Following the research done for the previous project, I found that a mnemonic structure is inherently stored in our brains despite our conscious knowledge of their presence. These mnemons control every aspect of our being and interaction with the real world. They immediately create images and feelings in our minds that we react to. The mnemonic structure can be synonymous to the more readily acceptable term schema. In this experiment, I attempt to access these mnemonic structures to evaluate their “overt” effect on a group’s creative ability. I will attempt to prove that we, as cognizant humans, create abstract and concrete objects based on these mnemonic structures, the mnemons of which are passed on through experience and culture.

    Before we can delve into the field of memetics and mnemonic structures we must first define a meme (or mnemon.) A meme (pronounced as the word gene) is “a noun, which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation...” This term was defined as such by a Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. To make a more narrowed definition of the word as it applies to our project, a unit of stored information in the brain which lends itself to easy replication from host (brain) to host (brain.) For a more finite definition as it applies to cognitive science, a pattern or structural alignment in the synapses.

    Memes or mnemons are spread from person to person through mediums in the material world. Hence, a book (or story) itself is not the mnemon. However, the mnemon spread from the author, to the reader through the book (or more narrowly, it’s content.)

    To wit’ differing people from various cultures will have a spectrum of different mnemons present in their schema. These differences are based on their particular affinity to various subject matter complemented (to a great degree) on the individual’s cultural upbringing. To put this in mnemonic terms, the “infection” of the host due to its exposure of these memes, from their parent’s upbringing, magnified with the host’s own exploration (again due to his “infection”) will lead to a particular memetic structure (or schema) that will affect everything that this host does.

    In order to properly evaluate this inherent memetic structure, it is necessary to produce guidelines out of which we will assume certain results. Thereby, doing so, will put into perspective that this schema is indeed active. The guidelines that will be placed are general categories from which several objects will be selected and asked for the subject to visualize.

    The procedure and these guidelines are quite simple. There are five subjects being used for this study. They will be asked to visualize various items that lend themselves to particular categories that may be unique or universal while also being abstract or concrete. Then query the individuals on their visualizations. The data collected will be analyzed and then compared to the hypothesis made earlier. The objects selected for this study are listed in data table 1.

    In order to put the data into some perspective let us first go into the individuals and their current schema (mnemonic structure.)

• The first individual is named Mode. Mode is one of these “mathematical” individuals. Mode has been through some major cultural changes (and hardships). He is a a first generation immigrant to America from the former Soviet Union. This culture shock came to him in at a very early age. He seemed to have “mentally” matured much faster than most individuals. He was placed in a huge role of taking care of his younger brother while his parents attempted to find a new home.

Mode seems to have an uncanny ability to detach himself from society (the ‘normal’ order of the social structure) and delve into matters of the world of ideas. However, this detachment seems to be able to co-exist peacefully with his concrete world of maths (world of things.) This allows for detailed processing of whatever may be queried of him.
• The next individual is named Pat. She seems to be a very dynamically thinking individual. Something is not just with her; it changes shape, form and colour to fit her particular schema. She tends to look at the whole picture versus the individual abstract components. This may be due to her age and experience with some life hardships. She was self-cognizant during the time of her parent’s divorce (which tore her apart, mentally and physically.) She is just now getting her life in order and finding direction.

Of the five, she is the most social individual, looking at the “people” aspects rather than the mathematical or concrete implications.
• The third subject, named Mug for our purposes, seems to be a person based on concrete devices. Mug seems restricted to the real world when attempting creativity. Arguably, this would not be creativity at all. When he was asked to visualize the objects in this experiment, he was only able to relate, even the abstract ones, to the real world. Another interesting fact to mention (maybe due to the above statement) is that his mind immediately came up with the ulterior sexual connotations of the objects mentioned. Mug was instructed to hold off until the end of a “first round” to measure these alternate answers. It was decided not to include these answers in the study. Aptly, they were treated as erroneous data.
• The fourth individual included in the survey is called Praxis. He is the most “mathematical” of the group. He thinks in numbers and symbols. However, he also takes many things into the world of ideas, then attempts to explain them in mathematical terms. Everything, even the metaphysical, is converted into its mathematical equivalent. Upon doing so to his satisfaction he drops the subject.
• The last member of the group is called Javaman. He is one who seems to have serious personality problems. This may be in part die to the fact that he may be the smartest of the group with a 4.0 GPA. He demonstrates a strong command to those subjects of interest to him. His intelligence comes into conflict with his personality when discussing simple subjects. Javaman tends to give more information than is necessary, and analyses the information more than is necessary. This over complication of simple circumstances (usually dealing in maths and sciences) causes a type of haughtiness. This is not very appreciated by others of the group.

This over complication of simple circumstances is very well reflected in his answers to the experimental query.

    Based on the data collected, it is quite apparent that the current schema for each of the subject’s areas of interest was reflected quite heavily in the results. It was quite apparent that the more mathematically inclined individuals had a greater chance to return query results that reflected their schema. Conversely, the more concrete individuals would return a query result that reflected their experiences in the real world rather than abstract answers.

    For example, Praxis answered the visualization query on computer program with “a bunch of ones and zeros”. Conversely, Pat responded with the most general representation of a computer program, the unit (computer) itself. This is not to say that she has never experienced a computer program before. She uses them all of the time to write her papers, keep her phone numbers in order and play solitaire. She even knows the “textbook” definition of a computer program. However, when asked her first reaction is to visualize a computer. Whereas, Mode, who is quit familiar with a computer program (for he writes such things for fun) responded with the most rudimentary form of the computer program (it’s structured code in a tree-like format.) Mug, however, was still stuck with his answers based on concrete experiences even with abstract objects like a computer program, the first thing that came to mind was programming class. So it seems that the data does support this theory of creation of objects based on your current mnemonic structure.

