I am not familiar with these concepts. Could you fill me on, or evaluate their
similarities? It is my contention that the mind is a meta-system of mimickers.
Together these make up the individual, namely us.
Mimickers are control structures in the mind which influence and
determine our behavior. The eco-system which they make up turns back on itself
and becomes a meta-control system, the Self. These --the Self and the
Mimickers--
live in a constant power tension. As long as this tension remains stable the
system as a whole will remain meta-stable (i.e. what we experience as a normal
mind). However, if the power balance is skewed towards the mimickers the
individual will fall into the abyss of schizophrenia.
The meta-control system of the mind (i.e the Self) is a social
construction, built through imitation of others. Thus, the Self is in the
strange position of being created and controlled both from below (the mimickers)
as well as from above (the social being). Like a sandwich the mimickers and the
social traps the Self inbetween.
What is the Social Being? It is the structures built from memes. The skeleton of
the social being is Language. The most important way the social being imposes
control on us is by infecting our mind with language and thus enabling us to
think. Thinking contributes to the further variety production of memes and
mimickers.
----------> <----------
Mimickers MIND Social Being
<---------- ---------->
There is a physical analogy to the phenomenon of imitation, namely mirroring.
When a person stares into a mirror it behaves as if there is another person
imitating all his movements. We may turn this analogy on its head: When
a mimickers imitates something it is as if he *mirrors* that thing.
This allows us to construct a physical analogy for social self-organization: a
mirror-house. One mirror produces only one interesting emergent phenomenon
(imitation), but many mirrors allows for feedback. When two mirrors are facing
each other (corresponding to mutual mimicking) they create the illusion of an
infinite regress. This feedback corresponds to social resonance/harmony
(examples: humor, dancing, communication) and is the phenomneon which allows
people to experience unity. A mirror-house is thus a gigantic feedback system
in which such illusory infinite regresses occur.
In a mirror-house information is carried by photons. Similarly in a
social system information is carried by memes. This demonstrates the role of
memes in social systems.
Finally, the "sandwich" model drawn above may be seen in terms of the mirror
analogy. Initially I stated that memes implement themselves in the mind of
individuals. They do this with the help of the mimickers. Mimickers
implement themselves in the mind by imitating existing structures in the
environment. But this is exactly the reproduction strategy of the memes. By
being in the human environment memes implement themselves by letting mimickers
imitate them. Thus, memes are not viruses in the traditional sense. Memes and
mimickers form a reproductive symbiosis. Memes provide the mimickers with
existing structure and mimickers make copies of memes.
But as a consequence mimickers and memes must tend to resemble each
other. (This is natural. The internals of an individual will tend to reflect the
society as a whole.) Thus the mind in the sandwich model functions as a
"magic-mirror". The mimickers look into this mirror and see memes and vice
versa. But since they resemble each other the magic mirror is virtually an
ordinary mirror. The mimickers and the Social Being are One (virtually).
This is the main thesis of my book The Origins of Knowledge.