MEMES and SCHEMES

Memes and schemes are the lifeblood of a creative lifestyle.

Someone, a beloved person very close to me, told me recently that I seem to be forever making lists.

It may be true, but I prefer to say that I am constantly amassing important data to try to find the meaningful significant patterns that are hidden within so that I can benefit mankind forever.

Hmmm? These are two points of view pointing to the same thing.

Meaningful significant patterns, hmmm? The human intelligent mind is a pattern finding structure. Some of the patterns that we discover are memes. Memes are ideas or concepts. They mirror the genes that determine evolution in our physical bodies. But memes are not physical they are mental. Just like genes some memes thrive and develop while others fail. This idea first came from Richard Dawkins forty years ago when he wrote ‘The Selfish Gene’.

So are memes selfish as well? And what is the difference between a meme and a scheme?

A meme can be seen as selfish, just like genes, as they influence, compete and take over from other memes, or fail and perish. And a scheme is a complex meme or collection of memes in action.

Right at the moment I am looking back at the last year or so to see which memes or schemes have worked and thrived and which have withered and perished.

Without naming brands here are three recent schemes or memes that have come my way.

There was the simple idea, that lead to the creation of an app that enabled a person to point their mobile phone at a work of art and the phones camera eye would recognize the painting or sculpture and connect with a central pool of information. Then up would pop a link showing much more information, or even a video, and maybe even connect to the seller of that artwork.

Then there was the idea that artists wanted to register all their art images in a central searchable free database so that anyone could find out who the artist was, and when the art was created so that the copyright of the image was protected.

And then there was the idea that a service was feasible that translated an artist or craft-persons website into several other languages using the latest automatic translation software, and then creating mirror websites in the extra languages that would link back to the original website thus earning a percentage of all the extra sales that would come from this greatly increased exposure.

So that is quite a short list.

I was an interested and involved participant to greater or lesser degree in these three ideas. They are not all dead and lifeless. But none of these have roared into full-blooded successful thriving glory, yet.

That is the thing about memes that is so different to genes. Genetic evolvement can take, in fact must take, many generations of real life birth and death, to see who wins and who loses. Memes on the other hand are very very quick. A meme can evolve and change and become a collection of memetic strength in a super thriving scheme within a noticeable short timeframe.

We live in exciting times.

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