Epimemetics, biomimetics, epimimetics and biomemetics

Re-Emergence of the Language of the Birds through Twitter? (Part #7)

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Dynamics: Enthusiasm for genetic determinism gave rise to the success of the Human Genome Project begun in 1990 and completed in 2003. Unfortunately, and to the surprise of many, the deterministic assumptions were shown to be inadequate for explanation in terms of inherited characteristics. Additional non-genetic factors were recognized as causing the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently and have given rise to the discipline of epigenetics, namely the study of dynamic factors other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence.

In the quest for a Language of the Birds it is therefore useful to see any harmonious spiral organization of distinctions (discussed in Annex) as indeed corresponding to a mapping of DNA. Cognitively it corresponds to "meme mapping" rather than "gene mapping" (John Paull, Meme Maps: a tool for configuring memes in time and space, European Journal of Scientific Research, 2009). But, like the conch shell, it is best understood as an instrument. The spiral map (see Annex) is then to be understood as resembling the set of keyboards of an unusual organ.

It is then in the manner in which distinctions are expressed and "played" that lies the "secret" of that language. Paull concludes with the point:

The map is not the territory. A map can inform a discourse, and facilitate an understanding of a territory, a domain of interest, and that is just because much of the forest of information is, of necessity, discarded in the process of map making so that some of the trees can be better revealed. Meme maps are commended to the reader as a ready tool for memetics and memeticists, for visualizing what has heretofore lacked a medium of imagery.

Epimemetics: It is in this sense that "epimemetics" can be fruitfully recognized as corresponding to the dynamics explored in epigenetics. Arguably it is potentially epimemetics that is then most closely related to the Language of the Birds -- with the emphasis on the interplay of memes rather than on a description of that interplay. An explanation of the performance of a troubadour -- as purported exponent of the Language of the Birds -- is essentially meaningless in comparison with the performance itself.

A case for epimemetics was previously made in reflection on constrained understanding of human awareness (Beyond the Standard Model of Universal Awareness, 2010).

According to one "definition" (in the Xenanothropy Wiki of new philosophy), epimemetics concerns the evolution of a representational image or concept as it is consciously considered, influenced by mental environment, applied or altered by dissemination. Epimemetics is different from memetics in that it is a phenomenon which occurs in a meme post-origin and before crossover with a meme of a separate origin. This can roughly be described as the development of a representational image or concept in real time.

One of the few approaches to epimemetics, but primarily for commercial marketing purposes, is that of Russell Wright, a search engine optimization auditor -- co-creator of the Theme Zoom search engine marketing tool, based on a keyword reporting system and '9 different keyword types'. He promotes a natural language, neurolinguistic, neuromarketing, memetic approach in a video sequence (Your Epimemetic Awakening: Unmapping the Web, 2010; Unmapping the Web: genes, memes, temes and epimemes, 2010).

Engagement with the reality of nature: In the light of the argument (noted above) for cognitive engagement with nature -- and its association with the Language of the Birds as being also known as the "Green Language" -- there is a suggestive relationship between:

• epimemetics (as noted above), including the sense of harmony and elegance in "play", characteristic of the use of word play and metaphor, as purportedly associated with the Language of the Birds; possibly as celebrated in Taoist "crazy wisdom" and in provocative use of the Zen koan (cf Enacting Transformative Integral Thinking through Playful Elegance, 2010; Humour and Play-Fullness: Essential integrative processes in governance, religion and transdisciplinarity, 2005). This extends to the creative exploration of potentially significant correspondences (Theories of Correspondences -- and potential equivalences between them in correlative thinking, 2007). It might also include apophasis and "unsaying" (Being What You Want: problematic kataphatic identity vs. potential of apophatic identity? 2008)
  
  
• biomimetics (or biomimicry), understood as the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from it in order to solve human problems (Enabling Governance through the Dynamics of Nature: exemplified by cognitive implication of vortices and helicoidal flow, 2010).
  
  
• epimimetics (a proposed neologism), understood as a form of mirroring (Stepping into, or through, the Mirror: embodying alternative scenario patterns, 2008). It is characteristic of the art of memory (mnemotechnics) and its supportive contexts (memory palaces and theatres) as documented by Frances A. Yates (The Art of Memory, 1966). Given the mirroring typically offered through humour, it might hold the humour imagined to be characteristic of the laughing discourse of the gods with regard to the nature of reality and their place in it.
  • Aristotle: The gods too are fond of a joke.
  • Albert Einstein: Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
  • Japanese proverb: Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods.
  Hence the connotation of the laughing Language of the Birds as being a language mirroring that of the gods -- although whether they "interject" is another matter. There is the charming possibility that any typology of humour, or of dramatic plots, might effectively emerge through combinations of "conceptual primes" -- recalling the widely distributed tale of a prison (in Russia), where the number of a joke in a well-known repertoire was sufficient to elicit laughter (rather than its telling).
  
