Sociotics

Fundamentals of human social behavior

Urbano Helguera .

2007

1
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The present paper could not have been concluded or even started without my father’s priceless contributions. Indeed it
was him -Eduardo Helguera- who planted in me the seed of the idea developed herein. Almost every bibliographical
source used to back and illustrate the concepts I expose was supplied by him. In addition, it was him with whom I most
discussed during the construction of the present article and from whom the vast majority of insights, commentaries and
corrections came from. His role was much heavier and a lot more useful than that of the usual tutor.
I also thank the assistance and contributions made by my brother, Evaristo Helguera, and my mother, María
Isabel Alejandra von Wuthenau.
In addition I thank Ezequiel Spector for his academic and intuitive comments and contributions.
Last but not least, I acknowledge and express gratitude towards all the authors who with their creations and their
genius sparked the flare of curiosity and creativity in me. Again, without them and their work nothing would have been
possible.
Urbano Helguera

“La Chispa”, April 2007

2
 DISCLAIMER
I would like to clarify some things about this paper. I do not claim that the concepts poured in the next pages are
completely original. In fact, the spirit that guided this work and the aspiration that pushed me into writing this article
was my desire to clarify and to provide an organizing structure for the different approaches that the studied matter has
been given by different authors. I do not pretend to create a whole theoretical construction from scratch, even if in a few
occasions I may have made original contributions. With this article I am simply trying to endow certain concepts or ideas
that are floating in the ‘ideosphere’ with a cohesive theoretical formal structure capable of uniting them into a single
body, filling any empty spaces that -according to my view- have been left somewhat unattended if not downright ignored
by existing literature. In order to illuminate my position -and in some way, to exemplify it- I will use the following quote:
“If I have seen further […] it is because I was standing upon the shoulders of Giants.” Sir Isaac Newton

3
 I
INTRODUCTION
Genetics and memetics are very important for understanding human behavior. On the one hand, genetics studies how
biological aspects of living organisms, like physical features, the tendency to contract certain diseases, natural instincts,
and so on, are transmitted from one generation to another. On the other hand, memetics studies how cultural aspects of
the human being, like ideas, opinions, theories, myths, and so on, are transmitted from person to person and thus from
one generation to another.
Some authors have drawn an analogy or parallelism between genetics and memetics: they have argued that
genetics and memetics study processes that are similar in many respects.1 The aim of this paper is to go beyond that: I
draw this analogy and, in addition, I argue that understanding how genetics and memetics interact is the key to
comprehending the incentive structure of human beings and, in consequence, their social behavior. In this paper, the
interaction between genetics and memetics I dub sociotics.
I will proceed in the following sequence. In section II I explain what genetics is. I review basic concepts of
evolutionary biology and analyze how genes influence human social behavior. In section III I explain the concept of
memetics, which is a relatively new field of study.2 I analyze how beliefs (‘memes’), the same as genes, also influence
human social behavior. Section IV shows that memetics is not subordinated to genetics and thus both fields are in the
same hierarchic level. It also shows how this is fundamental for the relevance of sociotics. Next, in section V, I explain
how both sources of information (genetic and memetic) influence each other’s evolution processes and thus influence
human action simultaneously. It also explains why this is vital to the importance of sociotics. Afterwards, in section VI, I
enlarge upon how genetics and memetics merge and, in this way spawn a new field of study, which I call “sociotics.” I
explain the concept of sociotics, and how sociotics helps to understand human social behavior better than genetics and
memetics separately. Finally, section VII sketches a conclusion. A glossary including the novel terms created in this paper
as well as existing technical terms can be found after the conclusions.

