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Life-Goals and Life-Rules are ideas and ways of thinking. In this curriculum, they are introduced in the 4th grade.
Life-Goals are conscious or unconscious descriptions of what you want to be like, and of how you want other people to think of you.
Life-Rules are the rules for guiding your own life to reach the Life-Goals you set for what kind of person you wish to become and be. They guide you in everyday living and activities. Life-Rules often encompass* your impact upon others, and their reaction and subsequent* impact upon you. They can deal with virtually everything* you think of or do.
Memes are virtually anything that can created in the mind
which we hold to be true.
Memes come is all sizes and "shapes."
Societal memes are those which have been widely spread through a society. They constitute* a base which determines, to a considerable extent, how most individuals in that society think. They can be called societal perspectives or societal viewpoints. Thus, they can have a profound* impact, either positively or negatively, upon that society.
Example: The strong emphasis placed upon marriage.
Example: Democracy is a meme. There have been many societies where this idea did not exist. In those societies the operating meme was probably something like, "the king makes all the important decisions."
Memes, Life-Goals, & Life-Rules
Life-Goals and Life-Rules are some of the memes that a person has in his own mind.
Memes & Genes, Similarities & Differences
Memes function in a way similar to genes (as in DNA!). Both effect "Who" we are, and how we behave. The table below acts to compare and contrast genes and memes.
Change only by accident of
mutation*. Can be created or improved by
thinking. Change is
VERY
slow. Change is VERY fast. Passed only downward through the family
tree. Can be passed downward through the family
tree, and to anyone in any generation. Impact only individuals within the same
family tree where the original mutation occurred. Can impact entire societies and the whole
world. It takes many many generations for a gene
to spread widely. Major impact upon society can take only a
few years. The Internet is a good example. Evolution via genes is slow and slowing
even more. The existence of many new medical and social
support memes suppresses evolution through genetic changes.
Our memes very often remove the force of the "survival of
the fittest" pressure that selects good mutations, and
deselects bad mutations. Evolution via additions to and changes in
our memes is accelerating*
very rapidly. New memes stimulate and facilitate the
creation of other new and even more powerful memes. The idea
of gene mapping, and its now successful completion will lead
to a virtual explosion of new knowledge and fantastic
advances in medicine and biology. There has not been any really significant
changes in our evolution due to genes in the last 50,000
years! Evolution due to the creation of new
memes is occurring at an incredibly fast pace. New memes are
created daily at a furious rate. They are responsible
for the advancements made in civilization over the last
50,000 years! It is completely impossible to learn all
the memes available to us. Making good use of memes requires
that we have mastered how to find the memes we need when we
need them. The meme we call "The Internet" allows us to do
this. Our future development will be because of
new memes.
Memes are Important to Individuals
Some memes are the mind-tools you need to live life. Without a good set of mental tools, your life can be difficult. Memes are the overwhelming mechanism by which you grow up and become competent in every area of life. Very nearly all of the memes you will need in life were created before you were born. You must either learn them, be able to quickly find them when you need them, or be able to reinvent them. Many memes are learned in school.
You don't have to memorize all the memes you will have to use. Many times memes can be found when they are needed. This is much easier now with the Internet and our powerful search engines.
Memes are Important to Civilization
Our civilization improves because the memes created in one place by one person can be transmitted (taught) to the next generation, and also they can be transmitted form one corner of a society to another corner in the same generation.
Memes are EXTREMELY important! Civilization has advanced ONLY through the creation and evolution of memes, and NOT the evolution of genes.
Without new memes having been created, learned, and used, we would still be cavemen.
Without new memes created in the future, we cannot advance beyond were we are now.
In your life you may be able to create new memes which never existed before. If they are good ones they may spread throughout society and pass downwards for many generations. The memes you might create may help mankind.
People think them up. One of the greatest and most powerful attributes of humans is their ability to solve problems. We do this by creating and applying new ideas. We can create new ways of doing things. We can create new ways of thinking about old things. The idea of memes is itself a meme!
People create memes as new:
How are Memes Passed On to Society?
A critically important and powerful attribute of humans is their ability to communicate. Thus, when a new meme is created, it can be spread to other humans. We can do this with the spoken word. The written word is usually used to pass new memes on to large numbers of the society.
Personal knowledge becomes personal memes. We can pass them on to our own children and other family members, friends, and people we know or work with.
Sometimes new memes spread throughout most of society, and become societal memes. Memes can evolve and spread very quickly, in time measured in decades. The implementation of the ideas of the Internet, Email, web sites, and Google searches are very good examples. Many modern people now carry these as part of their personal inventory of memes. They didn't exist as societal memes only 20 years ago! The memes of the WWW are still developing very rapidly! One of the most recent is the Blog, or Web Log.
If you in your life create a good new meme, having a good command of the English language and the ability to write well will greatly help in spreading your new meme. If you succeed in this, respect of you from others will grow.
This author has lived long enough to see an evolution in the memes of our society. True, some of these new memes are not spread completely throughout the society. But because they have power, and they are better solutions than the old memes, they will spread over the coming generations.
Memes are passed on by the act of learning. Sometimes this is by the learner simply watching what others do. Sometimes it is by direct teaching, as from a parent to a child, or teacher to a class. Sometimes it is by self-teaching, say from reading a book. (See "Stages of Human Male Development" for an example of a societal meme that has been around for many thousands of years.)
How are Memes Passed On to our Children?
Local
It used to be that neighbors tended to help watch over and to teach the children in the neighborhood. We are now tending to live our lives isolated from our immediate neighbors, therefore this channel has greatly weakened.
Watching what other people do.
Church
Family
The family should be a major force for transferring memes from one generation to the next. Unfortunately, this channel has been weakened by both parents working, and the increasing trend for there to be no other relatives nearby. Too many families are are not doing a good job of imparting wise memes to their own children.
Peers
Children who are basically raising themselves will create memes, and share them with each other. However, young people do not yet have enough experience to reliably create memes with wisdom. Because of this, their new memes may have built-in problems or negative aspects. They have not had time to be proof-tested!
Media, Entertainment, & Advertisement
These are only interested in memes which help corporations make a profit. On average they are NOT interested in spreading memes which make the society as a whole stronger, safer, or better.
Schools
Schools used to be a significant channel for transmitting memes to children. They have lost a lot of that ability. This has happened because of these changes.
(1) A lot of children have not received the meme that education is something good for them. In fact, many see school as their enemy. They are tuned out, and reject much of the teachings.(2) Some teachers did not receive a set of wise memes when they were children.
(3) Without the teachers realizing it, or not having the power to stop it, good memes are being replaced by bad memes.
(4) There have been numerous examples in the news during the last few years which show that there are forces at work in education which are specifically designed to destroy memes which do reflect a wise basis.
Why are Families Failing in Passing on Good Memes?
The Bottom Line
The Bottom Line of the above paragraphs is that our society has lost a lot of its ability to pass on wise and valuable memes. Because of this we are risking our civilization. Fortunately, many people in our society are waking up and are successfully working to make real changes.
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Making something to go faster and faster. |
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A set of rules with steps to solve a problem |
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Goes into making up something. |
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To include or enclose something. |
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A change in a gene for any reason. |
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Ways to view or think about or view something. |
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Of very great significance or importance |
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More than one thing that can cause a result or outcome to happen. |
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That which follows |
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Very nearly everything. Very little left out. |
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