  
• biomemetics (a proposed neologism, although extant as a misspelling of biomimetics), which might be understood as a degree of identification with nature, whether as a rich set of fundamental symbols, or as variously practiced by deep ecologists and shamans, notably within Australian Aboriginal culture (A. P. Elkin, Aboriginal Men of High Degree, 1977). This degree of cognitive engagement (possibly via totems) is extensively documented by Darrell A. Posey (Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity, 1999). It may also be an interpretation of the argument regarding issues of self-reflexivity and embodiment of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (Philosophy In The Flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought, 1999).
  
  Of particular relevance are the studies of anthropologist Jeremy Narby (The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the origins of knowledge, 1999; Intelligence in Nature: an inquiry into knowledge, 2005; Psychotropic Mind: the world according to Ayahuasca, Iboga, and Shamanism, 2010). He describes the methodological challenge of reconciling indigenous knowledge with conventional anthropological and microbiological approaches and understanding. The hypothesis he tests is that "shamans take their consciousness down to the molecular level and gain access to biomolecular information". He stresses the highly detailed understanding of indigenous knowledge of the structure and processes of DNA, represented visually in forms recognizable to microbiologists. Some implications are well-explored in terms of generative grammar by Ian Watson (The Embedding, 1975). This work could be usefully seen as related to that of Glenn Albrecht of the School of Sustainability, partially summarized by Daniel B. Smith (Is There an Ecological Unconscious? The New York Times, 27 January 2010) and, with respect to the emerging discipline of neuroanthropology, by Paul Mason (Solastalgia, Soliphilia and the Ecopsychology of our Changing Environment, Neuroanthropology: for a greater understanding of the encultured brain and body, 30 January 2010). Also of relevance is one Muslim understanding of the Language of the Birds as the deciphering of the mystical significance of bird calls.

Together these might be configured as follows to imply an emergent Language of the Birds:

	Emergent Language of the Birds?
.	biomemetics (engagement with symbols, identification with nature)
epimimetics (art of memory, mnemotechnics, method of loci, re-membering)	Language of the Birds?	epimemetics (dynamics of memes, art of word play and metaphor, poesis,)
.	biomimetics (mimicry of nature, mirroring)	.

Given the emphasis on dynamics in the focus of epimemetics (in the light of the focus of epigenetics), there is then the suggestion that any association with biomimetics should be attentive to insights deriving from movement in nature -- rather than simply to static representation of systems. This is consistent with previous explorations (Navigating Alternative Conceptual Realities: clues to the dynamics of enacting new paradigms through movement, 2002; Enabling Governance through the Dynamics of Nature, 2010).  A developed version of the above pattern might be presented as follows.

	Fig. 2: Lauburu Showing below the superposition of left and right-facing variants (demonstrating its construction, as discussed in Playful exploration of ecopsychological embodiment of climate change pathways, 2005)
	biomemetics (symbols, embodied mind, shamanic identification with nature)
epimimetics (art of memory, method of loci, re-membering)		epimemetics (metaphor, poesis, art of word play, dynamics of memes)
	biomimetics (mimicry of nature, mirroring)
	Images to the right and left show contrasting rotation and superposition of the four-fold Lauburu pattern to give an eight-fold pattern. These are reminiscent of the 2 variants of the eight-fold Ba Gua pattern (see Animation of Classical BaGua Arrangements, 2008)

The above distinctions are necessarily exploratory and tentative. There are clearly subtle "confusions" in practice between the significance of the terms so distinguished. As a four-fold pattern of distinctions it recalls that made separately (see Annex). Its association with the quadrilemma is particularly striking in affirming any definition (A, not-A, A and not-A, neither A nor not-A) -- when each is effectively called into question by the others. This is consistent with the allegedly elusive/allusive nature of the Language of the Birds. It is appropriately consistent with:

• understandings of definition as being associated with reductionism, reification and closure -- a form of cognitive "dead hand" precluding openness and evolution. The argument has been developed through the theory of general semantics by Alfred Korzybski (Science and Sanity: an introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics, 1933) with respect to the inappropriate closure associated with assertive declarations of what "is". (cf. Paul Feyerabend, Conquest of Abundance: a tale of abstraction versus the richness of being, 1999).
• some form of uncertainty principle constraining the relationship between polarized distinctions (cf Garrison Sposito, Does a generalized Heisenberg Principle operate in the social sciences? 1969)
• the strategic uncertainty notoriously articulated by Donald Rumsfeld in relation to "unknown unknowns" (Unknown Undoing: challenge of incomprehensibility of systemic neglect, 2008)
• the incompleteness theorems of Kurt Gödel

Aspects of this uncertainty are central to the classic butterfly dream of Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi):

Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly,
a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased.
He didn't know he was Zhuangzi.
Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi.
But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly,
or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.
Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be some distinction!
This is called the Transformation of Things

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