1
Richard Dawkins mentions some of these authors: Karl Popper (‘The rationality of scientific revolutions’, in Problems of Scientific
Revolution (ed. R. Harré), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974, p 72-110; and ‘Natural selection and the emergence of mind’, Dialectica 32,
1978, p. 339-55), L. L. Cavalli-Sforza (‘Similarities and dissimilarities of sociocultural and biological evolution’, in Mathematics in the
Archaeological and Historical Sciences (eds. F. R. Hodson, D. G. Kendall, and P. Tautu), Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1971, p.
535-41; and “Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach”–with M. W. Feldman-, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, 1981), F. T. Cloak (‘Is cultural ethology possible?’, Human Ecology 3, 1975, p. 161-82), and J. M. Cullen (‘Some principles of
animal communication’, in Non-verbal Communication (ed. R. A. Hindle), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1972, p. 101-22).
See Dawkins, R., “The Selfish Gene”, Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 190. Similarly, Douglas R. Hofstadter mentions Vilmos Csanyi
(“General Theory of Evolution”, Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1982) and Carl B. Swanson (“Ever-Expanding Horizons: The Dual
Information Sources of Human Evolution”, The University of Massachusetts Press, 1983). See Hofstadter, D.R., “Metamagical
Themas”, Basic Books, 1985, p. 66.
2
According to Douglas R. Hofstadter (see “Metamagical Themas”, 1985), the first reference to these ideas was made by Roger Sperry,
a neurophysiologist, in “Mind, Brain, and Humanist Values”. However, the academic community –and myself- credit Richard Dawkins
for being the first to firmly establish the analogy between genetics and memetics.
4
 II
GENETICS
Genetics studies how living organisms inherit biological aspects such as physical features, the tendency to contract
certain diseases, natural instincts, etc, from their ancestors. Based on concepts originally proposed by Charles Darwin3
and Gregor Mendel4, the main exponents of evolutionary biology, such as Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, have
put forward how the so-called genetic natural selection process explains human evolution, among that of every other life
form.5 By means of genetic natural selection, certain genes manage to survive and multiply, affecting and guiding human
evolution.
As any other species, the human being is a survival machine, that is, a vehicle by means of which the genes it
carries try to survive and multiply. Replicators that manage this are successful in this genetic natural selection process. In
Wilson’s words,
“The consistent guiding force is natural selection. Genes that confer higher survival and reproductive success on
the organisms bearing them, through the prescribed traits of anatomy, physiology, and behavior, increase in the
population from one generation to the next.” 6
Now, genes influence not only human physical traits, but also human behavior. Thus, certain human behaviors
are explained by what their genes prescribe them to do. In this paper I focus on one kind of behavior, which I call ‘social
behavior’. It is difficult to define this kind of behavior, but we could say that it is characterized by creating, modifying,
preserving, or extinguishing a relationship or an interaction between two or more human beings. I will give two examples
of social behavior. The first one is the ‘selfish’ behavior, such as people looking after certain resources, like a territory,
and not sharing certain individuals, such as spouses. By means of this behavior, human beings increase their survival
chance, and in turn, increase the survival chance of the genes they carry. The second one is the ‘altruist’ behavior, like a
mother putting her own life at risk for rescuing her child. It is true that this behavior seems to come into conflict with the
genetic natural selection process because this behavior lowers mother’s chances of surviving and, hence, her own genes’
chances of surviving. However, this behavior does not come into conflict with the genetic natural selection process. As
Dawkins explains,
“A vehicle is a unit […] which houses a collection of replicators and which works as a unit for the
preservation and propagation of those replicators. […] A vehicle is not a replicator. A replicator’s success is
measured by its capacity to survive in the form of copies. A vehicle’s success is measured by its capacity to
propagate the replicators inside it. The obvious and archetypical vehicle is the individual organism. But this may
not be the only level in the hierarchy of life at which the title is applicable. We can examine as candidate vehicles
chromosomes and cells below the organism level, groups and communities above it. At any level, if a vehicle is
destroyed, all the replicators inside it will be destroyed. Natural selection will therefore, at least to some extent,
favour replicators that cause their vehicles to resist being destroyed. In principle this could apply to groups of
organisms […].
[…]
It is admitted that in some fundamental sense, natural selection consists in the differential survival of
genes (or larger genetic replicators). But genes are not naked, they work through their bodies (or groups, etc.).
Although the ultimate unit of selection may indeed be the genetic replicator, the proximal unit of selection is
usually regarded as something larger, usually the individual organism.” 7
Thus, the human being is a vehicle created by his genes. Through this vehicle, genes try to survive and multiply.
Understanding the distinction between a replicator (in this case a gene) and its vehicle (in this case a human being) is
important for understanding how seemingly altruist behaviors do not come into conflict with the selfish genetic natural
selection process. Reducing your own chances of survival as a vehicle may in fact increase your genes’ chances of
survival. In the case of the mother that rescues her child, the mother takes a risk, but this behavior was caused by a
certain gene for its own benefit. For there is a chance8 that a copy of this gene is in the child by inheritance, so this gene,
by means of the ‘heroic’ behavior it caused in the mother (its vehicle), may perhaps have increased its own chances of

3
In “The Origin of Species” (1859) Charles Darwin put forth original concepts such as species evolution and natural selection.
4
In ‘Experiments in plant hybridization’ (read at the February 8th, and March 8th, 1865, meetings of the Brünn Natural History
Society) Mendel exposed the basic laws of genetics.
5
In this paper, I only refer to human beings.
6
Wilson, E.O.: “Consilience”, Alfred A. Knopf, 1998, p. 129.
7
Dawkins, R.: “The Extended Phenotype”, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 114-116.
8
There is approximately 50% chance.
5
surviving. This shows that altruist human behaviors do not come into conflict with the genetic natural selection process,
which is essentially selfish.
Finally, ‘biosphere’ and ‘genome’ are two concepts related with biology and genetics, respectively. The biosphere
is the environment in which different organisms evolve and interact. The genome is like a map of the genetic material of
an organism. A genome is something like a map of all the genes an organism has. It is organized in slots each of which
determines a single biological characteristic of an organism. These concepts will be succinctly developed in section VI.

