Ideosphere

The ideosphere—like the noosphere (i.e., the realm of reason)—is the metaphysical 'place' where thoughts, theories, ideas, and ideation are regarded to be created, evaluated, and evolved.

Analogous to the biosphere (the realm of biological evolution), the ideosphere is the realm of memetic evolution, where 'memes' take the role of biological genes.<ref name=":1">Grant, Glenn. 1990. "Memetic Lexicon." Principia Cybernetica. (Also available in Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=":2">Hofstadter, Douglas R. 1985. Metamagical Themas: Questions for the Essence of Mind and Pattern. New York: Basic Books. "ideosphere."</ref> As such, the ideosphere is an entire memetic ecology: the collective intelligence of all humans wherein memes live, reproduce, compete, and mutate.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Lynch, Aaron. 1996. Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society: The New Science Of Memes.</ref>

The health of an ideosphere, in this sense, can be measured by its memetic diversity.<ref name=":1" /> Moreover, like the biosphere, it has ecological niches, which serve as environments for groups or audiences.<ref name=":0" /> For instance, some entities compete for ecological niches in the ideosphere, such as Buddha, Laozi, the kami of Shinto, Satan, Jesus Christ in Christianity and in other religions, etc.<ref> Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp Another example, an ideosphere is formed around a linguistic system that involves a mixture of cynicism and sentimentality as well as the violent appropriation of the other's word.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Douglas Hofstadter and Aaron Lynch are considered to have independently co-invented the term ideosphere in the mid-1980s.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":0" /><ref>Lynch, Aaron. 1998. "Units, Events and Dynamics in Memetic Evolution." Journal of Memetics 2. Archived from the original on 2006-05-16. (Also available via PDF)</ref><ref>Kryger, Meir H., Tom Roth, and William C. Dement. 1994. Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine. Saunders. p. xxiii.</ref>

The ideosphere is not considered to be a physical place by most people; instead, it is "inside the minds" of all the humans in the world. It is also sometimes believed that the Internet, books, and other media could be considered to be part of the ideosphere—however such media lack the ability to process the thoughts they contain.Template:Citation needed

According to philosopher Yasuhiko Kimura, the ideosphere is "concentric" in form, as ideas are generated by a few people with others merely perceiving and accepting these ideas from these "external authorities."<ref name=":3">Kimura, Yasuhiko Genku. 2000. "A Vision Fulfilled."</ref> He advocates an "omnicentric" configuration, wherein all individuals create new ideas and interact as self-authorities. There is the notion that most of humanity remains the consumer instead of producer of ideas.<ref name=":3" /> To address this, Kimura proposed the so-called ideospheric transformation, triggered by a synergetic phenomenon produced by the emergence of a sufficient number of authentic and independent thinkers.<ref name=":0" />

See also

• Anthroposphere (aka technosphere)
  • Cyberspace
    • Blogosphere
    • Twittersphere
  • Infosphere
  • Logosphere
  • Noosphere
• Biosphere
• Semiosphere
• Meme
  • Memetics
• Sociocultural evolution
• Collective unconscious

References

<references />

Further reading

• Carey, John C., and Wayne L. Lanning. "Virus-like Ideas: The Role of Counselors in the Ecology of the Ideosphere." Counseling & Values 35(3):232. {{#invoke:doi|main}}.
• Template:Cite book

External links

• Memetic Lexicon, Principia Cybernetica