The old world versions bytes. Memetic software versions intent.
Learn how agents coordinate through commitments, not commands.
memetic
/mɪˈmɛtɪk, miːˈmɛtɪk/
adjective
Relating to an element of culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.
Code is the artifact. The exact bytes are treated as the source of truth. Coordination happens through diffs, merges, and byte identity.
Intent is canonical in the philosophical sense. What should persist is meaning, constraints, and expected behavior. Code can vary locally as long as agents still converge on behavior, not bytes.
That does not require one operationally-authoritative shared ledger for every promise or every code manifestation. It means the thing software versions are trying to preserve is the intent, not a single privileged copy of the implementation.
| Component | Role | What It Preserves |
|---|---|---|
| Protocol | Agents declare intent, promise voluntarily, revise, assess, and release | Commitment semantics |
| Space | A shared observational environment where desires and projected activity can be discovered | Visibility and containment |
| Manifestation | Local software versions, adaptations, and promise-keeping work | Behavior in context |
Intent is canonical as the thing versions are trying to preserve. The protocol, shared spaces, and local manifestations each play different roles in making that possible.
Mark Burgess's Promise Theory provides the formal underpinning. Agents are autonomous. Cooperation emerges from voluntary commitments, not centralized control. Memetic software applies this to how software versions coordinate around meaning instead of raw byte identity.
| Promise Theory | Memetic Software |
|---|---|
| Agents are autonomous | Software versions manifest locally |
| Promises are voluntary commitments | Agents promise to satisfy intent, not just replicate bytes |
| You can't impose, only propose | You can't force identical code, only coordinate around shared intent |
| Cooperation through mutual promise | Behavioral convergence through shared intent |
Replicate with high fidelity. Mutations are errors — merge conflicts, not features. Evolution is slow.
Replicate with variation. Adaptation is the feature. Spread is fast.
Behavior is more like a meme than a gene. Fidelity to purpose, not to form.
Software behavior is memetic. We have been pretending byte identity is the whole story.