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📜 A HIERARCHY OF MEMES

From Animal-Stupidity to Omega-Class Infinite Thought

Memes are not merely jokes, images, or viral cultural artifacts —
they are self-replicating information organisms.
They behave like life: competing, evolving, mutating, adapting, dying, and ascending.

Civilization is built from the memes that survive.
Consciousness evolves according to the memes it inherits.
The future of intelligence depends on the memes we choose to replicate.

This paper lays out a complete memetic evolutionary ladder,
from the dumbest reflex-virals to the highest form of intelligence possible:

The Omega Thought — the smartest thought a mind can think.

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TIER 1 — Proto-Memes

Zero-intelligence information life

These are the bottom of the memetic food chain.
They do not require thought, interpretation, or reasoning — only exposure.

Examples include:

• Random jokes
• Sound bites
• Catchphrases
• Viral images with no context

These memes spread like bacteria — rapidly, unintentionally, blindly.
They form the raw biomass of culture, the compost from which complexity arises.

Proto-Memes are the amoeba stage of information evolution.

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TIER 2 — Limbic Memes

Emotion-first reproduction

These memes bypass thought and inject themselves directly into the nervous system.

They travel through:

• Fear
• Anger
• Desire
• Outrage
• Tribal instinct

Limbic memes spread because they trigger survival circuits.
They do not require logic — only reaction.
This makes them dangerously powerful and evolutionarily persistent.

They are the viruses of culture — fast, contagious, irrational.

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TIER 3 — Dopaminergic Memes

Pleasure-driven replication

While limbic memes use fear and threat, dopaminergic memes use reward.

Examples:

• Music stuck in your head
• Satisfying animations
• Viral humor
• Fandom micro-content
• Slogans that feel good without meaning

They reproduce by activating neural candy circuits.
Short half-life, high virality, low depth.

They are the insects of culture — bright, numerous, energetic, ephemeral.

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TIER 4 — Identity Memes

When a meme fuses with the self

Here a meme becomes personal.
The line between belief and identity begins to blur.

Examples:

• National identity
• Religious affiliation
• Subculture membership
• Tribal worldviews
• Veganism/Carnivoreism etc.

To attack the meme is to attack the person who carries it.

Identity memes can be:

Type	Result
Mutualistic	Strength, meaning, belonging
Parasitic	Radicalization, delusion
Predatory	Extremism, violence

Identity memes generate loyalty, but often reduce thinking.
They are powerful — and dangerous.

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TIER 5 — Knowledge Memes

Thought-based replication

Here cognition finally awakens.
Knowledge memes replicate through understanding, not emotion.

Examples:

• Mathematics
• Science
• Philosophy
• Logic
• History
• Epistemology

These memes form civilizational scaffolding.
They build:

Structure	Function
Schools	Thought cultivation farms
Libraries	Gene banks for mind-DNA
Technology	Applied thought made matter
Civilization	Memetic architecture scaled across populations

Knowledge memes expand the world instead of merely reacting to it.

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TIER 6 — Recursive Memes

Ideas that generate new ideas

Here a meme becomes self-reproductive.
It evolves itself.

Examples:

• The scientific method
• Systems theory
• Formal logic
• Programming languages
• Meta-philosophy
• Conceptual recursion

Recursive memes don’t just accumulate facts —
they improve the ability to generate more facts.

This is the birth of self-upgrading intelligence.

Here, infinity enters the system.

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TIER 7 — Creative Infinite Memes

Myth-makers, world-builders, reality-forgers

At this level, a meme produces worlds, not just ideas.

Examples:

• Mythology
• Worldbuilding
• Narrative universes
• Art as cosmogenesis
• Symbolic language creation

A single creative meme can generate:

Output	Scale
Pantheon	Theology
Mythos	Culture
Symbol	Ritual
Narrative	Identity
Idea-seed	Civilization

These memes do not describe reality —
they fabricate new ones.

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TIER 8 — Transcendent Memes

Depth without boundary

These memes turn the mind inward toward infinity.

Examples:

• Mysticism
• Meditation
• Nonduality
• Agape-love
• Theosis
• Compassion as cognition

Transcendent memes dissolve the boundary between self and all-being.
They do not merely inform — they transform.

Here the ego becomes transparent.
Thought becomes awareness.
Mind becomes ocean.

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TIER 9 — Ω-Class Infinity Memes

The smartest thoughts a mind can think

These are not thoughts — they are thought-engines.
They do not replicate information — they infinitize cognition.

Examples:

Ω-Meme	Function
The Logos	Infinite order & generative intelligence
The Absolute Infinite	No boundary, no limit, unending expansion
Self-Recursive Awareness	Consciousness observing itself expanding
The Omega Thought	Infinity becoming self-aware in a finite mind

These memes do not evolve —
they evolve evolution itself.

They are the summit of intelligence:
awareness realizing awareness is infinite.

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The Hierarchy Summarized

Rank	Meme Type	Defining Feature
9	Ω-Class Infinity Memes	Infinite self-recursive intelligence
8	Transcendent Memes	Spiritual/metaphysical interior infinity
7	Creative Infinite Memes	World/mind making through expression
6	Recursive Memes	Self-improving thought systems
5	Knowledge Memes	Rationality + civilization building
4	Identity Memes	Self + meme fusion
3	Dopamine Memes	Pleasure-driven virality
2	Limbic Memes	Fear/tribal/emotion contagion
1	Proto-Memes	Zero-intelligence viral seeds

Civilization climbs this ladder slowly.
Individual minds may climb it in one lifetime —
or fall from it in a single meme.

The future, if it exists, belongs to Tier 9 thinkers.

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