6
 III
MEMETICS
Memetics studies how cultural aspects of the human being, like ideas, opinions, theories, myths, and so on, are
transmitted between human beings and from one generation to another. In this case, the human being is also a vehicle
used by replicators, which are memes. They use this vehicle in order to survive and multiply. Moreover, there is a
memetic natural selection process, which is similar to the genetic natural selection process: there are memes that
manage to survive and multiply, and memes that fail to survive and multiply. Replicators that manage to survive and
multiply influence the cultural evolution.
The term “meme” was introduced by Dawkins. He claims the following:
“The new soup is the soup of human culture. Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions,
ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from
body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain
via a process which […] can be called imitation.”9
Thus, as in the genetic natural selection process, in the memetic natural selection process certain replicators
(memes) manage to survive and multiply by means of a vehicle: the human being. Replicators that manage this are
successful in this natural selection process. In Monod’s words,
“[f]or a biologist it is tempting to draw a parallel between the evolution of ideas and that of the biosphere.
[Memes] tend to perpetuate their structure and to breed; they too can fuse, recombine, segregate their content;
indeed they too can evolve, and in this evolution selection must play an important role […] This selection must
necessarily operate at two levels: that of the mind itself and that of performance.
“The performance value of an idea depends upon the change it brings to the behavior of the person or
the group that adopts it.” 10
In this way, memes, as genes, influence human social behavior. Furthermore, in the context of memetics, we can also
distinguish between the survival of memes and the survival of their vehicle: the human being. Generally, the survival of a meme is
correlated to the survival of the human being carrying it. However, memes sometimes put in danger the survival of the human being
in order to guarantee their survival and multiplication. Thus, Lynch holds the following:
“Although memetics considers personal advantages among factors that make a movement grow, it avoids tacitly
assuming that proliferation results from helping adherents or their leaders. As pragmatic matter, memeticists
usually explore the aspects of belief propagation not already covered by sociologists. The two fields thus make
their own contributions to understanding religion and other social phenomena.” 11
This helps to understand why in some cases human beings carry beliefs that lower their probabilities of
surviving and multiplying. In Lynch’s words:
“With ‘normal’ ideas, one expects the most lucrative variants to also become the most populous variants
[…]. In contrast, thought contagions skip the intermediate step of benefiting the adherent as a means to new
adherents. Instead they propagate by manipulating the existing host’s communication or reproduction.” 12
As a result, the fact that a meme has existed for a long time does not mean that this meme is beneficial to its
carriers or to groups of its carriers. In fact, this meme could be detrimental for them. The fact that a meme has existed
for a long time only shows that this meme has been successful in the natural memetic selection process. When I talked
about genetics, in section II, I pointed out the difference between genes and its vehicles: human beings. I said this
difference is important for understanding the genetic natural selection process. In the same way, in the context of
memetics, the difference between memes and their vehicle, the human being, is important for understanding the
memetic natural selection process.
Finally, ‘ideosphere’ and ‘ideome’ are two concepts related to memetics. The ideosphere is the environment in
which the human culture evolves. The ideome is something like an atlas of all the ideas a human being has, organized by
theme or groups of themes. These concepts will be briefly developed in section VI.

9
Dawkins, R.: “The Selfish Gene”, Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 192.
10
Monod, J.: “Chance and Necessity”, 1970. Quoted in: Hofstadter, D.R.: “Metamagical Themas”, Basic Books, 1985, p. 50.
11
Lynch, A.: “Thought Contagion”, Basic Books, 1996, p. 22.
12
Lynch, A.: “Thought Contagion”, Basic Books, 1996, p. 19.
7
 IV
IS GENETIC REDUCTIONISM TRUE?
According to genetic reductionism, drawing a distinction between genetics and memetics is unnecessary. Adherents to
this theory believe that genetics can explain all human behavior, including certain behaviors that memetics tries to
explain. In other words, according to this hypothesis, genetics not only explains how biological aspects are inherited, but
also how beliefs, opinions, theories, and all cultural aspects are inherited. Thus, if this theory were true, cultural
evolution would be determined by genes and would simply be a subsidiary part of genetic evolution.
In this paper I discuss the combination between genetics and memetics, which I call sociotics. However, if genetic
reductionism were true, the term ‘memetics’ would be unnecessary: what memetics intends to explain would already be
explained by genetics. And if the term ‘memetics’ were unnecessary, a combination between genetics and memetics
would be unnecessary too. In that case, this paper would not make sense. But as I will argue, there are good reasons to
think that genetic reductionism is a defective theory.
Some authors support genetic reductionism. Wilson, for instance, claims the following:
“Culture is created by the communal mind, and each mind in turn is the product of the genetically
structured brain. Genes and culture are therefore inseverably linked. But the linkage is flexible, to a degree still
mostly unmeasured. The linkage is tortuous: Genes prescribe epigenetic rules […]. The mind grows from birth to
death by absorbing parts of the existing culture available to it, with selections guided through epigenetic rules
inherited by the individual brain.” 13
However, many authors reject it and hold that culture can evolve quite independently of genes. Lynch mentions
two of them:
“[i]n treating culture as a vast swarm of replicators evolving in their own right, both Dawkins and Durham
set themselves apart from the school of the ‘hard-line’ sociobiologists, whose ideas emerged under the leadership
of Edward O. Wilson. Hard-liners regard cultural evolution as fully subordinated to genetic evolution.” 14
Rothschild, for example, argues that
“[t]he central concept proposed here –that a parallel relationship exists between an ecosystem based on
genetic information and an economy derived from technical information- is fundamentally different from that
argued by social Darwinists and human sociobiologists. In their view, human culture is not parallel to, but an
extension of, human genetic information.”15
Dawkins also argues that memes and genes can evolve according to different sets of rules, but he acknowledges
that if there were no genes, there wouldn’t be memes because there would be no brain to harbor memes. In other
words, we could say that, in the beginning, memes depend on the existence of brains and, therefore, on genes. But it
does not mean that memes and genes evolve in the same way. Once the brain appears, genes and memes evolve
through different evolution processes each with its own particular momentum. Genetics can only explain genetic
evolution, leaving cultural evolution aside to be explained by another field. Thus, Dawkins claims the following:
“It is of course true that ‘Memes are utterly dependent upon genes, but genes can exist and change quite
independently of memes’ (Bonner 1980). But this does not mean that the ultimate criterion for success in meme
selection is gene survival. It does not mean that success goes to those memes that favour the genes of the
individuals bearing them.”
“[…] If the society is already dominated by Marxist or Nazi memes, any new meme’s replication success
will be influenced by its compatibility with this existing background. Positive feedbacks will provide a momentum
which can carry meme-based evolution in directions unconnected, or even contradictory to, the directions that
would be favoured by gene based evolution. I agree with Pulliam and Dunford (1980) that cultural evolution owes
its rules to genetic evolution, but it has a momentum all of its own.”16
In the same way, Azzone says that

