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The Virian Lexicon M to P MACHINE:(vl) A system designed for a purpose.
MEANING:(vl) 1. Actual or objective effect. Meaning is dependent on context; the same thing can have different meanings in different contexts because the context determines the effect. The meaning of an event is the effect it has on future events. The meaning of a spoken or written word is the effect it has on its audience.
MEMBOT: A person whose entire life has become subordinated to the propagation of a meme, robotically and at any opportunity. (Such as many Jehovah's Witnesses, Krishnas, and Scientologists.) Due to internal competition, the most vocal and extreme membots tend to rise to top of their sociotype's hierarchy. A self-destructive membot is a memeoid. (GMG) MEME: (pron. `meem') A contagious information pattern that replicates by symbiotically infecting human minds and altering their behavior, causing them to propagate the pattern. (Term coined by Dawkins, by analogy with "gene".) Individual slogans, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions are typical memes. An idea or information pattern is not a meme until it causes someone to replicate it, to repeat it to someone else. All transmitted knowledge is memetic. (Wheelis, quoted in Hofstadter.) (See meme-complex). MEMEOID, or MEMOID: A person "whose behavior is so strongly influenced by a [meme] that their own survival becomes inconsequential in their own minds." (Henson) (Such as: Kamikazes, Shiite terrorists, Jim Jones followers, any military personnel). hosts and membots are not necessarily memeoids. (See auto-toxic; exo-toxic.) MEMEPLEX: See meme-complex. MEME POOL: The full diversity of memes accessible to a culture or individual. Learning languages and traveling are methods of expanding one's meme pool. MEMETIC: Related to memes. MEMETIC DRIFT: Accumulated mis-replications; (the rate of) memetic mutation or evolution. Written texts tend to slow the memetic drift of dogmas (Henson). MEMETIC ENGINEER: One who consciously devises memes, through meme-splicing and memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the behavior of others. Writers of manifestos and of commercials are typical memetic engineers. (GMG) MEMETICIST: 1. One who studies memetics. 2. A memetic engineer. (GMG) MEMETICS: The study of memes and their social effects.
MEMOTYPE: 1. The actual information-content of a meme, as distinct from its sociotype.
META-MEME: Any meme about memes (such as: "tolerance", "metaphor"). META-MEME, the: The concept of memes, considered as a meme itself. METAPHYSICS:(vl) A division of philosophy that includes ontology and cosmology. Virus metaphysics adds semantics to the list. MILLENNIAL MEME, the: Any of several epidemic memes which predicted catastrophic events for the year 2000, including the battle of Armageddon, the Rapture, the thousand-year reign of Jesus, etc. The "Imminent New Age" meme is simply a pan-denominational version of this. (Also called the `Endmeme.') MIMICRY: An infection strategy in which a meme attempts to imitate the semiotics of another successful meme. Such as: pseudo-science (Creationism, UFOlogy); pseudo-rebelliousness (Heavy Metal); subversion by forgery (Situationist detournement). (GMG) MYSTICISM:(vl) A theory postulating the possibility of direct and intuitive acquisition of ineffable knowledge or power . NON-ZERO SUM GAME:(vl) A game in which it is possible for all the players to win or lose. e.g. the Prisoners' Dilemma, war, and life. ONTOLOGY:(vl) The study of the nature of being or the kinds of existence PANCRITICAL RATIONALISM (PCR):(vl) A nonjustificationist epistemology in which every statement is subject to criticism. See Bartley. PHILOSOPHY:(vl) A discipline comprising logic, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. |
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