The Molecule as Meme

The Molecule as Meme PDF Author: Jeffrey Huw Williams
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
ISBN: 1643272926
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 146

Get Book Here

Book Description
It was not until 1971 that the authority for defining scientific units, the General Conference of Weights and Measures got around to defining the unit that is the basis of chemistry (the mole, or the quantity of something). Yet for all this tardiness in putting the chemical sciences on a sound quantitative basis, chemistry is an old and venerable subject and one naturally asks the question, why? Well, the truth is that up until the mid-1920s, many physicists did not believe in the reality of molecules. Indeed, it was not until after the physics community had accepted Ernest Rutherford's 1913 solar-system-like model of the atom, and the quantum mechanical model of the coupling of electron spins in atoms that physicists started to take seriously the necessity of explaining the chemical changes that chemists had been observing, investigating and recording since the days of the alchemists.

The Molecule as Meme

The Molecule as Meme PDF Author: Jeffrey Huw Williams
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
ISBN: 1643272926
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 146

Get Book Here

Book Description
It was not until 1971 that the authority for defining scientific units, the General Conference of Weights and Measures got around to defining the unit that is the basis of chemistry (the mole, or the quantity of something). Yet for all this tardiness in putting the chemical sciences on a sound quantitative basis, chemistry is an old and venerable subject and one naturally asks the question, why? Well, the truth is that up until the mid-1920s, many physicists did not believe in the reality of molecules. Indeed, it was not until after the physics community had accepted Ernest Rutherford's 1913 solar-system-like model of the atom, and the quantum mechanical model of the coupling of electron spins in atoms that physicists started to take seriously the necessity of explaining the chemical changes that chemists had been observing, investigating and recording since the days of the alchemists.

The Meme Machine

The Meme Machine PDF Author: Susan Blackmore
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191574619
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

The Electric Meme

The Electric Meme PDF Author: Robert Aunger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476740569
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 479

Get Book Here

Book Description
From biology to culture to the new new economy, the buzzword on everyone's lips is "meme." How do animals learn things? How does human culture evolve? How does viral marketing work? The answer to these disparate questions and even to what is the nature of thought itself is, simply, the meme. For decades researchers have been convinced that memes were The Next Big Thing for the understanding of society and ourselves. But no one has so far been able to define what they are. Until now. Here, for the first time, Robert Aunger outlines what a meme physically is, how memes originated, how they developed, and how they have made our brains into their survival systems. They are thoughts. They are parasites. They are in control. A meme is a distinct pattern of electrical charges in a node in our brains that reproduces a thousand times faster than a bacterium. Memes have found ways to leap from one brain to another. A number of them are being replicated in your brain as you read this paragraph. In 1976 the biologist Richard Dawkins suggested that all animals -- including humans -- are puppets and that genes hold the strings. That is, we are robots serving as life support for the genes that control us. And all they want to do is replicate themselves. But then, we do lots of things that don't seem to help genes replicate. We decide not to have children, we waste our time doing dangerous things like mountain climbing, or boring things like reading, or stupid things like smoking that don't seem to help genes get copied into the next generation. We do all sorts of cultural things for reasons that don't seem to have anything to do with genes. Fashions in sports, books, clothes, ideas, politics, lifestyles come and go and give our lives meaning, so how can we be gene robots? Dawkins recognized that something else was going on. We communicate with one another and we get ideas, and these ideas seem to have a life of their own. Maybe there was something called memes that were like thought genes. Maybe our bodies were gene robots and our minds were meme robots. That would mean that what we think is not the result of our own creativity, but rather the result of the evolutionary flow of memes as they wash through us. What is the biological reality of an idea with a life of its own? What is a thought gene? It's a meme. And no one before Robert Aunger has established what it physically must be. This elegant, paradigm-shifting analysis identifies how memes replicate in our brains, how they evolved, and how they use artifacts like books and photographs and advertisements to get from one brain to another. Destined to inflame arguments about free will, open doors to new ways of sharing our thoughts, and provide a revolutionary explanation of consciousness, The Electric Meme will change the way each of us thinks about our minds, our cultures, and our daily choices.

