Behind the Scenes of The Brain Show

by Zeev Nitsan

  This method proved to be effective with respect to treating depression, and it is being examined as a treatment for degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as for bipolar disorder.

  It was also found that therapy based on transcranial direct-current stimulation, directed at the cortex at the area of the frontal lobe from the left, might improve the ability to name different objects among people who suffered a stroke that was expressed as aphasia.

  Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a therapeutic method in which direct stimulation of deep brain areas is made through an electrode that is placed in them. This method has significantly improved the condition of some of Parkinson’s patients. The parameters of stimulation are controllable and can be recalibrated by a device that is external to the patient’s body. This therapy mostly relieves the severe motor symptoms of the disease. Among brain areas that are electrically stimulated this way, there are the subthalamic nucleus, the inner part of a brain structure called the globus pallidus, and the ventral area of the thalamus.

  In the spirit of the saying “similia similibus curentur” (“like is cured by like” in Latin,) which is taken from homeopathy, electrical stimulations of the brain are also intended to relieve the electrical storm that takes place in the brain of those who suffer from epilepsy when it is difficult to control by means of medications.

  Chapter 11: Memetics—When the Brain Meets an Idea

  Memes are ideas that duplicate themselves by “skipping” from one brain to another by means of transferring information from one person to the next.

  As units of self-duplication, memes share similarities with our genes, the components of genetic heredity. Like them, they are entities that duplicate themselves when transferring from one person to another.

  Memetics is the discipline that focuses on the nature and the manner of transfer of memes from one brain to another.

  Survival—The Neuron Version of the Reality Show

  Survival of memes is a process related to Darwinism of ideas.

  The brain is an ecological system in which networks of neurons struggle for their survival. At another, parallel layer, a survival battle of ideas takes place. The brain is a battlefield in which an evolutionary survival war takes place fiercely, both at the physical front (the survival of the fittest neuron networks) and at the ideation front (the survival of insights and beliefs, in which there is also an aspect of physical infrastructure).

  An idea that is encoded in a network that is richer in neurons has a better chance of surviving. A multitude of synapses (i.e., connecting junctions between the neurons) is a powerful prediction factor with respect to survivability of ideas. A “multisynaptic idea” usually survives longer.

  Neural Darwinism sometimes seems like a Hobbesian jungle in which, in the spirit of Hobbes’s philosophical theory, an idea is a wolf to another idea. Memes are units of information that are forced by their nature to duplicate themselves in a “selfish” manner. In the functional sense, a neural network that retains a certain idea attempts to ascribe to itself energy resources and cause the neurons that take part in encoding a competitive idea to desert that idea and join its ranks.

  In a somewhat simplistic tone, we might say that evolution is a combination of two processes, one of which is random and the second of which is not; the creation of mutations is a random process. The selection process is mostly a nonrandom process that is dictated by the environment. And, as an analogy to memes, a subconscious, creative process that causes the creation of an innovative meme mostly includes many features of a “random” process. On the other hand, success in spreading the meme to other brains includes many features of a nonrandom process that is “environment-dependent.”

  Merging of Memes

  A success in the implementation of an abstract idea mostly constitutes the climax of a collective learning process in which multiple memes were fused together and numerous upgrades deriving from multiple brains merged into an impressive product.

  Conceptual hybridization—i.e., the combination of similar concepts—often brings about a whole that is bigger than its parts. In other words, the resulting understanding is better than the understanding that results from each of the separate explanations. It can be seen as “the different mathematics of thoughts.”

  As a grain of salt or spray of lemon, as a small quantity that betters the taste of the whole, so is a word in the right place; an additional little “meme” can significantly improve a whole paragraph or the entire set of memes.

  Engraved in Neuron—the Structural Infrastructure of Memes

  The abstract conceptual infrastructure is fixated as a neural, structural infrastructure inside our brain.

  Perceptions and ideas change the wiring of our brain. Different memes wire the brain in different manners, and different wiring even causes various mutations among the memes.

  A possible practical implementation is adapting higher selectivity with regard to memes that visit our brain (some of which will become permanent residents) through selective exposure to them.

  Intergenerational Confrontation—Senior Memes and Novice Memes

  We tend to prefer information that fits our beliefs. Senior memes magnetize memes that are compatible with them and reject the ones that contradict them. There is a threshold, however, and once this threshold is crossed, our consciousness, with the senior memes it contains, confronts the novice memes and challenges them.

  In other words, in order to facilitate the assimilation process of new memes, backward compatibility is required. Memes that contain information that contradicts the senior memes, which are established as patterns, will be met with suspicion.

