Product Description
Memetics is an artform centered around distributing memes across any given memetic network. As these networks exist both internally and externally, a memeticist is dealing in a practical way with a number of seemingly unrelated disciplines. At the center of this overlap lies cybernetic theory, but it also entails strategies from marketing, psychology, social networking, cultural analysis, rhetorical principles, and biological theory, specifically viral and epidemiological models. We cover this in depth in the book, and you can read it for free (or buy a copy) here. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

really smart fish
Memetics is an inquiry into the System or Structure within which we are embedded. Humans studying memetics is like a fish studying water, we're inquiring into the invisible currents surrounding us. Of course it would be a really smart fish to study water; most of the fish I know spend most of their time working & watching TV. If you are deciding to buy this book or not based on these comments then this book is surely beyond you. Just ask Mark Joyner and see how quickly he touts Bowlbetterology and Construct Hero. That's not memetics. That's like saying what got us to the moon was rocket fuel. This book is beyond you. If you haven't already heard about The Art Of Memetics then your likelihood of comprehension is about as likely as a 14 year-old writing a quality epic novel. Move along now

inspiring
Lots of inspiring knowledge. Very insightful.

Very eclectic as well as disordered. Some call this "spiderweb style" to be nice. You'll need to pore over this book, take lots of notes, and ponder it to have any chance of getting near as much out of this book as I did. ... Read more

Product Description
The publication in 1998 of Susan Blackmore's bestselling 'The Meme Machine' re-awakened the debate over the highly controversial field of memetics. In the past few years, there has been an explosion of interest in 'memes'. The one thing noticeably missing has been any kind of proper debate over the validity of a concept regarded by many as scientifically suspect.
This book pits leading intellectuals, (both supporters and opponents of meme theory), against each other to battle it out, and state their case. With a forward by Daniel Dennett, and contributions form Dan Sperber, David Hll, Robert Boyd, Susan Blackmore, Henry Plotkin, and others, the result is a thrilling and challenging debate that will perhaps mark a turning point for the field, and for future research. Superbly edited by Robert Aunger, this is a thought provoking book that will fascinate, stimulate, (and occasionally perhaps infuriate) a broad range of readers including psychologists, biologists, philosophers, linguists, and anthropologists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Why the science of cultural transmission is not developing.
Dawkins: A Meme - a unit of cultural transmission.

A variety of academics from different disciplines look at the "meme" idea 24 years after Dawkins introduced it in his 1976 book, "The Selfish Gene". The result is a miserable rag bag of a text.

Academics setting out on a journey of discovery tend do nothing until the concepts of "journey" and "discovery" are clearly defined - which may be never - and which may suit them just fine as they still collect their salaries. Contributing author David Hull wants them to get moving, emphasising that Darwin was happy to proceed with his investigation while the gene was still hypothetical.

There is some agreement among the authors that Blackmore's requirement (in her book "The Gene Machine") for memes to replicate by imitation is too restrictive, but the background unwillingness to investigate the issues is wholly depressing. Sociologists are just not interested in the dynamics of the transmission of ideas, anthropologists say that they've covered that ground already (and don't give much importance to it) and psychologists regard information transmission as irrelevant to social dynamics.

So biologists are left holding the bag (meme) and the editor (Robert Auger) can only make the following timid statement with regard to the revolutions of language, writing and the Internet; "But whether these have increased the transmissibility of memes .............. remains to be determined."

He does suggest that three forms of inheritance (genes, memes and artifacts) could form the basis of a new sophisticated theory of information transmission but it is clear that none of these authors is going to play the ball. As a complete layman it would seem to me that a young technologist reading a scientific paper and and checking with his supervisor, is taking on a meme - but that may be just my imagination.

10 Big Minds, Essential Foundation Reading
This book, and The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think are both world class and should be read along with Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration and Five Minds for the Future.I believe we are at the very beginning of a new era in which we will be able to map linguistics and culture, and devise beneficial bacteria at the same time that we devise beneficial memes.Ideas, not weapons, will be the dominant feature of the 21st Century.

