A metanarrative IS a memeplex: a co-adapted complex of memes that survive better together than alone. Blackmore shows that memeplexes use specific mechanisms to maintain themselves - untestability, faith demands, altruism tricks, truth tricks, and fear-forgiveness pairing. Understanding the centaur religion as a deliberately designed memeplex means engineering which of these mechanisms to keep (altruism trick, truth-seeking) and which to reject (untestability, faith demands) while maintaining the self-reinforcing structure that makes memeplexes durable.
Strongest rival: Metanarratives are not usefully modeled as memeplexes because the meme concept lacks sufficient precision to predict which cultural complexes will persist and which will not - memetics describes everything and therefore explains nothing
Created
2026-08-12T22:22:55.382Z
Sources
1- Religions are powerful memeplexes that survive through self-reinforcing mechanisms including faith demands, threats, rewards, untestability, and the altruism tr
The Meme Machine - Susan Blackmore (1999), Chapter 15: Religions as memeplexes