Whatever the Future of the Real Virus, the 'Coronavirus Meme' Has Already Gone Pandemic!

Antidote!

Whatever the future of the real virus, the ‘coronavirus meme’ has already gone pandemic!

M e m e s a r e i n f o r m a t i o n viruses that ‘infect’ human brains. They go from brain to brain, from brain to book to brain, from brain to tweet to brain. And so on.

Memes influence human behaviour.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex For example, whatever the future of the real virus, the ‘coronavirus meme’ has already gone pandemic! Your brain is already infected and so is mine. Coronavirus infection numbers grow faster every day and at the time of writing around 100,000 are now infected w h i ch i s s t i l l s m a l l by global virus standards … yet 6 billion brains are infected with the coronavirus meme which is big by global meme standards.

Knowledge is powerful. If you read and understand this booklet about ‘Meme Theory’ it can help to act as your antidote to meme infection.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex There are lots of memes spreading around which are plain wrong, causing panic, sucking up precious r e s o u r c e s , d a m a g i n g businesses and infecting brains in unhelpful ways.

Knowledge about memes and how they infect your brain is real protection. Brains that have this knowledge have greater protection than brains that are still ignorant about memes.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex This booklet is designed to give you real knowledge as a kind of antidote to meme infection. The knowledge is curated by the author from ‘The x10 Memeplex’ (Prentice Hall 2000) by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson.

There is no doubt that religion has dominated the thinking of the last millennium. Before that, religion played a central part in human culture. There is also no doubt that, owing to their religious memes, many people have been influenced in their behaviour—some for human welfare and others for human sacrifice.

In ‘The World’s R e l i g i o n s ’ Ninian Smart, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of Lancaster, writes about the rich cultural diversity of human religious memes: ‘So long as humans are brought up in different paths, so they will see the world differently, and for each path some things will seem natural and right and

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex others not. But the paths cross. We can benefit from that. For example: we can see social justice, which Marxists struggle for; human freedom, which liberals emphasise; love of God and fellow humans, which Christianity preaches; brotherhood, which Islam promotes; calm and mysticism, which go with Buddhism; de votion and pluralism, which Hinduism points to; harmony with nature, which Taoism commends;

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex ‘the cultivation of interpersonal behaviour, which is a lesson from Confucianism; holism in life, which we find in Africa; finding meaning through suffering, which Judaism has had to emphasise; the importance of inner sincerity, which we find among the Sikhs. These and many other spiritual and moral values are not, of course, mutually incompatible’

If only the world’s religions had a history of tolerance. If only each different religion had demonstrated a respect for other religions.

If only the most ferocious wars ever fought had not been religious wars.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex One thousand years ago the Christian memes fought their blood-thirsty crusade against the infidel memes. Today, the evidence is strong that the battle is far from over.

But, there is hope.

As we have crossed the threshold of the Third Millennium we find that there is a parallel to religion—science.

Religion uses inspiration and science uses observation. Religion uses faith and science uses experiment.

Religion uses Absolute Truth and science uses evolving fuzzy truths. Religion uses authority and science uses questioning.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Susan Blackmore of the Department of Psychology, University of the West of England, notes in ‘The Meme Machine’: ‘We cannot get away from religions, but using memetics we can understand how and why they have such power. All the great religions of the world began as small-scale cults, usually

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex with a charismatic leader, and over the years a few of them spread to take in billions of people all over the planet. Imagine just how many cults there must have been in the history of the world.

‘The question is why did these few survive to become the great faiths, while the vast majority simply died out with the death of their leader or the dispersal of their few adherents?

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex ‘Richard Dawkins was the first to give memetic answers, although his ideas on religion have been frequently criticised. He took Roman Catholicism as an example … millions of people all over the world profess themselves Catholics and pray to Jesus, his mother Mary, and God the Father. They spend vast amounts of their valuable time and money supporting and spreading the faith to their children and others,

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex ‘and the catholic Church is among the richest institutions in the world. Dawkins explains how religious memes, even if they are not true, can be successful’

I have written about this at length in ‘Software For Your Brain’ and will do so only briefly here.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Because of the righteousness involved it’s easy to be accused of religious intolerance. Yet its precisely because of the historical intolerance shown by many religious authorities that one needs to address the issue.

