Talk:Memetic engineering/Archives/2012

Unsourced claims
The article begins with an unsubstantiated claim:

"Memetic engineering is a term developed and coined by three individuals; Leveious Rolando, John Sokol, and Gibran Burchett while they researched and observed the behavior of people after being purposely exposed (knowingly and unknowingly) to certain memetic themes."

None of those three individuals have Wikipedia pages; Burchett had one that was deleted for lack of notability. What's the evidence that the term "memetic engineering" was coined by these individuals?

I'm also concerned with the Tom Burchett link at the end, which references the multi-level marketing "Dubli Network" and seems to have some kind of new age theme to its content. Lippard (talk) 08:12, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

John Sokol here. I didn't realize this page was here. All of this work was propritary and never shared publicly as far as I know. Clearly it must have been leaked which is OK know. At the time I was working to use the Internet and staticical modeling to understand Memes and Quantify them and delberatly control them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by John.sokol (talk • contribs) 22:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Improvements needed

 * 1) Article apppears to be POV.
 * 2) Article is unsourced.
 * 3) Article employs personal experience and/or research.

Erik's ideas of improvements

 * 1) I agree with the above except, the article does not attempt to be a POV. It attempts to be a description of a very popular concept which many people talk about and few have attempted to organize into a cohesive definition.
 * 2) This should be considered a "term" used in literature, not a science and should be reviewed by wikipedia editors as such.
 * 3) Someone should pull quotes from other competing definitions, and attempt to rationalize the the wikipedia definition down to the "most agreed upon" definition, or smallest subset. Source from: http://www.urticator.net/essay/1/199.html, http://www.chrisabraham.com/2005/10/definition_of_m.html , http://eumetics.com/downloads/Memetic%20Engineering%20101.ppt , http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id133/pg1/index.html , etc.
 * 4) Philisophical arguments via wiki edits may pass for the best possible scientific method, considering the subject matter

Memetic Engineering A Science
According to definition of science. Memetic Engineering can and is considered a science. You must examine the definition of the word.

Science 1. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. 2. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena. 3. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.


 * 1) Methodological activity, discipline, or study: I've got packing a suitcase down to a science.
 * 2) An activity that appears to require study and method: the science of purchasing.
 * 3) Knowledge, especially that gained through experience.

As for the addition of references and quotes. I agree there should be some added as a form of verification of this article. And I am also in agreement that this article was written with an NPOV so the only I see wrong is the quotes and source which should be easily corrected based on the amount of information on this subject. --Gnosis 15:09, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know that there is large amount of credible information on this subject -- I haven't come across it. But if it is out there, this article should be properly sourced. --Vault 21:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Core topic of entry not clear
It seems that a large part of this wiki entry is concerned with Memes, rather with Memetic Engineering, and (more significantly) with defining them in a way that is much more contentious than the memes entry itself. I propose to take the meme-defintion chunk and put it over in the Meme entry where it will be discussed, and refer to that section of the meme article from the memetic engineering article.

Science a "former branch" of philosophy?

 * "Science, a remarkably successful former branch of philosophy, took a radically different track, simply rejecting all memes that were difficult to evaluate, yet accepting those that could be reliably verified by experience."

How, precisely, is science a "former branch" of philosophy? It seems to me that even as particular scientists-- e.g., Dawkins or Weinberg-- argue against particular philosophers or particular aspects of particular philosophical works-- science remains a "branch" of philosophy: namely, as naturalism.

It seems to me that there is something telling in the author of the quoted statement's assertion that science is a "remarkably successful" and "former" branch of philosophy: the author has therein opposed science to philosophy, and implied that it "branched" from it-- that is, that it split away from it-- in some specifiable event or process. I would hazard a guess that the implied event is the origin of the common and backward tendency of modern philosophy to "discussion" of the inobservable and inexpressible, i.e., of things like qualia and the thing in itself, to which science is indeed opposed, but not not only because hypotheses about "inobservables" are not hypotheses about the empirical, but because they are unfalsifiable and untestable. Why is it that "thought experiments" are so often used in "demonstrations" of the "existence" of such things, while somehow empirical experimentation always fails to prove these allegedly-unavoidable "facts"? Could the answer to this question perhaps lie in the non-empirical-- even in the "supernatural"-- nature of the "inobservable"? As science tends toward non-dualism between the "mental" and the "physical" in discussions of consciousness, e.g. in the identity position, it distances itself from philosophies where the mental and the physical are treated as inherently separate from one another, but not from philosophy in general.

Not all philosophy is science, but all science is philosophy insofar as it is experimentalism, naturalism, or falsificationism.

