Knowing about the worlds we can't see or detect with our other senses is important, scientifically, religiously and philosophically. More or less at the same stage of human history, the telescope and the microscope were invented to give us better access to worlds that are too big or too little for us to see on our own. But another world that is not visible but is of great importance is the world of our minds, individually and collectively.
It was actually in the nutty novel "Fluke: I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings" by Christopher Moore that I first heard of the meme (rhymes with 'beam'), a notion put forth by the biologist Richard Dawkins that it makes sense to think of small cultural units that get transmitted by language, art and other means from human to human in about the way that genes do biologically. If I ask you to fill in the blanks in "Too many cooks _________ the __________", and you supply "spoil" and "broth", you have had some memes transmitted to you. I guess there has been plenty of writing and talking about the meme concept, its validity and applications but the basic idea seems valuable and applicable to human life to me.
To me, the world of artificial computer viruses constructed by humans mimics the world of biological viruses. In a similar way, our human world of ideas, themes, symbols and customs includes transmission of these items from one human or group of humans to another, mimicking genes in biology.
For the microscopic and telescopic views, we can zoom, increase or decrease the magnification, tighten or widen the shot. But the world of ideas, meanings, themes, memes and theories cannot be detected with such instruments. That world takes language and human minds and feelings to detect, decode, appreciate and participate in. Normally, units of transmission from one human mind to another might be discussed using words related to culture. That makes sense to me but little units can be transmitted without our noticing. Later, when we wonder why there is a prohibition against putting a hat on the dining table or opening an umbrella inside the house or for raising the little finger when drinking from a tea cup, the answer may be unconscious transmission, unnoticed copying from one setting or generation to another.
