Memetic fingerprint

From Memetics

Also related to Law_of_Leaky_Abstractions

In that at the fractal abstraction layers there is a both a leakage of old information in and new information in too.

definition[edit]

Memetic fingerprints are also present in the themes and concepts one frequently uses; if you know the concepts one frequently references, you can identify them in some circumstances. A simple example of this memetic backtracing is being able to guess the influences of someone's writing; the memetic fingerprints of another that are expressed in someone's writing. From this memetic genealogies can be constructed.

People are leaky, linguistic fingerprints can be erased by means such as mechanical translation to a different language and back, but the memetic fingerprints may remain. Moreover information in one domain that one attempts to hide will inevitably and accidentally spill over into other domains in the form of coded metaphors and analogies that the writer is unaware of. These analogical fingerprints may in turn be reproduced by others, retaining some of the essential structure of the original secret, that may be decoded by knowing the right analogical combinatorics to derive the original.

Analogical fingerprints are made not just by individuals, but organizations and societies / hiveminds. A paranoid mindset looks for agency, and some misidentify analogical fingerprints as evidence of conspiracy (for example occult/esoteric/mythological content in music videos.) To avoid this pitfall the paranoiac must instead perceive these instances as a conspiracy of memes or analogies themselves acting under emergent evolutionary rules that makes it seem as if there is over-arching agency. [1]

leakage[edit]

this leakage can also be related to cultural memes emerging around the same time, the shared abstractions leading to similar myths due to simultaneous abstraction and evolution. See abstraction and evolution. and evolutionary memetics.

back tracing[edit]

It is mentioned this can lead to analogical backtracing, People have memetic fingerprints that can be used to identify them in at least certain contexts. For example if you knew the writing style of 10 people fairly well, and had them write something anonymously, you could attribute the writings with some degree of reliability.


memetic linguistics[edit]

memetic fingerprints are the superset, where as memetic linguistics is the subset, the subset focuses on the use of language specifically, where as the entire superset focuses on all signals to be interpreted as aesthetic