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8:17

(In »From semiotics via memetics to the collapse of militant atheism«)

A meme survives and multiplies by making copies of itself, and thanks to its ability to blend in and appear useful or entertaining for a certain subject in a given situation at a certain point in time. Once again: it has nothing to do with what is true or false. This distinguishes the meme from the sign as a concept. Memetics quite simply constitutes a relationalist radicalisation of semiotics in the same way that Whitehead’s philosophy.html">process philosophy is a relationalist radicalisation of Peirce’s and William James’ relativist pragmatism. Through memetics – in particular through the introduction of emergent memeplexes – we shift towards a network-dynamics understanding of culture’s relationship to nature. The individual is no longer needed and has no function in this analysis. The dividual of network dynamics (see The Netocrats) takes over, and as a result of this paradigm shift, Man is taken from the centre of science to a peripheral seat in the grandstand, where he must be content with acting as the passive spectator and at the same time being seized as a storage and transportation vessel subservient to the extremely dynamic evolution of memes. All the work is done by the memes. The anthropocentric impulse and Man’s pride thus gets yet another flick on the nose, which in turn opens the way for universocentric interdependence, which is attendant on network dynamics.