The book grabs we right away with the statement that good ideas can go extinct and bad ideas can infect.See also Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography and Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq.

Early on the book provokes me to note that what is relevant is culturally determined.In the attack on Iraq, for example, the only relevant information was that which Dick Cheney wished to act on.Nothing else.See Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency and The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11.

This edited work, while a melange of competing opinions, is a very valuable foundation work for an emerging discipline

One note from each contributing author:

Blackmore: into parapsychology, inspired the third book I plan to do in 2009, ABNORMAL INTELLIGENCE: From Bacterial to Extra-Terrestial

Hull: memes can be tracked statistically, e.g. mentions and variants on the web.

Plotkin: Different forms of knowledge and belief (I note: religions and nationality are a form of super-meme).

Conte: 12 different ways for memes to spread

Laland & Odling-Smee: Niche construction alters evolutionary paths

Boyd & Richerson: need to map cultures at memetic level and do population modeling [I note that Information Operations as now emergent in the US Department of Defense is nowhere near this level of sophistication, and that the EarthGame planned by Medard Gabel is precisely what we need now.]

Sperber: notes Chompsky's contributions, linguistics can help, grammar is inferred.I note: Memes plus True Cost at Point of Sale will save us.

Kuper: Ecology of ideas, cultural difusion, ideological change, technical innovtation

Bloch: social & cultural anthropologists shave been wrong to ignore biologists and other natural scientists--memetics must be a multidisciplinary endeavor.

Aunger: cultural change is the next big challenge.Memes CAN improve life, lead to peace and prosperity, but mememetics is not yet documented nor empirically researchable.

The references that each author provides at the end of their respective chapters are a PhD in waiting.

See also:
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People

Culture Clash in Cambridge: Meme's doubters unconvinced
Unlike most edited volumes based on conferences, which typically read like random collections of papers glued between two covers, Aunger's edited volume displays a remarkable coherence.Against all odds, he enticed a highly diverse group of academics to Cambridge who then constructively debated the status of memetics as a science. Susan Blackmore, after Richard Dawkins probably the most well-known proponent of memetics, and David Hull, a sympathetic critic, open the book with strong arguments for taking memetics seriously.Henry Plotkin and Rosaria Conte then offer critiques of what they perceive as the somewhat faulty psychological assumptions underlying the meme concept.Plotkin argues against making "imitation" the centerpiece of mimetic mechanisms, and Conte argues for a much more sophisticated and complex social cognitive perspective on memetics.She presents a complex model of humans as limited autonomous agents, focusing on their active role in the perpetuation of cultural knowledge.

Kevin Laland and John Odling-Smee are sympathetic to the general notion of memes, but ask for more consideration of the multiple processes involved in evolution.Their own contribution is the concept of niche construction, based on the idea that species have effects on their environments that subsequently constrain future generations.Reprising ideas from their 1985 book, Culture and the Evolutionary Process, Boyd and Richerson argue for population level thinking in evolutionary models of cultural change.I should note that the renewed interest in evolutionary thinking stirred up by Blackmore and others has resulted in the University of Chicago Press's re-issuing their book!

The last three chapters of the book are much more negative toward the whole enterprise.Dan Sperber uses creative examples and logical proofs to conclude that Dawkin's conception of memes is misguided.He argues that recent thinking in memetics goes against recent work in developmental and evolutionary psychology.Adam Kuper notes that there already are well-established techniques for the study of cultural diffusion, especially in anthropology.He concludes that the "memetics industry" has yet to deliver on its claims.Finally, another anthropologist, Maurice Bloch, argues that memeticists have merely rediscovered what anthropology has known for decades, and in fact, is making all the same mistakes.He has harsh words for scientists who jump into an area without paying more attention to what has already been done by others working in that area.