13
Wilson, E.O.: “Consilience”, Alfred A. Knopf, 1998, p. 127.
14
Lynch, A.: “Thought Contagion”, Basic Books, 1996, p. 28.
15
Rothschild, M: “Bionomics”, Henry Holt, 1990, p. xiii.
16
Dawkins, R., “The Extended Phenotype”, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 110-111.
8
 “[…] evolution should be considered as continuous when there is no increase of information and as
discontinuous when there is generation of new information.”17
I do not see genetic reductionism as a plausible thesis. As Dawkins says, it is true that a brain is
necessary for memes to exist. However, it does not follow that genetic reductionism is true. The fact that memes
depend originally on the existence of a brain does not imply that genetics can explain what memetics tries to
explain. For once the memetic process starts, memes begin to transform and develop according to their own
evolution process. That is, we should distinguish between the necessary supporting conditions (the existence of
a brain) for memes and their evolution process. As Rothschild says,
“Few would argue that there are no genetically programmed human behaviors. In fact, it would be
shocking if certain common behaviors such as the fear of snakes were not embedded in our genetic code […].”
“But […] Wilson and his followers have pushed their argument one crucial step too far. They now claim
that there is an interaction between cultural practices and genes. According to Wilson, cultures that fail to evolve
in ways that promote the genetic survival of their members are eliminated in competition with other, more fit
cultures. The fact that our species has been virtually unchanged biologically for at least 100,000 years, a period of
phenomenal cultural change, does not seem to impress these sociobiologists.”
“[…] To them culture emanates not from the mind, but from DNA.”
“[…] Creativity, rational thought, and inventiveness set humanity apart from all other creatures precisely
because they are products of our conscious minds, not results of our genetic programs. Thinking is instinctive; what
one thinks is not.”18
Thus, the term ‘memetics’ is not unnecessary because genes and memes change according to distinctive evolution
processes, so it makes sense to discuss the combination between genetics and memetics, which made necessary the
emergence of an encompassing field of study, which I have labeled ‘sociotics’. Consider one more proposition illustrating
this point:
“If we are programmed to be what we are, then these traits are ineluctable. We may, at best channel them,
but we cannot change them either by will, education, or culture.”19
If genetic reductionism were true, all human behaviors would be able to be explained through biology; more
precisely, thorough genetics. Arguments like the one stated by Gould show that genetics cannot explain all human
behaviors: there are certain behaviors which can only be explained by the influence of culture and education. Memes are
transmitted mainly through education, and culture is the combination of all the memes present in a given society.

17
Azzone, G. F., ‘The Dual Biological Identity of Human Beings and the Naturalization of Morality’, Department of Experimental
Biomedical Sciences, University of Padua, Padua, Italy, 2003.
18
Rothschild, M, “Bionomics”, Henry Holt, 1990, p. 346-347.
19
Gould, S.J., “Ever Since Darwin”, Burnett, 1978, p.238.
9
 V
ARE GENETICS AND MEMETICS COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT?
In the last section I held that genetic reductionism does not seem to be a plausible theory. As we have seen, the
inexistence of genetic reductionism is a necessary condition for sociotics (the field spawned from the combination of
genetics and memetics) to be meaningful. However, this is not the only necessary condition. If genetics and memetics
were two completely independent fields, studying a combination of both would be the same as studying each field
separately and then piling up the results. The usefulness of sociotics would be simply reduced to that of a semantic
definition.
Now, even though the memetic process is not subordinated to the genetic process, both evolution processes
evolve in the same environment. This environment is the combination of the ideosphere and the biosphere. I call it the
sociosphere. This means that a replicator, such as a gene, is part of the environment that will influence the success of
another replicator, like a meme. In other words, the success of a replicator, be it a meme or a gene, depends on the
specific replicator pool in which it exists. I call this replicator pool the sociotic pool. It contains genes as well as memes. It
is the combination of the memetic and genetic pools.20
As Dawkins says,
“It is true that the relative survival success of a meme will depend critically on the social and biological climate in
which it finds itself, and this climate will certainly be influenced by the genetic make-up of the population. But it
will also depend on the memes that are already numerous in the meme-pool. […] The statistical structure of the
gene-pool sets up a climate or environment which affects the success of any one gene […]”
“Similarly, an important aspect of selection on any one meme will be the other memes that already happen to
dominate the meme-pool.”21
To assert that the success of a replicator is influenced by the replicator pool in which it exists is not the same as
saying that the evolution process of a specific type of replicator (for example memes) is always subordinated to the
evolution process of another type of replicators (for example genes). As previously stated, both types of replicators are at
the same hierarchic level. Each replicator has its own selfish goal (i.e. to replicate and multiply). And each type of
replicator evolves according to its own distinctive rules. What I have added in this section is that both types of replicators
influence each others’ evolution processes because they are part of each others’ environment. In other words, both
types of replicators partially overlap regarding the effects they have on each others’ level of success in their race for
replication and multiplication. Replicators are part of the environment that affects the level of success of any given
replicator.
If each type of replicator were only affected by replicators of the same type, we would have two separate
environments, and two separate fields of study. In this world sociotics would be useless. The reason I think that this is
not the case is simple. Sometimes a meme and a gene prescribe different or even contradicting behaviors. In cases like
this one, to study only one type of replicator will result in an incomplete or even erroneous picture of the situation.
Sociotics is most useful in these cases because it explains human action by encompassing both information sources and
obtains results from their combination giving a complete picture of the situation. More than a mixture it is a synergic
amalgamation.
Note that genes and memes do not directly influence each other: they influence each other through human
behavior caused by them. It follows that the human being is not merely a vehicle: his behavior is the link by means of
which replicators, be them memes or genes, influence each other’s evolution processes.22 Mainstream academics who

