Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 A meme is like a Beethoven symphony. It’s a good example of how the word can be used. A library is just a book’s way of making another book. memes have to do with human beings. If you make a bunch of photocopies of a document, that doesn’t give it good memes. But if people start memorizing and reciting them, it’s a good meme. #2 A meme is an information unit that is imitated. It is the basic unit of imitation. The question of what are the interesting memes is the right one to ask. #3 The meme is the secret code of human behavior, and it has a central place in the new paradigm of life and culture. It explains how cultural evolution takes place from the point of view of the meme, rather than the point of view of an individual or society. #4 The biological definition of a meme is the basic unit of cultural transmission. Everything we call culture is made up of atomlike memes that compete with one another to spread from mind to mind.

Virus of the Mind is the first popular book devoted to the science of memetics, a controversial new field that transcends psychology, biology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Memetics is the science of memes, the invisible but very real DNA of human society. In Virus of the Mind, Richard Brodie carefully builds on the work of scientists Ric...

Fans of Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Bennet, and Richard Dawkins (as well as science buffs and readers of Wired Magazine) will revel in Aaron Lynch’s groundbreaking examination of memetics--the new study of how ideas and beliefs spread. What characterizes a meme is its capacity for displacing rival ideas and beliefs in an evolutionary drama that determines and changes the way people think. Exactly how do ideas spread, and what are the factors that make them genuine thought contagions? Why, for instance, do some beliefs spread throughout society, while others dwindle to extinction? What drives those intensely held beliefs that spawn ideological and political debates such as views on abortion and opinions about sex and sexuality?By drawing on examples from everyday life, Lynch develops a conceptual basis for understanding memetics. Memes evolve by natural selection in a process similar to that of Genes in evolutionary biology. What makes an idea a potent meme is how effectively it out-propagates other ideas. In memetic evolution, the "fittest ideas” are not always the truest or the most helpful, but the ones best at self replication.Thus, crash diets spread not because of lasting benefit, but by alternating episodes of dramatic weight loss and slow regain. Each sudden thinning provokes onlookers to ask, "How did you do it?” thereby manipulating them to experiment with the diet and in turn, spread it again. The faster the pounds return, the more often these people enter that disseminating phase, all of which favors outbreaks of the most pathogenic diets. Like a software virus traveling on the Internet or a flu strain passing through a city, thought contagions proliferate by programming for their own propagation. Lynch argues that certain beliefs spread like viruses and evolve like microbes, as mutant strains vie for more adherents and more hosts. In its most revolutionary aspect, memetics asks not how people accumulate ideas, but how ideas accumulate people. Readers of this intriguing theory will be amazed to discover that many popular beliefs about family, sex, politics, religion, health, and war have succeeded by their "fitness” as thought contagions.

Some people have something to say in any conversation and can spot the hidden angles of completely unrelated problems; but how do they do it? So many books, apps, courses, and schools compete for our attention that the problem isn't a lack of opportunity to sharpen our minds, it's having to choose between so many options. And yet, more than two thousand years ago, the greatest thinker of Ancient Greece, Aristotle, had already discovered the blueprint of the human mind. Despite the fact that the latest cognitive science shows his blueprint to be exactly what sharpens our reasoning, subtlety of thought, and ability to think in different ways and for ourselves, we have meanwhile replaced it with a simplistic and seductive view of intelligence, education and the mind. Condensing that blueprint to six 'secrets', Craig Adams uncovers the underlying patterns of every discussion and debate we've ever had, and shows us how to be both harder to manipulate and more skilful in any conversation or debate – no matter the topic.

Richard Brodie dropped out of Harvard to join the computer revolution and write the first version of Microsoft Word. Then, burned-out helping Microsoft achieve its phenomenal success, he quit and embarked on an equally intense search for a more meaningful life. For three years Richard mined the wisdom of famed self improvement seminars and workshops. Most of all, he wanted to discover why life seemed to coast along at either an ''OK''level or plummet into ''the pits,''spending so little time in true satisfaction and fulfillment. In this book, he shares the results of his odyssey, providing a step by step guide for discovering your own individual formula for long term success and happiness. It gives you all the tools you need to find yourself, take charge, and get past OK You'll learn how to: Understand what's really going on in your life Make the most of your potential Pull out of crises-and move on Achieve rewarding relationships Be in control of stressful situations Keep your quality of life in the WOW zone

The ways of memes. Memes are "viruses of the mind"—symbols, ideas, or practices that are transmitted through speech, gestures, and rituals. Understanding how symbols like the peace sign or ad slogans like "Where's the beef?" or viral videos become part of our common culture has become a primary focus of sales and marketing companies across the globe. The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Memes explains how memes work, how they spread, and what memes tell us about how we make sense of our world. • First book to cover all types of memes, including viral memes in the digital age • Features the Most Influential Memes in History and the Ten Biggest Internet Memes

Humans are extraordinary creatures, with the unique ability among animals to imitate and so copy from one another ideas, habits, skills, behaviours, inventions, songs, and stories. These are all memes, a term first coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. Memes, like genes, are replicators, and this enthralling book is an investigation of whether this link between genes and memes can lead to important discoveries about the nature of the inner self. Confronting the deepest questions about our inner selves, with all our emotions, memories, beliefs, and decisions, Susan Blackmore makes a compelling case for the theory that the inner self is merely an illusion created by the memes for the sake of replication.