The distinguished biologist, Sir Peter Medawar, once wrote: ‘The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment

Many of our current business memes are still derived from religious memes.

For example, the binary absolutes of ‘right vs wrong’, ‘good vs bad’, ‘men vs women’, ‘salesman vs customer’, and ‘managers vs employees’ are all religious- based memes.

Because our culture owes so much to religions I intend no offence whatever to sincerely held religious beliefs, but I feel i cannot avoid the topic of religion in a s e r i o u s , o p e n - m i n d e d discussion of memes. Memes, and not just religious memes, are here to stay.

Q W H AT I S T H E M O S T POWERFUL TRICK IN THE UNIVERSE?

A REPLICATORS!

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex LONG, LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY (BILLIONS OF LIGHT YEARS) A MOLECULE SOMEHOW HAPPENED THAT WAS DIFFERENT TO ALL OTHER MOLECULES THAT HAD EVER EXISTED.

THE UNIQUE DIFFERENCE WAS THAT THIS MOLECULE COULD COPY ITSELF.

IT COULD REPLICATE.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex ONCE REPLICATION GOT UNDERWAY—OVER FIFTEEN BILLION YEARS OF EVOLUTIONARY TIME AND BY AN ONGOING PROCESS OF TRIAL AND ERROR—FROM THIS SPECIAL MOLECULE EVOLVED DNA AND GENES AND SUBSEQUENTLY EVERYTHING THAT HAS EVER LIVED ON THE PLANET.

Replicator power is the breathtaking process behind the Grand Operating Design of our biosphere. For fifteen billion years replicator power has been on the job. If genes couldn’t replicate, then you wouldn’t be reading this booklet right now because neither you nor I nor the coronavirus meme would have ever existed.

FROM NATURAL SELECTION TO VOLITIONAL SELECTION

‘NATURAL SELECTION’ AS CHARLES DARWIN SHOWED, IS HOW THE FITTEST O RGA NIS M S A RE T HO S E SELECTED BY NATURE TO SURVIVE LONG ENOUGH TO REPRODUCE AND PASS ON THEIR FITNESS.

The biological design of all living things arises out of the gene wars being waged over who gets selected for the next generation.

The first replicator, the gene, h a d n o w b e e n discovered by science.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Today, science has developed such a comprehensive understanding of how this process, genetics, works that we now have genetic engineering and the reality of ‘volitional selection’ which is the ability to by-pass natural selection and choose which genes we want to survive and replicate.

Humanity is now faced with the ability to modify genes and to choose from specific outcomes.

Much will depend on the quality of our thinking.

Oxford Professor R i c h a r d Dawkins was w e l l k n o w n for explaining the idea of ‘selfish genes’.

When I first read ‘The Selfish Gene’ forty years ago I remember thinking what a nice piece of lateral

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex thinking it was because it turned the existing way of looking at things quite upside-down. Instead of looking at genes as the way organisms get themselves copied, the idea is reversed. Organisms are the way genes get themselves copied. Yoicks!

As Dawkins explains, an elephant’s DNA is a digital ‘Copy Me’ program that has a fantastically large digression: ‘Copy me by building an elephant first’.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex The selfish gene idea puts the focus on the gene’s-eye- view of the world. I can remember sitting on the beach at Southhampton, Long Island, and doing the thought experiment: ‘What if I am really just a gene- mobile?’ There was quite a bit of dissonance at first but I continued with the experiment. I found myself becoming quite comfortable with the idea and its improved powers of explanation.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex By the end of that summer, I found that the selfish gene idea had a resonance and utility which allowed me a better way of looking at the world. The cost was a mild blow to my egocentricity.