This article contains much useful information, but it fails to give a precise criterion for discrimination between the "meme" and the "memeplex": couldn't any "meme" be considered as a "memeplex", and vice versa? The problem, as I see it, with the "science" of "memetics", is that a meme is a type of unit of information: what is a fundamental "unit" of information? The usefulness of the concept of the meme is that it explains various properties of words, concepts, collections of words and concepts, etc., in evolutionary terms, i.e., in terms of their exhibitions of replication and heredity and their contingent evolution, and not in its allowance for some sort of atomism of information, unless, perhaps, "idea", "concept", "abstraction", "symbolic representation", etc., can be considered as fundamental to human communication, and if human communication can be considered as fundamental to description of the meme: but this, admittedly, is not a scientific hypothesis.

Accordingly, I think that this article should not treat memetic engineering as a science, since it is hardly possible to falsify a hypothesis that a given meme has replicated if there is no agreed "genome" of the meme. However, the article's discussion of various aspects of memetic replication, i.e., particular processes via which particular memes replicate, like the distribution of pamphlets, threats of punishment for non-replication, etc., is useful and does indeed reflect current discussion at least to a large extent.

I'll write more and probably edit this article later.

Tastyummy 00:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Valuable, but needs revision
I would suggest that memetic engineering does need its own entry, but that this version is in need of some revision. I have seen several versions of a meta language for memes, their parts and how they can be constructed (eg Assimilation, Retention, Expression, Transmission). All tend to cover roughly the same ground with different terms. I would tend to look to authority figures in the field to fix on one standard (Dawkins, Blackmore, etc.)

I would also suggest that their are good examples of memetic engineering to reference (Godwins Law, viral marketing) both to show it in action, and to provide a practical example of a theoretical model. Reference could also be made to the social networking movement as allied and adjacent in its methods.

I would agree its not a science, although too much discussion on this brings us to whether psychology or philosophy come under that heading either. Better to take the clue from the title and call it engineering - its practical, is carried out, there are rules you can follow, it makes money.

SanityChek 09:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Notice: removing tagging

 * 1) in Memetic engineering
 * 2) In Meme removed
 * xpost:in main discussion talk:Meme...
 * Since there is no discussion since September, the consensus to not merge with Memetic engineering seems loud and clear. // Fra nkB 18:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Article needs citations?
Noting the warning tag that this article does not cite sources, I added this, which was just deleted by User:Ike9898 with the comment "(dropped the example section because it wasn't an example; it said that an example was in a Wired mag article - that's really not very useful)":

- A case of explicitly self-professed memetic engineering is described by Mike_Godwin in an article in Wired_magazine from 1994 which describes his creation and propagation of Godwin%27s_Law.
 * (The section title was "Example")

This is a citation to a source; a nationally distributed magazine is an organ for propogating memes, the article propogates the meme, and describes propogating the meme, and is available online from the link provided, and the particular meme it describes has an internal link already. It appears to me to thoroughly address the warning posted on the page. Peter H. St.John, M.S. 19:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've tried to clean up the example and citation per Ike9898's critique (see "Deletion of Example" item below). I have not read the Dawkin's book so I can't clean up the numerous places where specific citations were suggested within the older body of the article. Peter H. St.John, M.S. 17:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Inaccuracy
Richard Dawkins never uses the term "memetic engineering" in "The Selfish Gene." In fact, he never uses the term "memetic," but rather "memic" (as in "memic evolution"). Aerin S 00:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

It Is Actually Considered a Science Now
This is true Richard Dawkins never said in Selfish Gene. The term was actually created by the three individuals that are listed. It was based on numerous years of their studies of society, evolution of civilizations, anthropology, marketing and media and dissemination of information via cultures etc. There are numerous scientist researching the effects of memes and agree with the theory of engineering memes. The article should not be deleted. If anything there should be more information on other individuals studying within this now accepted science.--Gnosis 20:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of the "example"
For context, a month ago I deleted the following section from the article:

Example
A case of explicitly self-professed memetic engineering is described by Mike_Godwin in an article in Wired_magazine from 1994 which describes his creation and propagation of Godwin%27s_Law.


 * and gave the edit summary "dropped the example section because it wasn't an example; it said that an example was in a Wired mag article - that's really not very useful"

On my talk page another user asked, "I would appreciate it if you explain your deletion in more detail"

So, trying to restate my reasoning more clearly: If the article memetic engineering is going to have a section called example, it seems like this section should actually contain an example and not just an citation of an example.