  Creativity and Memes

  The Fusion Kitchen of Memes

  The dishes of our brain casserole, which merge different insights, are at the basis of creativity. A new conceptual combination made by creating new links between memes is the essence of creativity.

  Sometimes a comprehensive meme is created, which groups together memes that were not combined earlier. Sometimes the cluster of memes is dismantled into separate components, which are regrouped in a different pattern.

  Important facts, when they are out of context, might constitute “white noise” that makes the clarification and understanding of a phenomenon more difficult. When these facts are connected in the right context, however, a conceptual structure that was previously invisible is built out of them.

  Measured doses of “loose association” and “flight of ideas” (when the dosage is too high, we might find ourselves in the isolation ward of a psychiatric institute) are needed in order to match conceptual creatures that come from brain continents that are located far away from each other. As our mental grip on a certain thread of thought becomes tighter, our grip on other threads of thoughts becomes looser. Yet, in order to bring together numerous threads of thoughts, such a loose grip is sometimes required.

  At times, a meme that sprouted in our brain wins our appreciation only after another brain brings it to our mental attention, although the meme was there, inside our brain, all along. It is similar to a saying according to which the insight that the pupil heard from the wise man following an arduous journey to the top of a mountain is sometimes the same insight the pupil himself brought with him.

  Sometimes the ingredients of a marvelous conceptual recipe float in the space of interbrain discourse (i.e., information shared by numerous brains), and once one of the brains turns them into a unified whole, a winning recipe is created in the cookbook of ideas—in other words, a super-meme is born.

  An infectious conscious metamorphosis is, for example, the “illogical” spatial shapes that were invented by the British mathematician Roger Penrose, which served as inspiration for the drawings of Maurits Cornelis Escher, such as the famous painting of the ascending-descending stairs.

  The Birth of a Supermeme—the Fractal Insight Example

  A super-meme is a captivating idea that shakes the foundations of
our senior memes and gets to infect numerous brains at once.

  An example of the creation of a super-meme is the fractal insight—a broken dimension that exists in between a line and a surface. Once this insight was thought of, it was rapidly assimilated in many disciplines.

  Configurational hybrids with fractal features are widespread in our world: the veins of the falling leaves, the pyrotechnic show of lightning, and the pathways of brain axons. The fingerprint of fractal architecture can also be found in the structure of the brain, visible to the naked eye, which resembles a walnut or a cauliflower.

  Fractals have configurational features that exist in between the dimensions—between a line (one dimension) to a surface (two dimensions).

  In 1975 the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot coined the term “fractal,” which means “fracture,” as a reflection of the fact that figures, structures, and lines whose dimensions are in between one dimension and another can be expressed as a number plus a fracture of a number. Mandelbrot stirred up a conceptual revolution with respect to the perception of natural shapes and, in the linguistic sense, exposed to the light of verbal consciousness a perceptual layer that was concealed from the linguistic memes’ consciousness—as long as there had not been coined a particular linguistic term that defined it. The birth of the fractal is a wonderful example of a phenomenon that existed before our material eyes but was, in many senses, concealed from our perceptional eyes. Some might claim that it illustrates the fact that language limitations, which were broken by Mandelbrot once he defined the phenomenon and gave it a name, might also be the limitations of our conceptual world. In fact, Mandelbrot gave birth to a conceptual meme that had been there all along but which our perception had tended to skip before it was linguistically defined and explained.

  Yellow Submarine at the Dock of Consciousness (Inspired by the Beatles’ Song)

  Sometimes cultural icons turn into super-memes.

  Human culture tends to glorify cultural icons and create a memetic heritage around them. At times, the traits that are ascribed to the cultural icon exceed the limits of the person at its basis. In this context, there is the anecdote about Charlie Chaplin, who participated in a Charlie Chaplin imitators’ contest and only won third place.

  The Hemispheric Identity of the Memes

  The hemispheric identity of memes is determined by the pattern of their birth and development. Many of them are the result of a mix that reflects the contribution of both hemispheres.

  The seeds of the memes that were born in our brain, fed on the condition of the ecological niche that is unique to our brain and developed in a unique pattern, will be prone to innovation and will be characterized as right-hemisphere oriented. On the other hand, the memes that we receive in one piece and that conveniently integrate with senior memes in our brain will be characterized as left-hemisphere oriented.

  We mostly store the memes whose perceptional representation is “common insights regarding our world” in the left hemisphere.

  The Actuarial Science of Memes

  A meme that has a survival ability is mostly one that is characterized by a relatively low level of randomality noise compared to other memes. With respect to ideas that manage to survive crises over time, it seems that the origin of their preferred resistance derives from being less infected by randomality in the database on which they rely.

