard Dawkins characterized an Internet meme as one deliberately altered by human creativity, distinguished from Dawkins's original idea involving mutation by random change and a form of Darwinian selection.[49]
Meme maps

One technique of meme mapping represents the evolution and transmission of a meme across time and space.[50] Such a meme map uses a figure-8 diagram (an analemma) to map the gestation (in the lower loop), birth (at the choke point), and development (in the upper loop) of the selected meme. Such meme maps are nonscalar, with time mapped onto the y-axis and space onto the x-axis transect. One can read the temporal progression of the mapped meme from south to north on such a meme map. Paull has published a worked example using the "organics meme" (as in organic agriculture).[50]

Robertson (2010) [51] used a second technique of meme mapping to create two-dimensional representations of the selves of eleven participants drawn from both individualist and collectivist cultures. Participant narratives were transcribed, segmented and coded using a method similar to grounded theory. Coded segments exhibiting referent, connotative, affective and behavioral dimensions were declared to be memes. Memes that shared connotative, affective or behavioral qualities were linked. All of the maps in Robertson's sample evidenced volition, constancy, uniqueness, production, intimacy, and social interest. This method of mapping the self was successfully used in therapy to treat a youth who had attempted suicide on five occasions (Robertson 2011).[52] The youth and psychotherapist co-constructed a plan to change the youth's presenting self, and her progress in making those changes was tracked in subsequent self-maps.

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