Anyway, revert if you like, but I stand by my rationale. ike9898 04:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The item (which I had contributed) is all of: a citation (to a Wired Magazine article linked online), an example of an engineered meme (Godwin's Law, with a wiki link), and an example of a citation. I thought this addressed the Warning that the article needed citations. I called it "an example" because I did not mean it to be exhaustive or even sufficient; I just wanted to get the ball rolling. I will restore the example and relabel the item as a citation, which is demanded by the Warning. I suggest that someone else delete the Warning. Thank you. Peter H. St.John, M.S. 16:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you Peter on this one. The posting should remain. It falls in line with the theory to me. --Gnosis 20:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The Richard Perch item
An anonymous user added a footnote about Richard Perch. It's a bit problematic. The formatting is lame, and should be fixed up. The link is to an abstract; the article itself is not public domain. However, the situation is interesting enough I don't want to just bulldoze it: I think as an encyclopaedia we want articles that explain the material, and don't want merely to be a vehicle of propaganda (any more than advertising) but the logic is squirrelly enough I don't want to just cut it out without some discussion. Pete St.John 17:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The article seems to be about propaganda, more than memetic engineering; it's theme seems to be "America should depict terrorism negatively so people don't imitate it" (which synopsis, in my own words, certainly sounds lame) however...
 * The instanatiation of the article may itself be a meme, an intentional meme, illustrating it's theme (instead of proving it). Consider the example given, "school shootings should be depicted as cowardly so that students will be less likely to imitate them" (paraphrasing). This is prima facie dubious public policy proposal; we can't imagine Congress passing a law that all public media depict school shooters as cowards. However, the proposal itself may be memetic. If it gets discussed, people with influence on media (e.g. journalists) may end up depicting school shootings as cowardly, in which case the meme will have been sucessful, demonstrating the theme of the article.
 * Ah; it appears that the "Richard Perch" item was added by himself (at least, from the IP address of the same university). So this item will probably get cleaned out as it currently stands, but I'm in no hurry. Pete St.John 17:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Various Improvements
I've just made a series of improvements to the article, clearing up the refs so they are actual citations, and sorting out the links section. I moved the Pech bit to the examples section, because it was just splatted on the bottom of the page; I agree that it is deeply interpretive and would at least be better if rewritten using more citations and direct quotes, although I share somewhat the misgivings cited by the contributor above (if not simply regarding it as crap, personally; it's interesting watching the way ideas, be they religious, political, psychological, psychoanalytic or 'scientific', are adapted, if not abused, for the purposes of social control - here, advertising in reverse, and one might suggest a means to avoid obvious systemic issues like gun ownership and proliferation, determinants affecting the family as societal unit and consideration of individual familial contexts, the nature of modern educational systems, and violence in wider societal contexts, viz urban violence, war, etc.). Nonetheless, it needs sorting out. I've just done a fair bit on the page, so perhaps someone else can do it. . . Also moved the references tag to the top of the page. LSmok3 02:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, I think this article, rather than being deleted, could happily be merged into Wiki articles Meme or Memetics, operating under the assumption that Memetic Engineering is a valid subject, even if not properly represented by this page. I see the merge tag has been removed in light of a general rejection of the idea of a merge, but it would, it seems, perhaps be preferable to deletion. LSmok3 02:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Deletion is NOT the Answer
The problem here is the referenced material on the net needs to be placed here. I am going to compile a list of various sites online and books that back up memetic engineering. One thing we must understand and consider is that the theory of memetic engineering has created a movement. A movement in which the first seed was planted by Dawkins himself. The three individuals whom coined the phrase actually took Dawkins idea to another level. Now we have different words that have spun off like Thought Contagion, Idea Replication etc... There are others out there but all of these originated from the initial idea from Dawkins and then these three individuals, Rolando, Sokol and Burchett. I'm not sure if everyone understands this but this is the way science works. People build upon existing research and conduct their own experiments. Based on those results a theory is proposed. Now in this case I think we should also add information on Lynch and his thought Contagion theory which is essentially the same, Susan Blakemoor and others out there. The military is currently using memetic engineering to counter insurgency. I would suggest the lazyness of those who don't want or know how to research refrain from suggesting deleting and spend that time researching this important material. The concept of memetics should als be discussed. There is a difference here now for those who say memetics and memetic engineering are the same. They are not, Memetics is the science of Memes, while Memetic engineering is the science of selecting specific Memes and combining them with others in order alter the behavior in individuals. Now this is a rough definition but essentially these are the differences. I will add links and other referenced work to this article as the week continues. Hopefully this will shed some light for those who don't understand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elohimgenius (talk • contribs) 18:34, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Aticle about Memetic Engineering, not about our favourite memes
I think we're getting carried away with our favorite memes, in this article, instead of staying on the topic of memetic engineering itself; e.g. the recent stuff about the Federal Reserve. Since memetic engineering is not currently a formal topic in academic engineering, it will take some hutzpah for someone to clean this up authoritatively. Behavioural Psychologists, Linguists (or even "Semioticians"), Rhetoricists (if any were left), and Sociologists would all have something to say, and they aren't all speaking the same language. Pete St.John 16:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Pete I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you disagreeing that money and currency are memes? Are you saying that their introductions into society are not forms of memetic engineering? The Federal Reserve information is very relevant to the subject of memetic engineering. How do you explain the use of currency and money as ideas for trade. People didn't always accept currency as a form of trade. This is exactly a clear form of memetic engineering. How is this getting off the subject? Especially if G. Burchett, the person who helped coin the term in the process of doing his research has discovered this. Please explain. I know Mr. Rolando personally and we've spoken about this a number of occasions. I have to ask you have you read the Creature from Jekyll Island to be able to say this. I think it's important to make sure we do the research first before making opinions. In addition we can't make hypothetical assumptions about what other people would or would not have to say. Especially if they aren't speaking up. *smile* --Gnosis 13:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


