Meme Transmission Study

Memes are complex, the systems that use them are complex, but what can we learn?

Consider memes in conversation. You're either gonna talk about "god", or your not. Any time you say the word, then, your transmitting the meme. Voice recognition systems on about 100 test subjects could be a good platform for studying meme diffusion in a large group. Also, the evolution of memetic complexes could be studied. What words are becoming grouped together, which ones are becoming seperated?

Initial conditions could be giving each subject, say, 5 ideas to discuss, you can discuss those ideas, and any ideas you hear about, but nothing more or less. If everyone is given 5 different ideas, then we got, oh, 500 memes going around. That'll make for good complexes.

Fruit beared would be knowledge gained on the effectiveness of certain words over others, the plasticity of the human mind as memetic agent, the rate of meme complex formation in closed groups, the optimal number of primary memes in a given complex, the range of effectiveness of memetic agents for a given sample. Different groups will spread information differently, and one day, this type of information can be used to evaulate the potential of a selected group to evolve along particular memetic pathways.

The halfbakery is a good memetic platform, by the way. And, yes, it does seem like I'm just throwing words around, but, make sense of what you will. Memes aren't magic, and I do wish they would become more widley accepted among intellectual groups such as this one. Memetic studies may one day serve to justify cultural nuances that just won't go away. Like binge drinking and rap music.