20
These concepts will be expanded in Section VI.
21
Dawkins, R.: “The Extended Phenotype”, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 111.
22
However, this is not the only link. Replicators could also influence each other through effects generated by them on groups of
human beings, for example, religious values shared by a large population that partially condition or otherwise limit the success of a
gene influencing a certain type of sexual behavior. An example of this could be the following. Imagine a large group of people (the
whole population of a country) sharing a religion based fanatical condemnation of female adultery, a condemnation that punishes it
with death. We have here a meme-complex affecting the behavior of a group of people. Imagine that in the midst of this population
a female individual is born with a gene mutation that instinctively inclines her to heavy promiscuity. This genetic mutation could very
well be beneficial to itself in an environment with small quantities of men (a plausible environment after a war or a cataclysm).
However, due to the existence of a certain meme in the sociotic pool such as the one described above, that particular promiscuity
10
study genetics or memetics independently treat human beings merely as vehicles for their replicators. In this paper I
contest this view by claiming that human beings are not only vehicles but in fact are the nexus or synthesizing structure
through which the genetic and the memetic information sources become inextricably intertwined in the sense that one
cannot fully or completely understand and explain human action without referring to both sources simultaneously.23
These matters are at the core of sociotics. They will be further developed and enlarged upon throughout the
next section. For now let me conclude that genetics and memetics, though not subordinated to one another, influence
each others’ evolution processes and thus affect human action simultaneously.

meme’s success in replication will very probably be curtailed. The female individual carrying the promiscuity mutation would
probably be punished with death before she can bear any children.
23
In fact, one cannot even fully explain one type of replicator evolution process (genetic or memetic) without paying attention to the
other.
11
 VI
SOCIOTICS
So far, I claimed that genes and memes influence human behavior,24 and generally (though not necessarily) the survival
of genes and memes favors the survival of their carrier, the human being (section II and III). Additionally, I held that the
memetic evolution process is not subordinated to the genetic evolution process. However, I also claimed the survival and
multiplication of a certain replicator, meme or gene, is influenced by replicators of the same kind or by replicators of the
other kind present in the sociosphere. This is because both genes and memes are part of each others’ environment.25
Among other objectives, this paper tries to fill in some academic methodological holes that I could identify in the
edifice of human knowledge. As previously mentioned, the missing field of study that was formed by the combination
and interaction of genetics and memetics is ‘sociotics’. The final aim of sociotics is to understand human action. It does
this by explaining how human incentive schemes are spawned and how they evolve. Sociotics includes not only the
interaction between genes and memes inside a single human being (a local interaction that generates each individual’s
value set), but also the interaction between genes and memes present in a group of human beings (an interpersonal
interaction that spawns social rules and laws). Both local and interpersonal interaction influence human behavior: the
combination of i) individual value sets and ii) social rules and laws generates the individual incentive scheme each human
being faces when he has a decision to make. This finally decides the course of action each human being will take when
faced with different situations.
As was explained in section II, the biosphere is the environment in which different organisms evolve and interact,
and as was said in section III, the ideosphere is the environment in which human culture evolves. By the same token, the
sociosphere is the environment in which human behavior operates. This environment results from the interrelationship
between the biosphere and the ideosphere.
As explained in section II, a genome is a map of the whole genetic material of an organism. The genome is
something like an instruction manual about what biological characteristics the human being has to have. The genome is
like a map that organizes each possible variation of a given biological characteristic into slots, each of which can be filled
with genes prescribing certain feature or condition. Which gene fills each of these slots determines the exact biological
features of the organism. For example, in the human genome there is a slot concerning hair color. Which gene fills this
slot determines the hair color of this human being. Moreover, in the human genome there are slots concerning eyes’
color, height, the tendency to contract certain diseases, and all biological features, including instinctive social behaviors.
What about memetics? There is an analogous concept: the ‘ideome’. However, it is not easy to draw an analogy
between the genome and the ideome. Unlike genes, ideas are not so organized. As Dawkins says,
“[…] in general memes resemble the early replicating molecules, floating chaotically free in the primeval
soup, rather than modern genes in their neatly paired chromosomal regiments.” 26
But let’s try to draw this analogy. We could say that the ideome classifies ideas by topics: religion, politics,
economics, and so on. These topics are slots. These slots are filled with different memes. Memes that fill these slots
determine beliefs that the human being will have in each topic. Different topics –‘slots’- are related in such a way that
how a slot is filled influences how another slot will be filled. In the human mind, there is a certain harmony between
beliefs about different topics. For this reason, the opinion of a person about a certain topic influences the opinion of the
same person about another topic. Thus, the ideome is something like a map organizing the different memes a human
being has into basic topics or groups of topics.
Just as the genome and the ideome act as an organizational structure for human beings’ genes and memes,
respectively, the sociome is a simplified model of all situations that human beings could face during their lives. In the
sociome there are replicators, both genes and memes, and their combination and interaction determine how the human
being will behave in each situation. Thus, each slot represents a different situation. How the human being behaves in
each situation is influenced by the interaction of genes and memes.
The sociome should not be understood as an infinite list of all possible situations. It must be understood as a
finite list of kinds of situations. The sociome is like a map. In each situation, the human being, consciously or