  The creation of echoing memes (which, metaphorically speaking, triggers continuous vibrations in the communication circles in the brain and involve numerous neuron networks) reinforces their assimilation and impact. From a pedagogical point of view, it is important to pump into the brain conceptual mint ideas (memes) with an educational message so that they will echo in the space of thought for a long period of time and project on many thoughts.

  Environment and Genetics as Memes’ Designers

  Our brain is a machine that absorbs, preserves, creates, and distributes memes. Some of the memes are genetically imbedded in the brain, while others are absorbed from the surroundings. The unique contribution of the brain is in creating new memes.

  The interrelations between genetics and environment are prominent in the brain. Conceptual feeding and environmental stimulation make the brain adapt itself to them (a different cultural environment creates a different brain).

  Memes’ mutation takes place in the brain. Brains are like “parallel universes” in which the physics laws are similar but not identical (the general anatomy represents the similar aspects, and the different wiring represents the variance). The various brains are like greenhouses of different climates, which are unique to each brain and in which there is a different evolutionary course to each of the memes. Thus, in different brains, different versions of a meme that is considered an ancestor—a common meme in the community in which the brain owner was raised—are created.

  Epigenetics and Memes

  Epigenetics (“epi” means “above” in Greek; as a whole, beyond genetics) refers to the entire processes that influence heredity; they are not mediated directly by the genes but rather by different conditions that affect the expression of the genes’ products.

  An example of the workings of epigenetics is proteins that activate or silence expression of particular genes according to environmental conditions. The principle of epigenetics also works for memes (“epimemetics”). Different memes might remain dormant for a long time and be resurrected when the memes’ climate around them encourages it.

  There are types of animals (like the blind mole) that do not carry out memes’ heredity from one generation to the next, since their lifestyle does not include “parental guidance”; they are abandoned a short time after birth and live their life as lone individuals. They are forced to develop their understanding of the world by themselves almost from the beginning (almost, since they are equipped with changing doses of innate wisdom). Each of these animals resembles a cognitive Robinson Crusoe, who independently develops a worldview that fits his personal island; in the mole’s case, the ecological niche it lives in. From the animal’s perspective, this niche is the entire world. In the absence of accessible accumulated wisdom, which stores the knowledge of previous generations and transfers it forward to the next generations (by training and imitation, for example), the animals are forced to create insights regarding the world, almost from scratch, in a manner of experiencing sequential hardships, and the price is sometimes a death toll.

  As a result, the depth and scope of the insights of these animals are humble. These kinds of animals resemble lonesome horsemen who ride on the paths of life without receiving past insights from other members of their species and do not pass on accumulated insights to the next generation.

  The Memes as Designers of the Pattern of Information Passing

  There are at least four ways of transferring information between generations:

  Genetic transfer in the language of DNA.

  Transfer by means of feedback mechanisms that respond to the environment and turn the genes on/off in accordance to environmental conditions; this is transfer in an epigenetic pattern.

  Transfer by means of direct behavioral imitation.

  Transfer in a way that is unique to human beings—conceptualization by means of symbols, such as written language—i.e., memetics.

  It seems that the memes have an impact on the pattern of information transfer, at least in the case of the last three sections.

  The Genes–Memes Interface

  There are two suns in human skies, in the sense that humans exist in the shade of two evolutionary processes. The one—biological—duplicates the genes and is epigenetic (depends upon proteins), and the second—cultural—duplicates memes. In the clash between the decree of the gene and protein and the decree of the meme, the meme often wins. For instance, the meme that brings about the lifestyle that contradicts genes’ duplication—monasticism.

  In this sense, our brain serves as a storage container, but it is not a passive agent of memes’ duplication. Memes’ mutations ar
e created in every human brain as a result of recombination and hybridizations between memes or parts of memes that have already acquired a foothold in the brain of that person. If the person shares them with others, the newly born memes’ creatures wander to humanity’s world of ideas.

  In the information age, the memes have become more viral and infect populations more rapidly, and in a much more parallel manner, compared to genes. The meme does not require a courtship period and an additional nine months in order to be transferred to another body. In order to win massive, immediate exposure, all it takes is uploading to the Internet.

  In many senses, the memes’ evolution reinforces the human brain’s capabilities even more than the genetic-biological evolution.

  The memes—the various ideas and skills encoded in our brain, which are the basis of human culture—change our brain in the anatomic and physiological sense (i.e., they have a clear material signature). In a sense, a new course that “bypasses traditional evolution” is created here, since, through epigenetic means, the memes press the activation buttons and, alternatively, inactivation buttons of genes. They press the keys of protein production and change the structure of neural communication networks. In other words, they influence the gene and, accordingly, the protein encoded by it and, as a result, the wiring of neurons.