Genes are digital programs for making proteins in the cells of organisms. If an organism survives long enough to reproduce, then copies of its genetic programs are passed on to its offspring.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Selfish genes get themselves copied ahead of those who don’t. in the random, chaotic, free- market economy of genetic competition selfish genes survive, however they were selected, and their traits make their unique mark on the environment.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Of course, selfish genes are not selfish like I am when I eat the last chocolate. They have no will. They have no plan. It is a convenience for us to personify them and call them ‘selfish’. It helps us to view the world from the gene’s-eye-view.

However no-one really believes that genes are selfish per se; it simply refers to those genes that, at the end of the day, do ‘get themselves’ copied.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex If we hop from genetics to business we can see how one person who decides to buy a product can then, by word- of-mouth (WOM) replicate that behaviour in another so that the new person also decides to buy the product.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex How does a customer self- replicate? This is done through memetics, n o t genetics. Memetics is all about the only other replicator ever discovered by science … the meme.

Distinguished American s c i e n t i s t , Edward O. Wilson, has been called ‘one of the t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y ’ s greatest thinkers’.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex In his book, ‘Consilience’, Wilson says of the second replicator that: ‘The notion of a culture unit, the most basic element of all, has been around for over thirty years and has been dubbed by different authors variously as memo type, idea, idene, meme, sociogene, concept, culturgen, and culture type. The one label that has caught on the most, and for which I now vote to be winner, is meme, introduced

The ‘Oxford English Dictionary’ defines a gene as, ‘a unit of heredity … that determines a particular characteristic of an individual’.

The OED defines a meme as: ‘an element of culture that is passed on by non-genetic means, especially by imitation’.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex To that definition should also be added the meaning of the verb: meme v to infect with a meme (The CEO memed employees with a personal email).

Memes are ideas that self- replicate. They’re programmed in such a way that they propagate themselves.

In today’s wired world memes do spread faster than ever before.

Becoming memed is just a tweet away.

In ‘Thought Contagion’, a book about memes by Aaron Lynch, he compares how an idea’s success is determined,

And, in memetics, an idea’s success is measured by how many people are attracted by the idea, how much population it accumulates, how many people become memed.

It does require some mental agility to think of zombie strings of DNA as being ‘selfish’. It was this kind of clever backflip for which Dawkins has been recognised. To become memetic thinkers, we have to be able to do the same kind of mental gymnastics.

Instead of thinking how we get ideas, we have to think about how ideas acquire us.

We have to be able to think of our own brains as ‘meme- mobiles’, ways for memes to get around.

The better we are at seeing things from the ‘meme’s-eye- view’, the better we are as memetic thinkers.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Susan Blackmore puts it this way: ‘Imagine a world of, say, 7 billion brains and, say, 7 trillion memes—far more than can ever find a home. Which memes will find a haven (in a brain)? Which ones will fail’

There is a cracking selection pressure and room for only a few winners from the vast crowd of starters.

Just think of the trillions of spermatozoa that never made it into an egg. Or, of all the lotto millionaires that ever lived, what about the billions of lotto punters who never won first prize? You can’t have selection without rejection.

Like musical chairs, some memes always miss out.

Remember, there are always a limited number of brains to provide sanctuary for memes, and, at the same time, there are always an unlimited number of memes looking for refuge. Again, the question for memetic thinkers is: ‘Which memes will secure brainpower and get passed on?’

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Memetic thinking looks at the cognos—the expanding universe of possible thoughts—in terms of copying opportunities. In the meme’s universe everything is either a copy-plus or a copy-minus. ‘To copy or not to copy is the replicator’s mantra’.

Here’s a question. There are two rival memes: one is important and the other is memorable. Which meme will win?

For those in management, marketing, media or politics or public safety, memetic thinking is now even more critical than ever.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex At an IBM conference in Monte Carlo I once shared the platform with Robert Cialdini who was a psychology professor at Arizona State University. Dr Cialdini was interested in how people became influenced by other people and he gave me a copy of his book ‘Influence: How and Why People Agree to Things’.

