Issue link: https://cp.revolio.com/i/5219
10 winter 2009 Stealing for a moment from Wikipedia (and why not, since this seems to nail it?), a meme is "postulated as a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena." Richard Dawkins, of course, initially introduced the idea in his seminal book The Selfish Gene, in which he postulated that ideas and cultural trends spread in many ways that mimic the evolution of biological organisms. A memeplex is a belief system: a group of ideas or memes that together form a sort of worldview. One memeplex, for example, may include belief in a coming biblical apocalypse; that abortion is murder; that homosexuality is an abomination; and that government social programs are by nature totalitarian. Rationally, it may seem a random coincidence that these views — moralizing and possibly intervening in social behaviors but not in the economy — have gathered together. Evolutionary memetic theory would argue that each of these views has somehow found it useful for its survival to gather with these other views to form a memeplex h+ magazine — as a collection of articles and design elements bundled between a front and back page — presents a sort of memeplex. It is a memeplex that, on the whole, recognizes a humanity increasingly altered and/or enhanced by technology. Working within this context, h+ casts its net wide. For example, in this edition, the specificity and optimism of Ray Kurzweil rubs up against the complexity and paranoia of novelist Philip K. Dick's vision of the individual's plight in a world of neural interpenetration and intelligent machines. Stelarc's ongoing self-experimentation with the increasing cyborgization of his self in the name of art rubs up against the emergence of Do It Yourself biotechnology for curing diseases and even aging itself. NBIC (Nano Bio Info Cogno) offers a hopeful vision of resolving most major human problems, while a review of a book by Daniel Pink reminds us that all the glitzy corporate newspeak about positive thinking doesn't mean shit to the huddled and newly unemployed masses. Taken together — with columns on AI, nanotech, biotech, longevity, self-enhancement, and neurotechnology — the articles collected between the covers of h+ magazine continue to inform and make a statement on behalf of those who have been drawn into the memeplex sometimes called transhumanism. But beyond reaching our "target audience," it is our hope that this magazine and its website can reach out and bring more people into the memeplex. Our purpose is not to turn them into fanatics or "true believers," but to provide an interesting and useful way of understanding a very fast-changing world. And hopefully, we will inspire some to get on with the actual work of changing the human situation for the better. our memeplex Ru SIRIuS Stealing for a moment from Wikipedia (and why not, since of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena." Richard A memeplex is a belief system: a group of ideas or memes that together abomination; and that government social programs are by nature totalitarian. gathered together. Evolutionary memetic theory would argue that each of these magazine — as a collection of articles and design elements bundled between a front and back page — presents a sort of memeplex. It is a memeplex that, on the whole, recognizes a humanity increasingly altered and/or