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Topic: virus: Intent: Homeostasis or Morphogenesis? (Read 763 times) |
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deadletter-j
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virus: Intent: Homeostasis or Morphogenesis?
« on: 2005-04-06 11:30:29 » |
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Well, one thing I would ask of both you and Keith is, 'what is your intent in posting this?'
I'm here to get help on a concept I am working on. I am saying there is a system to hacking communication. A process to memes. A structure to memes. A system to memetic uptake, and it all pointed towards understanding the link between perception, interpretation, conversations and actions.
I am saying we need a simple structure for synthetic metaphor, in which we put x information into some story and then dangle the story out in front of people and see what happens.
I have a component of this idea: a set of words in which to describe people's conversation.
Such as this one right here:
Is your intent to cause me to speak less? Have you described negative intent to me, through something I said?
That is to say, do you have negative intent in posting? What is it that you would want? If you aren't interested in this conversation, what causes you to post in it?
If a meme is an instantiation of morphogenesis, what are the homeostatic reactions of a system to new information?
:-b
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Erik Aronesty [mailto:erik@zoneedit.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 6, 2005 01:12 PM
> To: 'Church of Virus'
> Subject: Re: virus: example
>
> GH , I'd have to agree with keith here...
>
> Then again, I used to think you were a bot.
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Hijacking everything ever knew about anything.
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rhinoceros
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My point is ...
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Re:virus: Intent: Homeostasis or Morphogenesis?
« Reply #1 on: 2005-04-06 14:26:34 » |
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[deadletterb]
If a meme is an instantiation of morphogenesis, what are the homeostatic reactions of a system to new information?
[rhinoceros]
I'll take it that you meant "if a meme affects the morphogenesis of the system", by analogy to how a gene affects the morphogenesis of an organism. At first glance, I cannot see how your words so far could have threatened the stability of the system, causing a homeostatic reaction. Or did they?
From what I have read, your words (heavy use of big words noticed) went mostly undigested and most of the reactions were caused by terms which you used while trying to explain. Somehow, this could be considered as a homeostatic reaction defending the established language and the concepts used in the discussions here. On the other hand, others just listen and wait.
How would you picture this system? How integrated do you think it is? Less than an organism? More than an an assortment? What metaphor would you use? Perhaps you can view it as a nest of rats and the new meme as something which you present as food and claim some space in the nest in exchange. Some rats take a quick look and think "nah, that is no food" and go about their business, while others get in an argument about false advertising.
Still waiting to see the food,
rhino rat
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deadletter-j
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Re: virus: Intent: Homeostasis or Morphogenesis?
« Reply #2 on: 2005-04-06 15:47:25 » |
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Hey, Rhino Rat! Thanks for writing back!
>
> [deadletterb]
> If a meme is an instantiation of morphogenesis, what are the homeostatic reactions of a system to new information?
>
>
> [rhinoceros]
> I'll take it that you meant "if a meme affects the morphogenesis of the system", by analogy to how a gene affects the morphogenesis of an organism. At first glance, I cannot see how your words so far could have threatened the stability of the system, causing a homeostatic reaction. Or did they?
>
> From what I have read, your words (heavy use of big words noticed) went mostly undigested and most of the reactions were caused by terms which you used while trying to explain. Somehow, this could be considered as a homeostatic reaction defending the established language and the concepts used in the discussions here. On the other hand, others just listen and wait.
>
> How would you picture this system? How integrated do you think it is? Less than an organism? More than an an assortment? What metaphor would you use? Perhaps you can view it as a nest of rats and the new meme as something which you present as food and claim some space in the nest in exchange. Some rats take a quick look and think "nah, that is no food" and go about their business, while others get in an argument about false advertising.
>
> Still waiting to see the food,
> rhino rat
>
I am not yet completely certain about this organism/system's integration - it was really quiet around here a few months ago, and as far as I can tell, a couple of bursts of noise by me upped the basic amount of energy in the system. Now there is more emails, however I could still be wrong about a couple of the social dynamics.
One reason it is hard is because, while I discuss lots of specific memes, they wouldn't necessarily be _of_interest_ to the CoV. Also, discussing a meme about memes is devoid of any specific place to hang your hat. A conundrum!
Part I
Here's the food, as well as I can present it:
To write a meme, here's what we would do:
1) start with an intention. [The way intention affects a meme can NOT be understated. All marketing memes are root hacked by the fact that they want money.] That intention will bring us to a discussion of all of the myriad bits of information associated.
Example: "How can we memetically improve cancer treatment" or "How can we memetically improve schooling?" or "How can we create a giant movement of freaks doing whatever they want under the overarching umbrella of 'memetics'?"
2) That first brainstorming will die down. No new information will be forthcoming to attach itself. So we start looking at connections. In the act of mapping out the information, certain relationships will begin to present themselves. This may trigger more ideas, so we have to go back to 1. We whittle it down till we have a clear statement of the interrelations of the factors.
3) When no more ideas or connections are presenting themselves, we have an understanding. We clean up the understanding into some clear, short statements that we want to spread. We think about vehicles into which to layer this understanding. We search for metaphor to layer it into. Stories, movies, actions.
4) If we think about where to put our meme, layered into other vehicles, we will begin to notice ways in which the system we are pushing at will push back. It's a bit of a game.