Aunger provides excellent introductory and concluding chapters, which constitute valuable contributions in themselves.Chapter 1 beautifully lays out the issues and provides a constructive guide to the issues over which the contributors struggled.Chapter 11 concludes the book with an assessment of the contributors' arguments and a frank admission of his own skepticism.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the concept of memes, cultural and social evolution, and the cultural divide between the natural and the social sciences.You will not only learn something about memes, but you will also see how serious academic debate can be pulled off in a civilized and constructive manner.My hat is off to Robert Aunger!

A Wonderful Introduction to Meme Theory.
For those unfamiliar with the notion of "memes," they are, quite simply, the theoretical smallest cultural commodity - an idea - that replicates itself through its symbiotic relationship with its human host.The idea is either entirely absurd or the solution to the mystery of culture that has been the providence of anthropologists for the past century and a half.But, the notion was birth by a scientist (Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene [1977]), and this alone is enough to distance some potentially interested parties from the humanities and social sciences.Darwinizing Culture is at once the reiteration and clarification of the memetic theory (although most of the authors only work to obscure the idea in their work, pulling it in one direction or another - for their very particular use) and a series of arguments against memetic theory as it stands, as well as an argument against those theorists, isolated in the sciences, who so often find the idea attractive, and distanced from previous theories of culture and cultural development.

The collection brings together pieces from Susan Blackmore (author of The Meme Machine [Oxford, 1999]), Henry Plotkin, David Hull, and Dan Sperber, as well as many other younger theorists, all succeeding a rather terse foreword by Daniel Dennet - one of memetic theories greatest proponents.Aunger's introduction and conclusion to the collection are both wonderful contributions, and help to establish the debate, both contemporaneously and historically, for both memes enthusiasts and those new to the field.Blackmore's piece is an afterword to her earlier study, in part working to refute critics who found fault with her prior book-length examination, and as such, while it helps to provide a continuity for the debate, sets the tone of the collection, and that is one of distress.The collection effectively critiques itself by including both sides of the debate, which is admirable, but rather than clearing the slate, as Aunger hopes the collection will, it surely asks the reader to choose a side, and those ideologies are clearly demarcated by academic alignments.But that is not to say that the collection fails to be useful - in fact, quite the contrary: there are a number of essays (and I'm inclined to include them all in this), that help the conceptual understanding of the field on one level or another, but as they are in constant dialogue with one another, this utility is constantly compromised.

But, like every anthology, there is a single essay that stands out from the rest for its sheer insight and applicability, and in this case it is Kevin Laland and John Odling-Smee's innocuously titled "The Evolution of the Meme."Laland and Odling-Smee expand on Richard Dawkins' notion of the "extended phenotype" (from The Extended Phenotype [1982]), positing that the cultural artifacts that are created by civilization influence (and possible cause) both cultural and biological evolution.It sounds deceptively simple, but the premise is that by creating artifacts that alter the environment, simply by their sheer presence, the evolution of that culture is irreparable altered, always needing to incorporate the presence and utility of that artifact.With the explosion of artifacts endemic of consumer capitalism, our cultural evolution has been dramatically influenced, and Laland and Odling-Smee provide an interesting hypothesis to explain this sort of transformation in culture (and consciousness - surely Marshall McLuhan would agree with their suppositions).

If there is a fault with the collection, it is simply that the debate over memetics is a rather closed sphere - the majority of the essays cite the author's previous contribution to the field, or one or another of the other included authors.If nothing else, the contributions by Sperber and Adam Kuper should influence this, and hopefully encourage the steady incorporation of more anthropologically minded sources.

While the collection is at times rather tiresome for a meme enthusiast, and especially so for students of culture, who must deal with various reiterations of basic tenants of anthropology, it would seem to provide a comprehensive introduction to both the idea and the debates surrounding the idea for those new to the field.And for the meme enthusiast, especially for those schooled in the sciences, the arguments of Sperber and Kuper are especially important, bringing in more anthropological basis for this understanding. ... Read more

Product Description

The application of sophisticated evolutionary computing approaches for solving complex problems with multiple conflicting objectives in science and engineering have increased steadily in the recent years. Within this growing trend, Memetic algorithms are, perhaps, one of the most successful stories, having demonstrated better efficacy in dealing with multi-objective problems as compared to its conventional counterparts. Nonetheless, researchers are only beginning to realize the vast potential of multi-objective Memetic algorithm and there remain many open topics in its design.

