On the mathematics of Memetics

Abstract

As technology, embeds itself in almost every facet of our society, new rules of interacting and signalling emerge, specifically in the case of mass communication. These new imitated non-genetic behaviours that are called memetics are the chief area of inquiry of this thesis. The thesis is an exploratory project in which I present a study of memetic social behaviour and how belief structures form amongst groups online. I specifically look at the case of Reddit. More interestingly, I look at early belief propagation, how and what causes conflicts amongst these groups, and the interdependence of beliefs and the conflicts that result in the mutation and spread of memes. I hypothesize and verify that these belief spread methods are a function of the differential rates of updates in the belief sets of the groups. In the process of enquiry, I draw upon existing trans-scaler methods of studying social behaviour and build upon them to introduce new metrics based on proxy information as derived from sentiment data of messages exchanged amongst groups. Subsequently, I present a method by which to plant these ideas, in this case, memes, so that they may propagate most effectively amongst people as a verificatory process. Lastly, I examine other online spaces where these memetic exchanges take place and speculatory prospects of applying these methods and tools that were developed; looking at the case of fake news and response methods that are proactive as opposed to reactive