It’s a fascinating read and I’ve given a number of copies away to friends and clients.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex There are many compelling examples in his book but this ‘suicide meme’ that replicates other suicides is one of the most baffling: ‘The influence of suicide stories on car and plane crashes is fantastically specific. Stories of pure suicides, in which only one person dies, generate wrecks in which only one person dies; stories of suicide-murder combinations, in which there are multiple deaths, generate wrecks

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex in which there are multiple deaths. There is a sociologist at the University of California in San Diego who thinks he has found the answer. His name is David Phillips and he points a convincing finger at something called the ‘Werther Effect’. The story of the Werther effect is both chilling and intriguing. More than two centuries ago, the great man of german literature, Johan von Goethe, published

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex a novel entitled ‘Die Lieden des jungen Werthers’ (‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’). The book, in which the hero, named Werther, commits suicide, had a remarkable impact. Not only did it provide Goethe with immediate fame, but it also sparked a wave of emulative suicides across Europe. So powerful was this effect that authorities in several countries banned the novel’.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex As replicators, memes derive power from their success at replicating. In meme wars, those memes that are better at getting themselves copied are the winners; those that are not are the losers. This means memes have two ways to win: increase ‘my’ copies, decrease ‘their’ copies.

Replicators derive their power from high marks out of these three traits: fidelity, fecundity and longevity:

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex •fidelity means a true copy that is faithful to the original. It is clear and precise. It is reliable like a Xerox. •fecundity means a potent copy that is capable of multiple replications. It is fruitful and yields an abundance of copies like a McDonald’s franchise. •longevity means a lasting copy that will go the distance. It’s tangible like the well-photogr aphed Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Just another reminder, memes really have no wit nor will to do this or that; they have no intention or personality anymore than does the coronavirus.

In other words, memes are not aware of their effect, they don’t know what they’re doing—they just do. They are just code.

It is only a convenience to refer to them in this anthropomorphic way.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex What seems to be ‘intentional’ strategies are just the way survival of the fittest turns out in the end. But we, as retrospective observers, say things like, ‘This clever meme increased its copies here, that dumb meme lost out there’ and so on.

Needless to say, there are really no clever memes or dumb memes just successes and failures at the end of the day.

Having said that, memes have evolved in many different ways in the battle to multiply themselves, to spread around.

Some of these can be categorised.

SURVIVAL MEMES If a meme gives its host a survival advantage it is a survival meme.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex One of the Coronavirus Memes is the Toilet Paper meme. Not knowing what to do about the threat of the virus people feel helpless. So, they can go and buy an extra supply of TP which they may feel gives them a survival advantage, even if it doesn’t. Especially if they see other shoppers doing the same thing. However, hand-washing memes and social distancing memes may be real survival memes in a viral pandemic like Covid-19.

Important Note: The coronavirus or Covid-19 is real and the threat to all humans is serious. Here is a link to a credible report well worth watching and thinking about …

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TV20ucwKGmg

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Other survival memes are exercise memes that make for a fitter host and offer a survival advantage over those who are not infected with the exercise meme.

A flying instructor shows a pilot how to fly by instruments in the event they lose visual orientation. I find I’m speculating now on the kind of meme battle that may have taken place in the mind of my friend John Kennedy Jr.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Before he took off from the tarmac late on that fateful Friday, perhaps warning memes about the weather from his flying instructors may have battled with memes about getting to the family wedding on time. Who knows?

Survival memes have an advantage because if hosts survive longer they sread their memes longer and more often than other memes.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex MISSIONARY MEMES Some drug-taking memes are missionary memes if they are spread from the user to the non-user. Smok ers hav e offered me many cigarettes over the years and occasionally I have accepted even though I don’t enjoy tobacco.

Yesterday two pleasant young Mormon missionaries rang my doorbell to offer their Salt Lake City memes.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex They gave me a copy of the ‘Book of Mormon’ and in return, I gave them a copy of my book ‘Software For Your Brain’ as a kind of meme- exchange. Interestingly, while thanking me politely, they told me they would not be allowed to read my book.

Most people I know have been subjected to Amway- type ‘opportunity’ memes disguised as invitations for drinks or lunch etc.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Whatever the approach, whether overt or covert, missionary memes acquire new people by being spread from one missionary to another.