Product Description
Richard Dawkins' formulation of the meme concept in his 1976 classic "The Selfish Gene" has inspired three decades of work in what many see as the burgeoning science of memetics. Its underpinning theory proposes that human culture is composed of a multitude of particulate units, memes, which are analogous to the genes of biological transmission. These cultural replicators are transmitted by imitation between members of a community and are subject to mutational-evolutionary pressures over time. Despite Dawkins and several others using music in their exemplifications of what might constitute a meme, these formulations have generally been quite rudimentary, even naive. This study is the first musicologically-orientated attempt systematically to apply the theory of memetics to music. In contrast to the two points of view normally adopted in music theory and analysis - namely those of the listener and the composer - the purpose of this book is to argue for a distinct and illuminating third perspective.This point of view is metaphorical and anthropomorphic, and the metaphor is challenging and controversial, but the way of thinking adopted has its basis in well-founded scientific principles and it is capable of generating insights not available from the first two standpoints. The perspective is that of the (selfish) replicated musical pattern itself, and adopting it is central to memetics. The approach taken is both theoretical and analytical. Starting with a discussion of evolutionary thinking within musicology, Jan goes on to cover the theoretical aspects of the memetics of music, ranging from quite abstract philosophical speculation to detailed consideration of what actually constitutes a meme in music. In doing so, Jan draws upon several approaches current in music theory, including Schenkerism and Narmour's implication-realization model. To demonstrate the practical utility of the memetic perspective, Chapter 6 applies it analytically, tracing the transmission of tetrachordal memes in string quartets of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven using computer resources.The book concludes with a consideration of the broader implications of memetics for understanding the interplay between (human) nature and (musical) culture. In all, the book is a tour de force for the wider implications of memetics for music. ... Read more

Product Description
The modern freight carrier business requires a sophisticated automatic decision support in order to ensure the efficiency and reliability and therefore the survival of transport service providers. This book addresses these challenges and provides generic decision models for the short-term operations planning as well as advanced metaheuristics to obtain efficient operation plans. After a thorough analysis of the operations planning in the freight carrier business, decision models are derived. Their suitability is proven within a large number of numerical experiments, in which a new class of hybrid genetic search approaches demonstrate their appropriateness. ... Read more

Product Description
In this thesis, three different graph-theoretical combinatorial optimization problems have been addressed by memetic and distributed algorithms. These three problems include the well-known 'Travelling Salesman Problem' (TSP) and the two communication problems 'Optimum Communication Spanning Tree Problem' (OCST) and 'Routing and Wavelength Assignment Problem' (RWA).The focus of the research presented in this thesis was on developing techniques to handle large instances of the above problems, where 'large' refers to problem sizes larger than those addressed in related works or large enough to pose a challenge for state-of-the-art heuristic solvers.For the TSP, a large number of publications and algorithms are available, so here research centers on how to solve large problem instances either by reducing the size of problem instances by fixing edges of a problem instance or by distributing the computation in sets of cluster nodes.For the OCST, a given local search algorithm was modified to handle large problem instances. The new local search algorithm was embedded into a distributed memetic algorithm with problem-specific recombination operators. For the RWA, most components of a distributed memetic algorithm were developed for this thesis, including local search, recombination, and distribution.To handle large problem instances, the algorithm was enhanced by a multilevel component to reduce the problem size. ... Read more

Product Description

Memetic algorithms are evolutionary algorithms that apply a local search process to refine solutions to hard problems. Memetic algorithms are the subject of intense scientific research and have been successfully applied to a multitude of real-world problems ranging from the construction of optimal university exam timetables, to the prediction of protein structures and the optimal design of space-craft trajectories. This monograph presents a rich state-of-the-art gallery of works on memetic algorithms. Recent Advances in Memetic Algorithms is the first book that focuses on this technology as the central topical matter. This book gives a coherent, integrated view on both good practice examples and new trends including a concise and self-contained introduction to memetic algorithms. It is a necessary read for postgraduate students and researchers interested in recent advances in search and optimization technologies based on memetic algorithms, but can also be used as complement to undergraduate textbooks on artificial intelligence.

