Epimemetics, biomimetics, epimimetics and biomemetics

Psychosocial Implication in Gamma Animation (Part #8)

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As noted above, a deterministic focus on the genetic "alphabet", and any psychosocial analogue in terms of typology, has proven to be significantly inadequate to the challenge. Hence the concern with epigenetics, namely the dynamic context within which genetics is embedded. A similar case can be made for epimemetics as a means of holding the dynamics between categories of any kind. The argument here is an abridged version of a case made separately (Epimemetics, biomimetics, epimimetics and biomemetics, 2010). An earlier case was made in reflection on constrained understanding of human awareness (Beyond the Standard Model of Universal Awareness, 2010).

Epigenetics emerged as a discipline to show how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity (Nessa Carey, The Epigenetics Revolution: how modern biology is rewriting our understanding of genetics, disease, and inheritance, 2012; Richard C. Francis, Epigenetics: how environment shapes our genes, 2012; Thomas Woodward and James Gills, The Mysterious Epigenome: what lies beyond DNA, 2011).

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).

From a cognitive perspective it is useful to contrast this preoccupation with biomimetics (or biomimicry) as a source of insight, effectively exploited in the argument above. This suggests the following pattern, especially in the light of the argument for cognitive engagement with nature:

• 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 (Re-Emergence of the Language of the Birds through Twitter? Harmonising the configuration of pattern-breaking interjections and expletives, 2010). 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.

These could be suggestively interrelated as follows.

Juxtaposition of biomemetics, biomimetics, epimemetics and epimemetics
	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)

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