    It is important to note that when studies occur in the cognitive sciences, many times, one doesn’t have a “mental probe” to be able to evaluate the subject’s response as being truthful. One must only take into account the subjects willingness to participate in the survey as altruistic. Unlike behavioral sciences, it is difficult to record a response. Hence, the only tool we have to measure a response is the subject via an in depth query. This is not only evident in this field of cognitive science (memetics) but also in other aspects of cognitive psychology.

    Another important note in this study is the fact that when people are asked to look for something where there is indeed, nothing, they find something. A classic example is a set of repeating patterns are confronted to the subject. The subject is asked to search for a more complex pattern hidden within these patterns. The subject will often attempt to find something in nothing, due to the concept called, task assignment.

    Task assignment applies to the subjects in this study where, when asked to visualize something, they may visualize an object to be more or less elaborate than normal. For example, when one thinks of a bus, the first instinct in the brain would be to visualize a standard prototypical bus. This bus may or may not be on a busy city street or rural road. However, when asked to visualize this object in an experiment such as this, the subject may visualize the bus in a void (no background scenery.) Unfortunately, the only way to resolve this problem would be to automatically probe the mind at the very instant of thought. As current science has it, we cannot extract images from the brain into real images through any “mental probe.”

    Based on the data collected from the individuals, it seems that each person’s mnemonic structure did, indeed, play a major role as to the visualizations of the objects in question.

• Mug consistently visualized the objects as a representation of some concrete mnemon. This type of visualization is based almost entirely upon his past experiences. As mentioned earlier in this study, experiences form a major role of one’s mnemonic structure. One is continuously receiving new information to uphold or change that structure (memes contradicting and complementing each other.)
• Pat demonstrated a type dynamic mnemonic structure. The mnemon(s) is/are not just solidly implanted. But it seems like it was changing over and over again to form a more complex (solid?) structure. This would be consistent to her experiences as young adult. She, even now, is continuously evaluating and reevaluating the status of the environment around her, to render a new more solid “visualization” of the “objects” (in this case people) around to fit her schema. This seems consistent with her rendering of these concrete and abstract objects presented to her in the survey.
• The answers from Mode tend to support the type of person that he is (his schema). He seemed to be able to easily visualize the objects in question under both abstract and concrete circumstances. He was able to apply the same crispness and solidity needed for both circumstances. The only object that he had trouble with it seemed (surprisingly enough) was with the brick. He was asked twice to describe it, but could not come up with a sufficiently descriptive answer.
• Praxis had the predictably mathematical answers to the objects in question. However, was very distracted when encountered with a puzzle game where you were given a whole shape (i.e..: human) made up of smaller shapes. The object of the game was to recreate the larger shape by using ALL of the smaller geometric shapes. After playing with this game for five minutes, he lacked the sufficient concentration necessary to continue the study, and continued to play this puzzle game.
• Javaman’s answers seemed too stressed. It seems like Javaman felt pressured to demonstrate aspects of his past combined with his knowledge of certain subject matters. Again it was consistent with his schema. His answers seemed controlled and “forced.” Often providing more detail than required.

It seems like he responded with many of his answers based on experience and interests. For example, being an electrical engineer, he would see the computer program quite similarly to Mode. However, Javaman would see the loaf of bread differently due to the fact that he worked at a bakery.

    The reader at this point may be wondering what is so particular about this experiment that makes it specifically apply to memetics. In order to address this issue, we must now put all of the pieces together and look at the results as a whole. The mnemonic structure of each of the individuals instilled either by culture (i.e. parents) or by self learning and self discovery (i.e. experiences and other mnemons) cause the results to be “skewed” towards their particular affinity.

    The meme of a particular computer program algorithm (i.e. a sorting routine for data) would spread easily through those who know about the science of computers. The meme of a particular designer’s vision of the “perfect” pair of pants would spread easily among the fashion enthusiasts. When this meme gets to these individuals (hosts or targets) the meme will be accepted or rejected based on the presence of other memes. In other words, based on the memetic structure of the individual, this new meme will successfully infect the host or die. If an old meme is reintroduced into the structure, then it would have the tendency of shuffling to its proper position in the mnemonic tree. The host will continue to interpret this meme in the same way as it always has. If, per chance, this is a new meme but doesn’t fit the memetic structure, then it will get lost in the structure and filed away under a metaphorical miscellaneous drawer.

    What this study has done is reintroduce some memes that the subjects have no doubt heard of before. To ask them to visualize these memes in their physical manifestation, forces them to pull these memes from their metaphorical drawers and manipulate them.

    This would very well explain the reason Pat could not come up with an example of a computer program in it “physical” form. Yet, Mode, Javaman, and even Praxis could easily visualize an abstract object like a computer program. This also explains why Mode could not visualize a brick. Most people see bricks all of the time, but the brick’s actual make up, color, and texture may elude many. However, a bricklayer or architect may see many complex forms of bricks. To a bricklayer, the meme of the basic building block is very important; however, to a computer programmer or mathematician this meme of the basic unit of a building is not quite so important. To this mathematician or computer programmer the block is placed in the metaphorical miscellaneous drawer.

    This experiment seemed a success on a short scale point of view. Five people are hardly enough to study regarding this most intricate topic of memetics and the mnemons. It is, however, a beginning, or a step in the right direction to identifying common situations that we take for granted. After identifying these situations and occurrences, we should ask ourselves whether or not memetics is at play here and investigate the situation.