The overall description of the four phases of a meme becoming corrupted by the toxins of power, then propagated through language, forms a foundation of sorts for this post.That description is posted here.
In this post we are going to form a construct for visualizing / conceptualizing how the toxins of power morph a meme in memory from a pristine condition into a corrupt condition.
As we move from the macro concepts down into the depths of research details, we run into scientific controversy or conflict. It is said that "the devil is in the details". To avoid as much of that as possible we will stay in the areas of consensus where possible.
When staying away from controversial detail is not possible, we will show how the construct works with several competing hypotheses or theories for that section of the subject matter.
As an example take the notion of consciousness and cognition. Penrose and Hameroff postulated that those take place because human thinking is a quantum computer. In that Penrose - Hameroff theoretical quantum computer thought processes take place within micro tubules.
To the contrary, Tegmark published a paper countering that hypothesis, showing that neural networks can explain the notion better, because of various speed factors.
The task here is not to solve those problems of detail, instead, at a much higher level we envision a process where an explanation can be constructed showing how toxins working on memes in memory can morph those memes into a corrupted state.
We can use analogies of gravity or electromagnetism instead of detailed quantum micro tubules, for consideration of a construct to get a better handle on the notion of a "corrupting influence".
The toxins we are concerned with exert a push or pull (influence) on the cognition of politicians, who are thereby influenced to think more about themselves ("themselves" meaning the extended self too, such as family and friends) than they think about the public they are to serve.
The effect of the influence is measured in terms of increasingly selfish thoughts and deeds eventually benefiting the politician rather than the public.
Lets envision an interwoven fabric of memes, in the memory of someone in power, to be like the pattern in the first illustration to the right.
This original memetic pattern is balanced, orderly, aligned, and uniform, not having been exposed to toxins yet.
In the next illustration, lets envision that pattern having been changed by tugs and pulls of the toxins, with some memes now having a new location in a dysfunctional pattern.
The toxins are causing some of the memes to jump the tracks that link it to other memes, so that the network of memes then becomes linked to a map different from before.
Those memes in the illustration, which have red dots, have been moved out of their original pattern or configuration.
The individual memes as well as the memory map of those memes would likewise change.
We can see how the content of an individual meme would change by using the illustrations we already used to represent the original meme.
The original meme in its pristine condition is represented with the illustration "PHASE ONE" at the top of the page.
The corrupted meme, after the tugs and pulls of toxins change it, is represented with the illustration "PHASE TWO".
With this type of construct we can envision memes in memory as being part of a memory pattern. After toxins tug and pull on them, we envision a new memory pattern where some of the memes are no longer where they originally were.
We also see a change in the individual memes, in that, now some of the strands of coded mapping have been changed to record the meme's new location within the memory pattern.
As we will see in the next post, the new location and new strands of codified mapping end up causing a change in what this meme will translate into, as language, compared to what it originally translated into as language.
The next and final post in this series is located here, the first post of this series is located here.
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