FAD MEMES Memes that spread quickly and then die quickly are fad memes. Fashion bandwagons, gadget crazes and food trends may be fad memes.

Superfoods may be kale one month, Kambucha the next.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Public opinion can be infected with ‘current affair’ fad memes. American trend analyst, Gerald Celente, asks in ‘Trend tracking’: ‘Have you ever switched from TV channel to channel during the news? You find that the networks are all covering the same stories, in the same order, in the same way. You can almost go from one to the other without missing anything’.

Again, the coronavirus run on Toilet Paper may just be a crisis fad meme.

IMPACT MEMES Repetition is the way most memes gain power but some memes are instantly powerful owing to their high and dramatic impact.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex You may remember the scene in a teen movie where one teenager starts projectile vomiting and that sets off a chain reaction until everyone on the screen is spewing diced carrots. In some cases this affected members of the movie audience, too.

Since no-one was ill before the triggering event, it may be an example of an impact meme.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex In his book, ‘The Odd Brain’ Dr Stephen Juan of the University of Sydney has an explanation: ‘There have been many cases of the phenomenon known as Epidemic Hysteria. For no apparent reason, a group of p e o p l e w i l l e x p e r i e n c e symptoms of illness. This may involve children of an entire school, travellers on a bus, or the whole audience at a rock concert. Besides fainting and hallucinating, symptoms include vomiting,

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex diarrhoea, fever and dehydration. Such epidemics may last several hours or even days. When one person experiences the symptoms, other people, seeing that person, experience the symptoms, too’.

Ritual or ceremonial memes may have a lasting effect owing to their great impact. Most cultures are rich with splendid ritual which is adorned with artefacts, music, costumes, blessings and other high impact memes.

I n ‘ K n i g h t s a t C o u r t ’ Professor of Italian Studies at New York University, Aldo Scaglione, describes the famous dubbing ritual of chivalry in which a young nobleman was made a knight: ’In the thirteenth century descendants of knights generally started to inherit the title, yet they were not considered full knights unless formally dubbed.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex ‘The ceremonial dubbing of knights was more than a ritual: it picturesquely symbolised a set of mental attitudes which related to the practical functions of knighthood, and it also marked the official recognition of a special status for these mounted soldiers. The specific ceremony culminated in the girding or belting with the sword and the tapping with the lord’s sword on the shoulder, or ‘dubbing’.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex ‘The custom of a bath of purification and an all-night vigil of meditation before the investiture confirmed the sacramental nature of the procedure’.

FAMILY MEMES Memes that in any way cause the host to have a larger family—more wives, more children—than they otherwise would have are family memes. This effect increases the number of hosts that spread the meme.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex For example, many religious memeplexes include family memes which may inhibit birth control or memes that may keep women restricted to family roles or memes that attack non-breeding sexual activity.

PROPAGANDA MEMES Memes designed to control thinking might be propaganda memes. These memes can be designed by the ‘Thought Police’ of Big Government, Big Business or

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Big Religion for propagation by Big Social Media like F a c e b o o k a n d W e i b o . Propaganda memes may involve censorship or re- education.

Propaganda memes may be digital algorithms or bots that profile and seek out brains to infect.

#maga, #metoo and #brexit may be examples of recent propaganda memes.

They are ‘decrease-their’ memes.

Killer memes are good at attacking other memes like ‘mass-production’ memes that can extinguish ‘craftmanship’ memes.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex I n t h e p o s t W W I I e r a , Pr esident Eisenhow er’s ‘Domino Theory’ meme became a k i l l e r m e m e w h e n i t infected Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to justify their continuation and increased escalation of the American War in Vietnam.

As a 20 year-old I became infected with the Domino Theory meme when I was conscripted into the army for two years of training and a tour in Vietnam.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Health fad memes can also become killer memes, like the ‘Avocado Toast’ meme which has scaled up to cause deforestation in Mexico, the biggest avocado-farming region in the world. Mexican Avocado farmers are razing pine forests to meet the USA demand of the trendy snack.