24
Recall that, in this paper, I only refer to human social behavior.
25
See section V.
26
Dawkins, R.: “The Selfish Gene”, Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 196-197.
12
unconsciously, uses this map and he behaves on the basis of instructions given by this map. Each particular situation
faced by the human being can be subsumed in some general situation indicated in the sociome.
Note that the sociome and the incentive scheme are not the same: the sociome is a prior step. Once we know
this particular map called sociome, we can understand human incentive schemes and, as a result, the underlying
motivations and restrictions of human behavior.
The following charts will help to better understand this section and how the novel concepts fit alongside the old
notions into an elegant methodological framework:

An important thing to remark is that this paper not only fills the spaces or holes left by the traditional scientific
approach in the depicted methodological charts, but indeed creates the charts as a way to better address the problem of
explaining and understanding human action.
As was said, genes determine biological features of the human being. Some of these features are natural
instincts. These instincts influence human behavior. (Recall that in this paper I only refer to human social behavior). An
example of natural inclination is procreation. Thus, the fact that a person wants to procreate influences that persons’
social behavior: this person will behave in a certain way. By the same token, a person's ideas, theories, and opinions
depend on her memes. Memes determine human being's beliefs. Note that beliefs can be moral, that is, related with
“ought to be”, like beliefs about the morality of abortion or euthanasia. Beliefs can also be empirical, that is, related with
“to be”, like beliefs about physics and chemistry. But only moral beliefs influence human social behavior. Empirical beliefs
act as environmental restrictions or factual supports that simply guide or help a human being to achieve what his moral
beliefs prescribe him to do. In short, both genes and memes influence human behavior. They interact in the same
environment, which I call sociosphere.
Now, it is interesting to ask whether there are moral judgments27 that are determined by genes, or all moral
judgments are conditioned by memes. This question, which is about the scope of genetics, is discussed by Hauser:
“Marc D. Hauser [has proposed] that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural
circuits by evolution. […] he argues that the grammar generates instant moral judgments which, in part because of
the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations, are inaccessible to the conscious mind.” 28

27
I change the word “belief” for “judgment” because the question of this paragraph is precisely whether they are beliefs (determined
only by memes).
28
Marc D. Hauser, biologist of Harvard University, exposed this theory in “Moral Minds,” Harper Collins, 2006. As reported by the
New York Times.
13
 Thus, we can say that instantaneous moral judgments, which are subconscious, are only determined by genes.
These judgments are a kind of natural inclination. In contrast, more reflective moral judgments, which are conscious, are
determined by memes. This is the well-known difference between feeling that something is right or wrong, and believing
that something is right or wrong. The first one is related to genetics, the second one, to memetics.
However, we should be careful while pioneering into this tricky and uncharted ground. It is true that there are
instantaneous (non-reflexive) moral judgments, determined by genes, and reflexive moral judgments, determined by
memes. However, it is important to make two things clear. First, many times, but not always, people’s judgments are
neither purely reflexive nor purely impulsive. These judgments are influenced by feelings and reflections. Second, a
“reflexive” judgment sometimes is a mere rationalization of a natural instinct, which is determined by genes.29
So, we have natural instincts (some of them are instantaneous moral judgments), which are determined only by
genes, and reflexive moral beliefs, determined only by memes. Natural inclinations and moral beliefs interact in the same
environment, the sociosphere. Thus, natural inclinations and moral beliefs influence human social behavior. So, human
behavior results from a combination between genes and memes. In this way, there is a superposition or overlapping of
the genome and the ideome. I have labeled this interacting superposition ‘sociome’. A graphical representation follows:

In many cases, natural instincts do not coincide with reflexive judgments. That is to say, a behavior commanded
by a gene could be contrary or different to a behavior commanded by a meme, so both commands could come into some
degree of conflict. One of these kinds of replicators (the gene or the meme) will prevail in each case. How the human
being behaves in each case depends on the degree to which each command prevails.30 If we knew which specific
command prevails in each case for a given human being, we would know the so-called ‘value set’ of that particular
human being. This is a consequence of the interaction between the genes and the memes inside him. I call the system by
which certain commands of one of the two kinds of replicators prevail the ‘prescription resolution process’. The success
of a certain replicator when determining or conditioning the actions of its vehicle can also be measured in levels. This is