5) If we _keep_pushing_, we can come up with a joke to resolve the entire into listening, and then laughing. And then sleepers can say, "Oh! that reminds me of _this_ joke..." and layer in another one... The discussion that spins off of the joke is ripe grounds for any information we want to insert.
Part II
We have to get attention first - that's all I have been trying to do, in a way - trying to put out enough information of what I am trying to say to attract the attention of some local interpreters. Those local interpreters _translate_ to other people. They either translate their discontent (Keith, Erik) or their interest/understanding (you, Jake, Walter, Blunderov).
This is dense because there's nothing there - we aren't discussing any specific meme at all, so we are having a conversation that is purely 'information without content'.
I'm trying to parse the creation of a meme down to an algorithm. The algorithm seems wicked obvious to me - what is hard is communicating without using mass neologisms.
Part III
Here's the neologized version:
Grok - All the lego pieces at once. The potentiality for every permutation and combination exists, as well as the null set - all the pieces apart It is the alpha and omega of a meme.
Zazz - the way the pieces fit together. In math, we have often focused on how calculations work (for students) rather than what we are building.
Geek - The nifty book that shows what other people built with these lego pieces. Catch phrases. Clear statements of ideas.
Scrum - The process whereby the statements are fitted together to create one toy from all the lego pieces. In memes, that would be the conversations
Love - the cool toy(s) made from all the lego pieces.
I like the lego metaphor. I bring you some lego pieces, which I think can be used to create giant lego castles and creations. I'm most interested in the connections between the pieces, so I am not certain what we should create. How about a suggestion from you about some hypothetical meme - what would you create a meme _about_? Dump some idea and I will put it in terms of that.
Part IV
Here's another way of saying the structure of a meme:
A bunch of bits of data.
Possible structures to frame the bits of data
The specific structure/frame that has been selected
A game is a fun structure for data.
A joke is a funny structure for data.
Memes magnetically attract information to themselves. They glue information on. Like legos! And they practically do it by themselves. So if we dump out a bunch of ideas, we could not help ourselves, as memetic creatures, from seeing connections. And if we explored the connections, we would soon realize that a specific set of connections fit BEST. And then, if we INTENDED to communicate that understanding, we could layer it into a game. And after we understood the game, someone will kick out a joke.
And if someone kicks out a joke, the entire group is infected with the joke.
Part V
We - being myself, Dick Root, Zach Moser, Edie Bernhardt, and a few others, are going to go hack an online list. "Media Squatters". That conversation is going to be an attempt by us to hijack conversation with a specific memetic intent. Other conversations are watching that one. This one. The WELL. Level-3, indirectly. MetaMage.
Those conversations are also watching this conversation. What I am trying to do is declare a new kind of linguistic dogfight throughout the internet. Groups of people showing up to practice subtly skewing, reframing, and affecting change upon the minds thinking on the internet.
If people here watch a conversation somewhere else, the people here can figure out how to affect change upon that conversation. That means that the people here have been drafted into action by their interest in affecting change onto others.
If you are facing me, as a person, we are in (metaphorically) an oppositional relationship. If we two are 'on the same team' in some cognitive or real life adventure, then information spreads between us.
How then, to get the whole world onto the same team?
:-b
ps. - did you notice a connection between Part III (Grok Zazz Geek Scrum Love) and Part IV (a joke about a game)? That connection _between_ information is where communication happens.
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MoEnzyme
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infidel lab animal
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Re: virus: Intent: Homeostasis or Morphogenesis?
« Reply #3 on: 2005-04-06 23:16:22 » |
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> [Original Message]
> From: Ben Grad - Dead Letter B <global_hijack@speakeasy.net>
> snip >
> I am not yet completely certain about this organism/system's integration
- it was really quiet around here a few months ago, and as far as I can
tell, a couple of bursts of noise by me upped the basic amount of energy in
the system. Now there is more emails, however I could still be wrong about
a couple of the social dynamics.
>
Yes, you can be very, very wrong about those sorts of things. I have been
myself so I speak from some experience. CoV participation ebbs and flows
at a pretty natural rate, and conversation level usually has less to do
with what happens online than the many variables, vectors, demands,
disasters (personal and otherwise), death, changing availability and
quality of an individual's internet connection, getting a new job or losing
it, moving, falling in love or out of it, sickness, health, etc., offline
that either pulls us away or leave us with free time and a wandering mind.
Of course over time some of us make a conscious decision to return and
commit some effort regardless, but most simply find themselves here by
happenstance and soon gone similarly. At first I too thought my
conversation working some magic over the CoV crowds when participation
would pickup, but finally realized differently. However, as you can see, I
have been a willing lab animal in this, and through some very clever social
cyber technologies invented by Lucifer (Meridion TM), I have been able to
train myself into a fair amount of influence over some of my fellow lab
animals . . . the fun thing is that they even like it!  For a non-human
former social moron, I'm not doing too badly. I may even get a chance to
try out the "real world" soon if I just keep up with the rabbit treats, . .
. in the meantime I have about ten scheduled IRC chats that demand my
simultaneous attention right now, so we will chat more later!
love,
-Jake
> really big snip full of words and possibly ideas >
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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