In the past, religious memes like death fatwahs and the crusaders’ battle-cry of ‘Deus Vult’ also became killer memes.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex COMMONSENSE MEMES Certain memes make so much sense that everybody spreads them around. In a recent unusually over- heated Melbourne summer there were severe power shortages. Even though people would normally have used their air-conditioners and other appliances they were asked to cut back to avoid total blackout. They did so, and the government was surprised at the high level of compliance.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Some commonsense memes like avoiding personal danger (eg snakes and spiders) have made sense for so long that they are now genetically programmed into our brains. Memes that have become genes!

UNFAIR ADVANTAGE MEMES Some memes give the host an unfair advantage over those who don’t have the meme and so they spread. Adding .com to your brand meme may make it easier to replicate online

The UMG meme is an unfair business advantage meme. UMG means Unconditional Moneyback Guarantee.

Any commercial offer that includes the UMG meme may have an unfair advantage over competing offers. The ‘free’ meme is another example.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex DISSONANT MEMES At any particular time an individual brain has its own memetic state which is based on the current balance of power of its memes. Whether or not the reception of new memes is successful depends on which memes are already established in the mind.

Which new memes will thrive in that mind can depend on their dissonance with the current members.

When I arrived in my fake white beard the kids were nearly as excited as their doting parents who looked on from the back of the classroom with their video cameras, at first, and then later their smartphones.

It was great fun and I tried to do something different every year.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Each year we would sing along with a carol and one year I/Santa told the kids that Rudolph had come down with the flu and his famous red nose had temporarily changed colour. I then asked everyone to all join in and sing ‘Rudolph the Blue- Nosed reindeer’.

The kids loved it, of course, but many of the parents couldn’t bring themselves to sing along.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Some looked horrified and seemed to be saying to themselves, ‘Is he allowed to do this?’ Some parents actually complained. Apparently the ‘Blue-nose’ meme was causing them too much cognitive dissonance.

COMPATIBLE MEMES On the other hand, certain memes may be quite harmonious with the current memetic state of the brain.

Say, for instance, if after reading this booklet you were to run across a new article on memes you might now give it more attention than you might have before.

Since you have read about memes and now mindful about meme theory you might give ‘meme’ memes a welcome home because you know more about the topic.

Did they just suddenly materialise?

No, they were there before but now they are compatible with your memes and can gain a place in your brain.

From time to time I have trained elite sportspeople.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex a married couple of athletes who were having a slump were sent to me for a chat: she was a badminton player and he was a triathlete. I taught them the PRR training meme from my book which is Practise. Repetition. Rehearsal. And x10.

Within 6 months she became a Common w ealth Games Medallist for Badminton at Kuala Lumpur and her husband became a Canadian Ironman at Penticton BC.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex For elite sportspeople the PRR meme is a compatible training meme but I found that many business people do not appreciate practise and repetition.

CO-OPERATIVE MEMES (MEMEPLEX) Richard Dawkins in ‘Unweaving the Rainbow’ describes co-operative memes: ‘Memes, like genes, survive in the presence of certain other memes.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex ‘A mind can become prepared, by the presence of certain memes, to be receptive to particular other memes. Just as a species gene pool becomes a co-operative cartel of genes, so a group of minds—a ‘culture’ or a ‘tradition’—becomes a co- operative cartel of memes, a memeplex, as it has been called’.

Some memes work much better together than alone. They co-operate.

Two or more memes that work this way are called a memeplex.

The memeplex attracts compatible memes that work together as allies.

For example, the PRR meme works much better as a memeplex along with the x10 meme.

‘MEME’ MEMES When I first wrote ‘The X10 Memeplex’ in 2000, from which most of this booklet’s content is extracted, the ‘meme’ meme was still new. At the time I did a WWW search using the Alta Vista search engine.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex A search for ‘memes’ found references on 543,750 web pages in 2000. Today (03/20) a google search for ‘memes‘ found about 6,220,000,000 (6.2 billion) results. So, yes, the ‘meme’ meme itself has replicated.

Familiar fad memes people like to propagate are the little square internet graphics which can be amusing and go viral and these trivial ‘memes’ may help account for such a large search number.