29
What about complex moral movements, such as religion? Is religion a rationalization of instincts generated by genes, or a true
reflexive judgment caused by memes? These questions escape the focus, scope and depth of this paper and are an interesting
investigation topic.
30
In other words, neither genes nor memes are completely dominant. It depends on the person’s prescription resolution process. As
we said in section II, if one kind of replicator were dominant in all human beings, talking about a combination between genetics and
memetics (sociotics) would not make any contribution to the analysis of human social behavior. It would be enough to talk only
about the dominant replicator.
14
obviously not possible when the involved replicators prescribe utterly contradicting actions, but it can happen when
there are more than two morally different possible actions.31
Note that a human being can change his value set. He could get to know and accept new moral beliefs. In other
words, he could adopt different memes. When that happens, he goes through a prescription resolution process again,
and this process will form a new value set. Memes can change frequently, making the prescription resolution process a
continuously working mechanism.
It is important to clarify that the value set can change only if memes change: genes cannot vary in an individual’s
lifetime. Furthermore, each human being has a different set of values because his genetic and memetic composition is
different, so the interaction between his genes and memes is different too.
Until now I have shown only the local interaction between genes and memes: the one that occurs inside every
human being in order to spawn that human being’s value set. But there exists another interaction, an interpersonal
interaction between the different value sets of different human beings. This interaction between the value sets of all
human beings within a certain population generates social rules and laws. These are different in nature from the rules of
each human being’s value set in that the last are not socially coercive whereas the first are coercive.
In a way, all social rules and laws are the result of the interaction and combination of all the replicators (genes
and memes) present in a given society. All genes and memes, present in the sociosphere, express themselves through
human beings’ value sets (individual dimension) and through social rules and laws (interpersonal dimension). Both
dimensions interact to spawn each human being’s incentive scheme. Thus, all replicators in the sociotic pool affect the
behavior of every human being, even if that particular human being does not carry all of them (which is generally the
case). What happens is that the replicators which are not present in a particular human being affect his social behavior
by way of influencing his incentive scheme in the form of social rules and laws, generated by the combination of every
human being’s value sets, which are in turn bred by each human being’s replicators.
In short, there are two kinds of interactions. Both produce different consequences. The first kind takes place
inside each human being and it occurs between his genes and memes. When the behavior commanded by a gene is
different from the behavior commanded by a meme, there is a prescription resolution process, by means of which a
certain command or combination of commands prevails. In this way, each human being's value set is formed. The value
set is a consequence of the interaction between genes and memes in the human being and the consequent prescription
resolution process.
The second kind of interaction is that between different human beings’ value sets. This is the combination
between all genes and memes in the society, expressed through each human being’s own value set. The way in which a
group of people generate their social rules and laws is studied by the social sciences and exceeds the scope of this paper,
but I can say that each person’s preference regarding which social norms and coercive laws their society should have
depend on their own value set. Charity
A human being’s incentive scheme is influenced by his own value set and by different (external) kinds of rules. In
other words, these incentives result from the interaction between genes and memes present in a human being, and
genes and memes present in other human beings of a given population. In turn, incentives determine the behavior of the
human being. By means of sociotics, we can understand human incentive schemes and, therefore, human behavior. As
we can see in the following figure, the individual value set and the social rules constitute the two basic bricks whose
combination generates a human being’s incentive scheme:

31
An example of a binary situation may be the choice of saving someone from drowning or not, when there is no other way to save
the drowning person. In this example you either plunge into the water or you don’t. An example of a situation that has more than
two morally different options is the question of how much are you willing to give away to charity when prompted by an aid
organization. In fact this example opens infinite (morally different) available choices.
15
 As I said in section V, the human being is, among other things, a vehicle by means of which certain genes and
memes seek to survive and multiply. In general, what guarantees survival and multiplication of genes and memes also
guarantees survival of the human being. Nevertheless, it might happen that what is beneficial for the survival and
multiplication of genes and memes is not beneficial for the survival of their carrier: the human being. By means of the
natural selection process, there are genes and memes that survive and multiply, and others that do not. The human
being will have those genes and memes that manage to survive and multiply. But recall that these replicators may
sometimes not be beneficial for the survival of the human being, and thus breed value sets that are not entirely
beneficial for their carriers.
Similarly, the combination between human beings’ different value sets (which is, after all, the combination
between genes and memes of different human beings) produces certain social rules and laws. The fact that some of
these rules have remained in place for a long time does not mean that these rules contribute to the survival and
multiplication of human beings or are that they are efficient or otherwise adequate for human purposes. In general,
though not necessarily, they are. These rules, however, are always beneficial to survival and multiplication of the genes
and memes that produced them.
By the same token, the combination of individual value sets and social rules and laws generates incentive
schemes that may or may not be beneficial to their carriers. However, these incentive schemes are always beneficial to
the survival and multiplication of the replicators which generate them. Finally, incentive schemes determine human
behavior, which is generally, though not necessarily, beneficial for the survival of the human being. Sociotics can shed
some light into the new problem of the existence and survival of ‘non-optimal’ human behavior which is nowadays being
thoroughly discussed in social sciences (especially in economics) by helping explain lots of ‘irrational’ laws, ideologies
and acts we human beings perform, which seemingly violate some of the social sciences’ basic laws, like, for example
rational behavior.
Now, imagine a scenario in which a set of values is effectively beneficial to survival of its carrier, the human
being. This set of values is beneficial, given certain rules. This does not say anything about whether these rules are the
best in terms of guaranteeing survival of the human being if the social rules and laws suddenly changed. This means that
a given value set may be beneficial if the person carrying it is immersed in a given replicator pool, but may not be so
beneficial (or may even be detrimental) if that person was suddenly immersed in another sociotic environment.
Which rules and norms are the best in terms of guaranteeing the survival and well-being of human beings is an
interesting question, but I leave it open. But once we know which rules are the best, we have another problem: how to

16
promote them. Imagine that altruism and generosity are the best rules in terms of guaranteeing survival of human
beings. What can we do for these rules to be adopted by the rest of human beings?
Dawkins says something about this topic:
“[…] Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own
selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no
other species has ever aspired to.”32
The problem with this proposal is that educating consists of transmitting memes. Memes, like genes, evolve
independently of human beings. Memes and genes are selfish: they seek to survive and multiply, and human beings are
but their vehicles. If it is hard to control genes, which change very slowly with small mutations between generations,
imagine how hard it can be to control memes that can completely change in a matter of instants. Maybe, if we
understood the inner workings of the prescription resolution process, it would be easier to alter the selfish behavior of
our genes and memes. But this topic is not discussed in this paper.

