Meme Types

There are nine meme types, split across two lifecycles: durable knowledge memes that gate capability, and fast-staling information memes that drive opportunity.

Knowledge memes — durable, capability-gating

At the root sits Concept — the conceptual scaffolding every other knowledge meme hangs off. The remaining four are typed by what they do in the simulation, not by how abstract they feel (see Typed by role, not abstractness below).

Concept ★ — the scaffold

A Concept is an abstraction an individual can comprehend — a category, relationship, or mental model of what something is or why it works. Concepts are the primary knowledge type: a person cannot hold or understand any other knowledge meme without the concepts it rests on. Concepts also form their own prerequisite tree (concepts build on concepts), and a single concept can unlock clusters of praxes, doctrines, or institutions.

The boundary that defines it: Concept = “what / why I understand it” — distinct from Praxis (how I do it) and Lore (a specific fact I know). “Heat causes change in matter” is a concept; “smelt iron in a bloomery” is the praxis that rests on it; “tin is found in the western hills” is lore.

Examples: fire · metal · weight & leverage · number · value & exchange · contagion/disease · fermentation · the divine · property · proof (logical demonstration) · pressure · selective breeding

The other four

Type	What it is	Examples
Praxis	Enacted know-how — how to do or perform something. Gates recipes/tasks. Covers any deliberate action, not just craft: making, farming, building, healing, ritual, festival, inheritance rites.	bloomery iron-smelting · crop rotation & harvest · raising a timber frame · setting a broken bone · conducting a funeral rite · the rite of primogeniture
Lore	Durable, concrete factual knowledge — geography, material properties, plant-lore, languages. A held fact, not an abstraction.	”willow bark eases pain” · “the Nadir river floods each spring” · the Koine language · “lodestone points north”
Doctrine	A belief system (religious, philosophical, legal, political). Carries conviction, and enjoins or forbids praxes via its affinity edges.	monotheism · stoicism · divine right of kings · common law · the doctrine of the undivided house
Institution	Knowledge of an organisational form. Gates faction types — you can’t found one without knowing the pattern.	the guild · the bank · the standing army · coinage · the senate · the chartered university

Where did “Custom” go?

There is no Custom type. A custom — a norm held with conviction — decomposes into a Praxis (how the thing is done) plus a Doctrine whose affinity onto that praxis is the conviction that it ought to be done (and whose disaffinity onto a rival praxis is a taboo). See Typed by role.

Information memes — fast-staling, opportunity-driving

Type	What it is	Dated?
Observation	A witnessed current state (a price, a shortage, a condition). May be wrong or second-hand.	Yes — expires
Location	Knowing where something is. Gates travel.	No — durable
Acquaintance	Knowing a specific person exists + basic facts.	No — durable
Offer	A live opportunity to join a group project.	Yes — expires

Typed by role, not abstractness

A meme’s type is set by its mechanical role in the simulation, not by how conceptual it feels. Every Praxis, Doctrine, and Institution has a Concept-shaped kernel inside it — a funeral rite presupposes the dead; “the bank” presupposes credit — but they are not concepts, because each does something a concept cannot. They are layered on concepts, not merged with them.

The test that keeps the look-alikes distinct:

• Is it the way you perform an action? → Praxis (the procedure that gates the doing — how to conduct the rite, raise the frame, work the harvest). Runs on skill; can be done well or badly; never carries conviction.
• Is it a conviction — something that can be believed, and enjoin or forbid a praxis? → Doctrine (it carries a conviction score, clashes with rival doctrines, and defines who’s “us”; its affinity onto a praxis is what used to be a “custom”).
• Does it define an organisation-with-roles you can found? → Institution (it gates a faction type in the politics layer).
• Pure understanding — no prescription, no organisational form? → Concept (inert scaffolding; it gates only comprehension and carries no conviction).

A ritual is the case that used to muddle this: the praxis is how to perform it, and a doctrine supplies the conviction that it ought to be performed at all (an affinity edge onto that praxis). A people can hold one without the other — a foreign actor knows the praxis without the belief; a believer holds the doctrine and hires a specialist for the praxis. A Concept, by contrast, can never be violated and gates no faction — exactly what separates it from the memes that rest on it.

Key decisions

• Concept is the explicit prerequisite. Every Institution — and, in practice, every other knowledge meme — names the Concept(s) it rests on. This captures the kinship between an idea and the praxis, doctrine, or organisation built on it without collapsing the mechanics (conviction, faction-gating) that make them distinct types.
• Three axes shape every meme (see Relationships): a hard prerequisite expression (boolean, typed leaves), soft weighted affinity/disaffinity signals (read by many subsystems), and a size (an integer that scales how readily it is independently discovered).
• No versioning. Memes are additive — a refinement is its own separate meme with its own prerequisites (“crop rotation” is not “agriculture v2”). Holding both base and refinement is normal.
• Dates only on expiring information (observation, offer). Location and acquaintance are durable.
• Language is just a lore meme. Transmission requires only a “do they share a common language?” check. Writing/reading is a praxis meme that gates encoded objects (books); reading a foreign book requires holding its language as lore.