Product Description
While authorities in psychology discuss whether memetics is a science, its use by politicians, marketing departments and mass media becomes more and more ubiquitous.

Consider a computer. You can only use a word processor to edit a text. You can only use a merchant's website to order merchandize. But you can use programming languages like C++ or C# to make a computer do virtually anything you want. Similarly, psychology is not enough anymore for politicians, mass media, and large businesses. Preinstalled programs in human minds, such as widely accepted social norms, habits, and prejudices, are not enough for them to exploit anymore. They want to make you do virtually anything they want you to do.

Do you want to defend yourself?

Mind viruses are not biological viruses like influenza, but pieces of information or ideas that, once they get into our minds, are capable of causing us to replicate them to other people’s minds. They are very much like computer viruses, but instead of spreading from one computer to another, they spread from one human mind to another. They are also similar to the usual biological viruses (flu, cold, hepatitis, AIDS) in the sense that they use us to replicate themselves. And just like biological and computer viruses, they usually hurt the host in the process. This host is you.

Mind viruses force your mind to replicate them, because that’s the only purpose of their existence. If it hurts you, the virus does not care, as long as you continue to replicate it.

As such, they compete with each other for the place in human minds, like yours. This competition results in a sort of evolution where only those mind viruses survive that are most efficient in grabbing your attention and forcing you to spread them. In doing so, they have no concern for your well-being. They don’t have a reason to be relevant to your life and wellness. In fact, one of their main goals is to impair your judgment, because otherwise, why would you spread them?

The very existence of mind viruses is based on their ability to impair your judgment, which you need for your own survival and success.

And once they take over, they are forcing you to spread them. This means that you spend cycles in your life spreading the virus instead of working on improving your own life … or just merely enjoying your own life. In fact,

Enjoying your life is something that mind viruses attack first, because the promise of enjoying your life in the future is one of the most efficient ways to force you into replicating them.

As you can guess, the future reward never comes.

Long story short, mind viruses can:

• Impair your judgment;
• Make you act against your own interests;
• Prevent your success in life;
• Prevent you from enjoying your life.

Don’t believe it? Read on… ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Surprisingly good
Whevever I see a book on memetics I have to read it. There aren't many of them...
This one offers a clear and accurate definition of memes, avoids confusion of memes and words and explains the matter in simple and undestandable language.
It seems fun and easy reading, especially at first, but don't let this deceive you. It discusses serious things and does it well.

Interesting but not good
I got this as I have always been interested in the notion of Memes since reading Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" years ago.If anyone else has an interest in the subject I suggest getting something else, perhaps "The Meme Machine" by Susan Blackmore. This book here is an attempt to show certain meme strings and discuss the problems they have or the corruptive properties inhernet in them, but it does a poor job, the style is very boring, the subject treatment is barely adequate and the topics it runs through are fairly half rate.There is a similar book on mental cleaning by Jamie Whyte called "Crimes Against Logic" which is a far better treatment of logic problems found in society written by some one that knows the subject quite well.Pass this by and get one of the others.

Practical information
This is a really nice, straight-to-the-point breakdown of what memes are, how they are used, how they affect you, and how to use them. I've been experimenting with trance states, meditation, nlp, and classical hypnosis for a few years and this short book has done more for me than anything else I've read.I've been fed up with long-winded nonsense and this book was the answer to my prayers. There was a small amount of biblical reference I could have done without, though, it they were relevant examples, I guess.Bottom line, this book is pure substance, No fluff.