 * This is a good case in point, Gnosis. I want to distinguish "meme" from "memetic engineering". Consider the case of money:


 * barter goods (I give you 10 chickens for one horse)
 * barter convenient items for goods (I give you one lump of copper for one horse; later you barter the lump of copper for ten chickens from someone else)
 * promise to pay (I give you one piece of paper with my chop on it for goods)
 * institution promises to pay (e.g. the Knights Templar or the Family Rothschild), see State below.
 * state promises to pay (I pay the state for a piece of paper with their chop on it, then use that paper to buy your horse)


 * I'm not an historian of economics but money evolved though many stages over millenia. Certainly there are memes (the idea that "money is valuable" speeds adoption much faster than explaining economics to children) and certainly there has been marketing for new ideas, but they predate the Fed and are not necessarily memetic engineering, which is purpose-designing an idea to achieve a (social) effect. People design ideas ("Reimanian Manifold"; "What You See Is What You Get"...) and they market ("Vote for Caesar, he wins wars!"; "Crest makes your teeth white!") but all that way predates explicit Memetic Engineering.
 * Also, there are way too many good books for me to read all of them. Feel free to quote explicit memetic engineering examples that are earlier than the 1990 example I gave (Godwin's Law). Particularly I'd be interested in a citation for the passage where Burchett coins the term "memetic engineering", thanks! (and, I'm not sure what "help coin the term" means; you mean "popularize the term"?) Pete St.John 17:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

recent addition & undo
Regarding the recent addition: "...Memetic engineers are the newest and most unusual of methodologies in the technocracy. They are masters of a special form of thought-crafting. According to individuals responsible for coining the term, memetic engineers study ideas, concepts, and beliefs as living beings: autonomous creatures capable of evolution and mutation..."

I have a few objection; first, it's not grammatical (engineers are not methodologies); second, refering to "masters" seems subjective to me. If you can identify some acknowledged masters with references (e.g. "The Society for Professional Certification of Memetic Engineers announces their latest Mastery prizewinners...") then please do so. Thanks, Pete St.John (talk) 20:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the recent addition concerning "brainwashing,"
 * Memetic engineering also known as brainwashing, is a term developed and coined by three individuals; Leveious Rolando, John Sokol, and Gibran Burchett while they researched and observed the behavior of people after being purposely exposed (knowingly and unknowingly) to certain memetic themes. The term is based on Richard Dawkins' theory of memes.

My problem here is that this trivializes the definition of brainwashing. We are talking about propagandizing. We are talking about what might be called a form of brainwashing, or, perhaps, a brainwashing tool, but creation of a meme, by itself, cannot be equated with the destruction of a personality and the creation of a new personality which can be controlled. I'm going to leave this alone for someone else to fix. Wowest (talk) 11:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Re added previous information. Richard Dawkins never spoke about memetic engineering in any of his books. Although the term IS based on his theory of memetics he has ever been credited to coming up with the term and has admittedly said so publicly. The authors of the phrase should be given credit unless information can be proven otherwise. No assertions should be made that Dawkins coined the phrase unless verified. Verification was provided some years ago when this topic was discussed. I will locate this information and provide it as verification. Gnosis (talk) 23:49, 23 April 2011 (UTC)