Posthuman Blues

The author at work:

There is another way an extraterrestrial civilization bent on posterity could achieve a kind of ersatz immortality. The new science of the "meme," or idea, views information itself as a form of life. Like their carbon-based genetic counterparts, memes are constantly waging war for dominance, forming alliances with other memes (when necessary) and subject to mass extinction. Our environment is inundated with memes of all kinds, all struggling to survive. Advertising concepts, political catch-phrases, outre ideas and "common knowledge" alike are composed of an ever-changing tissue of memes. Words themselves can be memes. When William S. Burroughs stated that "language is a virus," he probably didn't realize how prescient he was.

Inventions such as radio, television and the Internet have given memes a Darwinian playing field without boundaries. Web-surfers can easily find the informational grottos where rogue memes bide their time and insert themselves into new frameworks that promise longer life. You're no longer surfing the Web; the Web is surfing you, scouring your mind for new and better footholds.

Suppose the "alien ruins on Mars" meme is in danger of obsolescence. After all, it's been ground through the microcultural mill since Richard Hoagland brought it to wide attention in the mid-80s. It's in dire need of a fresh substrate.

So the "alien ruins on Mars" meme links up with the "NASA coverup" meme. This is more interesting. It's multifaceted, with room to play. Even better, it spawns _new_ memes: within a few generations we have a "NASA coverup of alien ruins on Mars built by Gray aliens who created the human race by genetic engineering" meme.