Real good!
I like books of this author. They are fun to read, but this one also was an eye opener. I never thought about a human mind as sort of a computer, programmable with what we see, hear or read, but once I read the book, it makes a lot of sense.

For example, We all know that hamburgers and french fries are bad for us. But imagine that you read first time in your life some good book, which describes what a hamburger does to your body with all this glycemic index, insulin resistance and turning your genes into a store-fat mode? That's sort of what _this_ book shows you about watching TV. For a couple of weeks after reading this book I could not help but count hooks, which the authors used in every political show or commercial ad I saw. And it's more than that. I really tried to use techniques from this book at work, and in a couple of months my idea was adopted and the way to go for the whole team. Something that does not normally happen unless you are a boss or an architect.

On a minus side, some examples closer to the end are somewhat hard to follow, but overall it's a very good read. A must-read, if you want ot keep you head bugs-free (and use bugs in the heads of others instead of being annoyed like hell with them). ... Read more

Product Description
A meme is a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, and is transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. (The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word mimemafor "something imitated".)Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate and respond to selective pressures. Memeticists have not empirically proven the existence of discrete memes or their proposed mechanism (compare the status of Platonic forms or of concepts such as "ideals"), and memes (as distinct from ideas or cultural phenomena) do not form part of the consensus of mainstream social sciences. ... Read more

Product Description
This phenomenal work possesses the very real possibility of being hailed as one of the most profound underground books on the magical arts ever written.

Never before has the occult nature of society, the Root Social Matrix, been discussed. In addition, the paradigm-shattering claim is made that this book contains the foundational framework underlying a thorough comprehension of the means by which the very fabric of reality can be manipulated through simple artistic techniques based on memetic symbology.

The ancient wisdom of the pagan sorcerers is combined with modern scientific social theory by a cultural anthropologist, resulting in a new age of magic where reality itself becomes mutable. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (26)

This is the "Green Pill"
No, this tomb will not teach you how to dodge bullets or walk on walls. But it will teach you how to dodge social programming and walk your own SELF chosen path.
I have read many books on magic(as I am sure many of you have too), but what sets this book apart is its intelligent and historically proven approach to magic. If that isn't enough Mr. Packwood explains in detail how over 99% of people are programmed not to use magic or to even think for themselves for that matter.

This book is a marvel.

My suggestion to you....take the green pill.

It will render you binoculars in the land of the blind.

Blatant Rehash of Old Ideas
While packaged in a "new and daring" box, it turns out to be the same old stuff.... Nothing new here...just Maya, or more correctly a subset of Maya. Basic Hindi or Buddhist thought given a Paranoid Conspiracy Theory twist...please be compassionate with the poor controlbots and dominators...they know not what they do. The book lacks any kind of real development of ideas. The lame automatic drawing/writing/etc. hardly qualifies as Magick...I did like the insight of all writing/drawing being influenced by the "spiritual realm"...but to engage in this is just spiritualism...automatic or willed. Besides, consider that these spirits/angels/demons are really Maya at work...JUST a PRODUCT of MIND.MARK PAXSON

Great Ideas
Very unusual and definitely will effect your views on magic and how it can be done. It is mostly geared towards writers, artists or people capable of putting things into public view. He gives you the means to create mental "viruses" which infect the minds of others and change brain programming. Very useful if you have a way to diseminate work into a public forum.

It is also useful as a means of seeing how people get programmed and offers a way to get a measure of your mind un-programmed as well as giving you the chance of what you will re-program your mind with.

Interesting, Different, Well worth the read
This book is absolutely not what I envisioned when I ordered it.
So I was wrong. Happily wrong. This book is full of surprises. It takes a fresh, unique look at a subject swamped with archaic mumbo-jumbo.

Weirdly Cool and Modern
I'm glad I decided to ignore a couple of the recent reviews. It looks like someones' X-girlfriends are angry heheheh. But please... can we keep that kind of stuff out of book reviews?? Huh?