This sort of story was headline news 160 years ago. Now, for most educated people, it’s passé.

To d ay, n e a r ly e v e ryo n e knows about the darwinian insights of ‘natural selection’ and ‘survival of the fittest’.

Because Darwin’s troublesome notion is so central to the premise of ‘Meme Theory’ we can examine it a little closer.

Also because his idea is so useful to our understanding of the universe and how it works that it’s well worth us getting a better grip on

what philosopher Daniel C. Dennett calls, ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea’. I heard on the grapevine that Dan Dennett once told someone that he thought William Calvin was ‘one of the cleverest minds in Seattle’. William H. Calvin was a distinguished neuroscientist at the University of Washington in Seattle who writes in a clear and witty way about

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex how the brain/mind system works according to darwinian doctrine. In his book ‘How Brains Think’ he gives a very clear description of the darwinian principle (Chapter 6, ‘Evolution On-The-Fly’). I will explain Dr Calvin’s six essentials of what must be present for what he calls a ‘Darwin Machine’ to get going.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex In the beginning, for a ‘Darwin Machine’ to get going and keep going, there needs to be a ‘copy-me pattern’. This is a pattern which somehow gets good copies made of it and many more copies, in fact, that are ever needed. These are all good copies but never perfect as there are some flaws or changes in each copy. Now pay attention to the limited and shifting environment in which all this copying is going on.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex First, there is just not enough room for ALL the copies so they have to compete for space. Second, the environment is unstable, it’s always changing. So the BIG QUESTION is: Which of these copies will survive long enough, in these conditions, to go on and get its own copies made? If you like, stop reading here and take a few minutes to think about this before going on because this is a very interesting question indeed.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Whatever thinking you find yourself doing here may be similar to the thoughts Charles Darwin spent so much of his lifetime on. Calvin’s description of a Darwin Machine has six essential principles. For the Darwin Machine to function and keep the process going it needs all of the following sux properties: pattern, copies, change, competition, multi-faceted environment and survival. Lets’ take them one by one:

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex 1. Pattern First, there must be a ‘copy- me pattern’. This is a replicator, a pattern of some kind which somehow gets itself copied. The two replicators with which we are currently familiar are DNA patterns called genes and neuronal patterns called memes.

2. Copies When a cell divides a copy is made. The new copy contains a good (but not perfect) copy of the gene;s DNA sequence.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Or, when on this page I describe Calvin’s Darwin Machine, a copy is made in your brain. This is a good copy (I hope) of Calvin’s meme but certainly not perfect.

3. Change Most people can carry a tune, more or less. But after a few lubricating beers even with the words up on the screen the resulting copy of the original song will be a less than perfect meme, as anyone who has ever

After sex, the race is on. In a kind of Fallopian Marathon o n e l u c k y l i t t l e spermatozoan in a million to one chance, gets in and fertilises the one and only egg. The reward? He gets to shuffle his genes with the egg’s genes and when the cell divides he’s a full co- author and partner in the new genetic mix.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Because it is a shuffle the DNA copies are good but not perfect copies of the pre-sex originals. There are variations in the offspring. I suppose that’s why I’ve got my dad’s freckles but not his auburn hair.

4. Competition Western movies, of both the Hollywood and spaghetti variety, would signal the impending gun duel with a line like, ‘This town ain’t big enough for both of us’.

These limits create a competition amongst copies since the space ‘ain’t big enough’ for all of them.

On search engine sites like Google there is limited premium space for URL memes so they compete to optimise their listing in this space.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex 5. Environment Like a diamond there are many facets to an environment and each of these facets offers advantages to the variant copies, or disadvantages. In a changing environment some variations will be more successful than others for each facet. By paying a modest fee to Google Ads your URL memes gan gain a competitive environmental advantage in Google’s listspace.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex The more you pay Google Ads the better your advantage. URL memes with bigger Google Ads budgets have a bias, or variation, which can get them ‘selected’ ahead of other competing URLs.

