So I have basically at this point come to accept that it's likely that life itself is just a really fancy way for entropy to shortcut physics by machine-learning its way through time, but I just realized that our interest in novel things or phenomena could itself be representative of this. The idea of a meme has come into sharp relief lately, and as a meme enjoyer myself I wonder sometimes what this thing is. Humor my naive analysis for a moment. On several levels:

• direct entropic function:
  • memes as we know them today, and even the fact that we recognize their existence as a concept is the result of an unbelievable amount of collected and spent energy, both present and past.
  • novelty seems to be half of the driving force behind selection, but I say half because I recognize that there's at least one other term at play here, something like relevancy? intersection of these things creates meme nodes.
  • currently, we're spending more and more energy in the effort to be able to exchange these social concepts faster and faster. speaking in general, our urge to consume energy seems to outstrip our ability to control that urge, and this is in-line with that. while our efficiency might increase, it seems that is generally just used to increase production, not to scale back resource usage.

back to memes specifically, this seems to be only accelerating. scrolls which had to be carefully cared for became the durable-and-easy-to-distribute books which became movies which are now internet memes. I understand if that doesn't sound like a very straight line I just drew; I know, I know. What I'm trying to illustrate is how our urge to share novel ideas has reached a fever pitch, such that we're spending tons of energy exchanging huge concepts crystallized as images and drawings as means to have a laugh, sway opinions, explain concepts etc all being exchanged rapid-fire by everyone. some meme nodes are big, some are small, some change society. at some point I catch myself asking "are these thoughts of a higher-order being?"

like am I crazy? does anyone else see this pattern?