Connectivity I - Are we creating our own reality?

I know this is a strange title for a post, but this entry represents the first real entry and the general direction of this blog. If you decide to stay for a bit and check out some of the things I'm pointing out, I think you'll see where I'm going with it. I'm going to take a meandering course in hashing out the meaning of this simple question. This will be one of the basic and underlying themes of this weblog. Often, it's going to seem like some of the things I'm posting are random and unrelated, but I promise after you read some of the same things I've read and seen some of the things I've seen, you too will start seeing the connectivity of ideas and how YOUR own personal observation of events leads to other related events and discovery.

The Meme

Have you ever read a word in a book, and not known what it meant so you looked it up? After learning its meaning did it seem like you then heard or read that word everywhere you looked? That's been the story of my life. Everything I hear, read or watch on TV ends up connecting in some way or another.

If this hasn't happened to you, let me be the first to give you this experience. Here's a word for you to learn now and some time later, you will see it everywhere.

Memetics is a curious theory regarding the spread of ideas (like a virus). This definition as given by dictionary.com has changed from the original, but it still provides the basic concept of this field.

I learned about memes from a fiction novel and honestly thought the author made it up. I was literally shocked when I saw the word turn up on a news broadcast. The word and the concept were once again active in my frontal lobe. I started researching memes on the internet and found there were a few different interpretations and a bunch of examples of them (many of the science and info site links to the right have great sections on memes). A classic political meme is "Bush lied and people died." This short sweet sentence conveys no factual or provable information, but the intent and catchiness of the phrase are perfect for sticking in the mind, so the message is successful and promulgates.

The Wikipedia definition of a meme is good and sets the stage for you to look for this word or examples of memes in your everyday life. Watch for the word and watch for memes...They're a virus!