>>> Do you know of "memes" and/or "memetics"? Seems relavant here.
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>>Memes, yes - but I also disprove of the implication that we're just obedient hosts for them. It's rather the other way around, IMO - those memes which are fitting the mores of the times, have a chance to spread around. And, their spreading doesn't mean they've found victims or followers - just like an epidemic spreading of a disease, there may carriers which are actually immune.
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>Immune?
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>In my opinion, the only reason you disapprove is because you have conflicting beliefs. Your belief in free will prevents you from fully appreciating the new field of memetics developing.

I don't disapprove of the theory, not completely. It's just its implications that seem exaggerated... a bit of PR gone astray. The whole idea of us being the unwilling carriers of memes may be just another meme. Doesn't my thinking otherwise dent their power a little?

>Interestingly enough, your belief in free will is a meme, of which you appear to be a very obedient host!
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>You don't view the human as an obedient host of memes because your memes tell you that it can't be true.

Like we both said, there's no logical error in solipsism :).

Another nice system where nothing can be proven, you either believe it or not. Pretty much like religion, just that it looks like science. Not that I have read much about memes - the definition of a meme is just another meme, spreading at its own will, independent from what anyone would like it to formally be.

For a moment I imagined an experiment where an existence of a meme could be proven constructively, i.e. by creating a new one, and letting it spread. But then, whatever its content may be, how can we be sure that it didn't exist before, as such or as a collection of memes which are used to build this new one?

Besides, free will is such a lovely one. You can have it by your own fiat, simply by starting to thing that you have it. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.