A First Foray Into the Ill Defined Field of Memetics
In 1979 Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" to mean an idea that would spread and mutate from mental substrate to mental substrate much the same way that genes mutate and spread from genetic substrate to genetic substrate, borrowing the ancient Greek word for "mimoses", meaning "mind". 50 years later "memetics" is a horribly abused term used only by people who take themselves way too seriously and is not a formal academic discipline. Yet doing an intial foray into "memetics" would be worth it in its many potential future applications, especially in dealing with large populations, and could pave the way for it to become an academic disciplene. So, I will be writing about "memetics" as the study of how ideas spread, and I will start exploring the field of memetics by analysis/synthesis: first listing many topics that could be a core tenant or could touch tangentially to the field, then distilling it to a few principles. Analysis - List of Topics This will be a list of topics or potential research questions at least indirectly related to "memetics" How social pressure reaches a "tipping point" in mass adoption of behavior or in-group signifiers How reaching a "tipping point" differs from nation to nation How genetic compositions determine how a "tipping point" is reached in a group (see) How genetic composition determine which behaviors a people is predisposed to spreading Lifespan of certain beh...