This book is non-scientific only in the fact that Memetic Magic is the cutting edge of occult memetics. This is the kind of stuff that won't get mainstream "scientific" (cough.. cough... can you say "Dark Ages and Catholic Church") acceptance for another 50 years or so. But it's true nonetheless. That's what I like about this one. Packwood's not afraid to talk about the occult aspects of memetics, society, and magick even though mainstream scientists would never let this kind of information come out. It's too dangerous to our essentially conservative society.

This book was out there, but that's why it was so cool. I checked out the Jaguar Temple Press webpage (jaguartemple com) and saw some more weird-weird pics and a list of upcoming releases that go even deeper into occult memetics and hardcore real magick. Looking good.

and Mr. Packwood... don't let the naysayers bother you. You're writing what needs to be written and the truth always gets heavy resistance.

This book is for the rare SMART individual who (at the very least) has a sense of what's really going on but can't express it or can't make that last step into real-reality.

A REALLY good book. Read this one.
... Read more

Product Description
Why is it that we talk so much? Why can't weinfluence the way we speak and why do we useswearwords even when we don't want to? These andother questions are the starting point of this book.So called bad language is dealt with, as ispoliteness, and possible reasons for our use ofcertain types of language like medical or legaljargon are investigated. From a biological point ofview these phenomena seem to be rather harmful to thespeaker sometimes, but once we adopt a memetic pointof view they seem to make perfect sense. So after abrief introduction into both evolutionary biology andmemetics, Edith Simmel explores certain peculiaritiesof language anddiscusses possible explanations forour speaking behaviours. ... Read more

Product Description
From the boardrooms of big business to the streets of the inner city, from the south side of Chicago to apartheid South Africa, Dr. Don Beck has taught people at all levels how to stop clashing and start communicating. His method is called Spiral Dynamics Integral, a revolutionary new way of perceiving human nature that lets us understand, predict, and resolve even the most difficult conflicts. In his effort to map the genome of the mind, Dr. Beck has created a tool he calls the Spiral, which charts the underlying reasons for virtually everything that human beings think, believe, and do. Breaking down the "complexity codes" that lie at the heart of a problem, he explains, is the first step toward coming up with a real, lasting solution. ... Read more

Product Description
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Memetics is a term coined by Douglas Hofstadter in the 1980s, relating to the notion of meme, introduced by Richard Dawkins, as genetics relates to that of gene. Memetics purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A Journal of Memetics was published electronically from 1997 to 2005 ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Computer Science & Technology, published by Thomson Gale on December 1, 2005. The length of the article is 8208 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Cellular memetic algorithms.
Author: Enrique Alba
Publication: Journal of Computer Science & Technology (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 5Issue: 4Page: 257(7)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Computers and Operations Research, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
A new problem encoding is devised for the minimum span frequency assignment problem in wireless communications networks which is compact and general. Using the new encoding, which reduces search space dramatically over previous problem encodings, an optimization algorithm is developed which combines a genetic algorithm global search with a computationally efficient local search method from the literature. This memetic algorithm is shown to be more effective than six previous approaches in the literature on a suite of established test problems. Further, it shown that the integration of the global search with the local search is important; neither component by itself is nearly as effective. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from European Journal of Operational Research, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
We address the automatic generation of timetables for non-commercial sport leagues. By example of table-tennis we stress the particularity of non-commercial leagues, namely the limited access to sport facilities and temporary non-availability of sportsmen. For this problem class we propose a Memetic Algorithm backed by a constraint propagation based heuristic. The order of variable instantiation for this heuristic is evolved adaptively by means of a co-evolutionary approach. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Variaciones Borges, published by Thomson Gale on July 1, 2005. The length of the article is 6688 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Borges and memetics: the immortality of ideas.(Jorge Luis Borges )(Critical Essay)
Author: Ricardo Waizbort
Publication: Variaciones Borges (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 20Page: 125(18)

Article Type: Critical Essay

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more