Energy

Energy PDF Author: Frank Niele
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 008045903X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Get Book Here

Book Description
Energy: Engine of Evolution is a compelling book that provides a compact history of energy over the last four billion years, with the aim of creating a sound basis to understanding the possible futures of the energy industry. It describes the role that energy has played in the evolution of nature and culture, the impact it has had on the world over time and the implications that we are faced with concerning the role of energy in the future. This book describes the relationship between life and energy through time, outlining how the major revolutions in the evolution of life on earth were driven by developments at the energy frontiers. Energy: Engine of Evolution states that we are on the verge of the next energy revolution, where we will learn how to master new energy forms in a new way. As a result of years of research and discussions by leading experts in the oil and gas industry, this publication offers inspiring insights and examples of new approaches to technological and evolutionary developments, paving the way towards a more sustainable future.* Provides evolutionary insight * Introduces an Energy Time Scale that shows key relationships between energy and the history of planet Earth* Contains exciting examples of new approaches to sustainable development

The Meme Machine

The Meme Machine PDF Author: Susan Blackmore
Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
ISBN: 019286212X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

The Memetics of Music

The Memetics of Music PDF Author: Steven Jan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351542656
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Get Book Here

Book Description
Richard Dawkins's 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 na. 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 o

Imagining the Earth

Imagining the Earth PDF Author: John Elder
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820318477
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
This landmark work explores how our attitudes toward nature are mirrored in and influenced by poetry. Showing us a resurgent vision of harmony between nature and humanity in the work of some of our most widely read poets, Imagining the Earth reveals the power of poetry to identify, interpret, and celebrate a wide range of issues related to nature and our place in it.

The Consolations of Humor and Other Folklore Essays

The Consolations of Humor and Other Folklore Essays PDF Author: Elliott Oring
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1646425197
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Consolations of Humor and Other Folklore Essays unfolds as a series of questions, commentaries, and criticisms of the analysis, interpretation, and explanation of folklore. Can we confidently regard jokes as the catharsis of sexual and aggressive impulses? What is the basis for characterizing a joke as Jewish or Scottish or Japanese? What do we really know about “dirty jokes”? How is a text or behavior constructed so that it is perceived as humorous? Can we get a computer to reliably recognize jokes? What is the relevance of memetics and a Darwinian paradigm to understanding folklore change over time? Can we identify laws operating in the realm of folklore? How can the marginalization, extinction, or continuity of traditions be explained? In the course of addressing these questions, Elliott Oring identifies some fundamental problems, brings new evidence and observations to the discussion, and proffers some original and startling insights. While recognizing the study of jokes and other forms of folklore as a humanistic endeavor, Oring believes in the relevance of a scientific perspective to the enterprise. He values clear definitions, tests of hypotheses and theories, empirical evidence, experiment, and the search for laws. Written in a sophisticated yet accessible style, The Consolations of Humor and Other Folklore Essays stimulates both scholars and students alike and contributes to the creation of a more robust folkloristics in the twenty-first century.

Survival Is Not Enough

Survival Is Not Enough PDF Author: Seth Godin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471105784
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book Here

Book Description
Everything in our world, from marketing to technology to distribution to the capital markets, is moving at a faster pace than ever. Yet most companies view change as a threat, and survival as the goal. This book transforms all that. It contains a simple yet revolutionary idea: we can evolve our companies the same way nature evolves a species. Evolution is a fundamental force of nature, and Seth Godin demonstrates how it can be put to work in any organisation. The first step is to eliminate the anti-change reflex that's genetically coded into all of us. Once a company learns to 'zoom' (to change without panicking), it is much more likely to evolve. And a company that evolves can become ever more profitable. For the last five years, bestselling author Seth Godin has repeatedly demonstrated the power of his books by living their advice. He used the tactics in PERMISSION MARKETING to drive the book up the bestseller list. He followed the advice of UNLEASHING THE IDEA VIRUS to turn his treatise into a living example of an ideavirus. Now, as a committed zoomer, he shows his legions of fans how to turn their company into one that can zoom from one change to another. It's a formula for success whether the market is up or down, whether technology is hot or not, in all industries, from retail to tech to services.

Adaptation and Hybridization in Computational Intelligence

Adaptation and Hybridization in Computational Intelligence PDF Author: Iztok Fister
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319144006
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book Here

Book Description
This carefully edited book takes a walk through recent advances in adaptation and hybridization in the Computational Intelligence (CI) domain. It consists of ten chapters that are divided into three parts. The first part illustrates background information and provides some theoretical foundation tackling the CI domain, the second part deals with the adaptation in CI algorithms, while the third part focuses on the hybridization in CI. This book can serve as an ideal reference for researchers and students of computer science, electrical and civil engineering, economy, and natural sciences that are confronted with solving the optimization, modeling and simulation problems. It covers the recent advances in CI that encompass Nature-inspired algorithms, like Artificial Neural networks, Evolutionary Algorithms and Swarm Intelligence –based algorithms.