Memes and Psychons

The Biologist Dawkins does not understand religion and criticises his own prejudices about it. However, it has provided him with a concept the "meme" that has some use. Unfortunately he does not discriminate between various types. He is also unaware of the existence of a much better concept, namely the "Psychon". These are socio-psychological units, not like genes in Biology, but more like bacteria or viruses, that are propagated through a transmission of information.

Firstly we have distinguish between three types of behaviour that correspond to the distinction in man between body, mind and soul:- (i) Instinctive behaviour patterns IBP, units of which can be called Instons or Instenes induced through genetic information transmission. (ii) Social behaviour patterns SBP, units of which can be called Psychons or Psychenes induced by social information transmission. (iii) Conscious behaviour patterns CBP or Constons or Constenes induced by conscious information transmission.

Three types of Psychons can be distinguished, named Cultons or Cultenes, Theons or Thenes and Satons or Sarenes according to their different source and function.

Cultons as the name suggests are cultural ideas and behaviour patterns. Theons refer to units of real experience and satons refer to delusional ideas that cause much social disorder and outbreaks of mass hysterics.

Psychons have a degree of autonomy owing to a self-preservative urge, they can reproduce, grow, degenerate, die, self-extend, mutate, adapt, combine, divide, organize, compete, cooperate and sets of them can war with other sets. They can form clusters with various degrees of integration from loose and fluid associations to more rigid mergers, and with various life cycles and duration. They can reproduce, combine, divide, merge, and mutate. They can be induced, altered, expelled, can cause infection and addictions, and they can be nourished, starved or poisoned. They may be dormant or active, be pervasive to various degrees and therefore unobtrusive or they can cause sudden unexpected changes and cause epidemics. Some may stimulate, activate or suppress others or manifest only in association with others. They should be regarded as parts of larger systems which themselves are parts of still larger systems. They are also divisible into smaller parts.

This description is found in an article View-60 - Psychons by Hamid S. Aziz on the Website www.altway.freeuk.com. This is my own website and I give permission for this article to be quoted. This concept is also to be found in the book "The Alternative Way".

(Note:- When the original article was written, the author was not aware that the term "psychon" had already been used by Eccles. It is, however, evident that it does not have the same meaning here, though a connection could be made. But the concept here is not connected with dualism but refers to something that has both physical and psychological aspects depending on whether it is looked at from outside (objectively) or inside (subjectively). A search on the internet shows that the same word is also used in several other systems. It is only necessary to distinguish between these systems to understand the meaning. However, the names could be changed to Psychenes and its varieties to Thenes, Cultenes and Satenes. )

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