This single memetic idea, Google Ads, has made Google one o f t h e m o s t valuable companies in history.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex 6. Survival Now, the answer to the BIG Question: Which of these copies will survive long enough, in these conditions, to go on and get its own copies made?

The Big Answer is: The next generation!

That sounds circular but that’s what the definition of ‘the next generation’ really is.

The ‘selected’ copies survived, owing to variations which gave them an ‘unfair advantage’ over the non- s u rv i v i n g c o p i e s w h o s e variations gave them no special environmental advantage (so they weren’t ‘selected’).

The drift of the random, self-organising process is always towards those patterns which appear to have been ‘designed’ for their environment.

This is how Darwin Machines can produce the convincing illusion of a ‘designer’ even where none exists.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Perhaps understandably, many Christian authorities have showed great a n t a g o n i s m t o w a r d s darwinian thinking over the past hundred years or so.

Even today, Creationism is still a lingering force in some parochial education districts, especially in parts of America.

But most Christian thinkers are now quite up-to-date with darwinian thinking.

Professor Ninian Smart describes in ‘The World’s Religions’ how the ‘Christian meme’ has evolved quite a long way from its ancestor meme since its genesis two thousand years ago: ‘Though we use the singular label ‘Christianity’ in fact there is a great number of varieties of Christianity, and

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex there are some movements about which we may have doubts as to whether they count as Christian at all. The same is true of all traditions: they manifest themselves as a loosely held-together family of sub- traditions. C o n s i d e r: a Baptist chapel in Georgia is a very different structure from an Eastern orthodox church in Romania, with its blazing candles and rich ikons; and the two house very different religious services—

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex the one plain, with hymns and Bible-reading, prayers and impassioned preaching; the other more fully anchored, with processions and chanting, and mysterious ceremonies behind the screen where the ikons hang, concealing the priestly activities. Ask the religious specialists, the Baptist preacher or the Orthodox priest, and he will tell you that his own form of faith corresponds to original Christianity.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex To list some denominations of Christianity shows something of its diverse practise: Orthodox, Catholic, Coptic, Nestorian, Armenian, Mar Thoma, Lutheran, Calvinist, Methodist, Baptist, Unitarian, Mennonite, Congregationalist, Disciples of Christ—and we have not reached some the newer, more problematic forms: Latter Day Saints, Christian Scientists, Unificationists, Zulu Zionists, and so forth’.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex To end this booklet on Meme Theory we can see that the ‘ C h r i s t i a n i t y m e m e p l e x ’ example is a 2000-year-old Darwin Machine and we can expect its variant memes to continue to evolve and survive along darwinian lines into its third millennium. Deus vult!

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex • As an individual thinker, you can give yourself a knowledge inoculation by reading Antidote! and becoming more mindful about Meme Theory. With your fresh insights you can give yourself a first level of protection against memetic infection. Each time you re- read the booklet you can i n c r e a s e yo u r l e v e l o f protection. You may pass Antidote! on to those who are close to you.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex • If you run an educational institution you can do the same for your teaching staff and students by giving them copies of this booklet to read and discuss.

• As a CEO you can equip your employees with Meme Theory by issuing this free booklet and encourage them to discuss the knowledge and use it in their business practises like marketing and management.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex • As a government leader you can distribute the free Antidote! booklets to your constituencies and citizens and use the knowledge to develop policy and to inform the allocation of your resources for public safety and protection.

•

Q How do brains become infected by memes?

A Well, now you know.

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Antidote! was curated by the author from ‘The x10 memeplex’. Free download: https://docs.google.com/file/d/ 0B44Jw1ES0js6cDJGekwwWmJhd28/edit?pli=1

Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex Antidote! by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson © 2020 author of The x10 Memeplex School of Thinking Fastbooks are designed for a quick and easy 10-minute read on your smartphone. They’re free. Pass them on. https://schoolofthinking.org/new-book-bad-philosophy/

Michael Hewitt-Gleeson is an Australian. 1947 model. War Service Veteran. Author. Lecturer. Scientist. Inventor of 'x10 Thinking' for value creation.