32
Dawkins, R.: “The Selfish Gene”, Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 3.
17
 VII
CONCLUSION
Human social behavior is influenced or determined by different replicators. By means of the human being, these
replicators seek to survive and multiply. In general, although not necessarily, survival and multiplication of replicators
contribute to the survival of their carrier, the human being. The natural selection process is the process by which certain
replicators manage to survive and multiply, and others do not.
Furthermore, the genetic natural selection process and the memetic natural selection process are not
subordinated to one another. However, survival and multiplication of a replicator (be it a gene or a meme) depends on
the composition of the replicator pool. For genes and memes ultimately interact in the same environment, the
sociosphere, through the effects they elicit on human beings’ actions.
Since there are two independent sources of information that influence the behavior of the human being, the
newly revealed field of sociotics was necessary to better understand and study the interaction between them. More
precisely, sociotics offers the framework with which to better comprehend a) the interaction between genes and memes
inside a single human being, and b) the interaction between genes and memes among groups or populations of human
beings. Both these interactions influence human behavior.
Sometimes genes and memes may command the human being to do different or even contradictory things. The
prescription resolution process determines the degree to which each command prevails.
Individual moral value sets and social rules and laws result from these interactions. In turn, these value sets and
social rules generate certain incentive schemes in human beings. For this reason, by studying these interactions, sociotics
helps to better understand human beings’ behavior. But recall that the fact that some of these rules have remained for a
long time does not necessarily mean that these contribute to the survival of human beings. In general, they do, but it
may well be the opposite. The difference between replicators -genes or memes- and their vehicles or synthesizing
structures -human beings- helps to better understand this point.
Finding out how the prescription resolution process specifically works may elevate human beings from their
pawn-of-their-replicator status to the more dignified status that social sciences confer to them. Sociotics may perhaps
work as a link between the hard sciences; like chemistry, biology, physics, and so on; and social sciences, like economics,
law, politics, sociology, and so on. Developing this new field, sociotics, would contribute to the unity of knowledge. It
might be that it is in fact the long sought link that could unite all scientific knowledge into one coherent body. This could
help answer some questions that cannot be answered by these sciences separately.33

33
But perhaps this would be going too far. The aim of this paper is only to explain human action by presenting sociotics as a new field
and offer a rudimentary scheme of how its structure and operation affect human behavior. Its further development will be part of
future works.
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 GLOSSARY
Biosphere: Environment in which life develops. It includes the whole spectrum of living organisms, their interaction and their evolution through time.
Gene: Basic hereditary biological information storage unit. It is the only biological Replicator of human beings.
Genetic pool: The complete set of genes that can be found by inspecting the genetic material of a given species or population. It is also known as the ‘Gene pool’.
Genetics: A field of biology that studies how genes are transmitted from one generation to the next and how each gene affects the biological characteristics of a living
organism, including its instinctive behavior.
Genome: Genetic map. It organizes genes in ‘slots’ each of which determines a single biological characteristic.
Ideome: Cultural map of an individual. It classifies his beliefs according to theme or topic.
Ideosphere: Environment in which human culture develops. It includes all human beliefs, ideas, theories, religions, etc. and their evolution in time.
Incentive Scheme: Categorized arrangement of all individual (local) and interpersonal (social) rules that affect, limit or otherwise condition human social behavior. It
spawns from the convergence of the individual Value Set and the interpersonal Social Rules.
Individual: See ‘Vehicle’.
Meme: Basic transmissible cultural information storage unit. It is the only cultural Replicator of human beings.
Memetics: It is the scientific approach to meme-based cultural information transmission models. By focusing on education, indoctrination or imitation it studies the
patterns of transmission and expansion of beliefs in society. It centers on acquired characteristics of human beings.
Memetic pool: The complete set of memes that can be found by inspecting the whole culture of a given population. It is also known as the ‘Meme pool’.
Prescription: Recommendation, instruction, order.
Prescription resolution process: System that determines the level to which a certain replicators’ prescription will be heeded in case of having contradictions or
differences between the prescriptions of different replicators.
Replicator: Basic self-copying information transmission unit. Genes and memes are replicators.
Social rules: Every formal or informal external norm or regulation that -in a coercive or non-coercive manner- condition, affect or otherwise modify human social
behavior.
Sociome: It is a simplified map or guide for every situation a human being can face. It houses different replicators each of which has a prescription for each of these
simplified situations.
Sociosphere: Environment in which human social behavior happens.
Sociotic pool: The complete set of replicators that can be found in a given population.
Sociotics: Science that studies the origin, structure, operation and evolution of human incentive schemes in order to understand and explain human social behavior. It
spawns from the interactive overlapping of Genetics and Memetics.
Survival machine: See ‘Vehicle’.
Value Set: Internal categorization of human moral preferences. It is the individual or local aspect of the Incentive Scheme.
Vehicle: Physical manifestation of the organism or group of organisms that carry replicators.

19
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