'What gives us life?  And what takes it away?  Those are most basic questions for how anyone would live.
 
What’s a desirable life look like for you (you plural and you individual)?  That’s a quality question.  Some talk about a good life, a meaningful life, a purposeful life, a you-name-the-desirable-quality life:  happy, productive, useful, enjoyable, honorable, faithful, beautiful, you-name-it.'

-Memento Vivere Notes, No. ​5.  [20201004]

'With phenomena, we “break them down” and “take them as wholes or a whole”:  parts and wholes.
 
We may incorporate both reduction and complexity: reduction including differentiation of “objects”, and complexity including system(s).
 
We have means of observing, interacting, engaging, and negotiating phenomena: “objects”, events – of classifying, taxonomizing, and of ordering.'

-Fragments of Memetica, No. ​40, adapted.  [20210228]

'Memento vivere is the question of how we live within or in interaction with memetica ecologica.
 
What are the particular ideas and actions that make up our lives within or in interaction with our ‘world’ of embodied information?
 
Our brains and bodies (they are one) DO.  What do they do?  Their actions have effects.  What are those effects?  The effects (of those actions) calcify and become routines and artifacts.  What are those routines?  What are those artifacts?'

-Memento Vivere Notes, No. ​4.  [20201004]

'A conception of memetica includes broad programs for human society:
 
democracy
liberalism
christianity

socialism
communism
islam

fascism/authoritarianism
oligarchy
capitalism

indigenous holisms
-----various “world systems”.'

-Fragments of Memetica, No. 39, adapated.  [20210225]

'Memento vivere invites many questions and many paths.  Some of them could be:
 
-What do we do?                     (work / activity)
            &                                              &
-How are we?                          (being / non-being)
 
-What do we have?                 (resources: time, energy
                                                 money – systems of value
                                                 exchange)
 
-Where are we?                      (space[s] / organization
  And how does that look?        routines)
 
-How do we get energy?            (re-creation: for self ·
                                                       others · life)'.

-Memento Vivere Notes, No. 3.  [20200926]

'“Understanding everything” quickly gets into particulars, starting with either particular items or cases, on the one hand, or broad strokes outlining, on the other hand.  This can be one version of an empirical vs. theoretical scaling/phenomenon discussion. 
 
One broad-strokes version of this gets us right into the “big 3” discussion of disciplines:  arts/humanities + social sciences + natural sciences; then add “professions” and consider also mathematics and philosophies.
 
Consider diverse and integrative theaters of living.'

-Fragments of Memetica, No. ​38, adapted.  [20210225]

"A major part of the ‘waking up’ of memento vivere is becoming aware of Memetica Ecologica (M.E.). But as all-encompassing and absorbing as M.E. may be and is, it only represents a ‘positive’ and cannot ever encapsulate ‘the negative’. 

That is, as we live, move, and have our being within an ecology of information, there is always an elusive quality, like trying to hold water in your hand, that ever escapes human quantification. 

On the one hand, M.E. is all there is.  On the other hand, ‘all there is’ for us and our machines does not encapsulate what we experience and even what we observe. 

Words begin to fail, and concepts appear weak, but we do our best with what we have."

-Memento Vivere Notes, No. 2., adapted  [20200926]
​

"An ethnography of memetica includes research and writing about the culture and environment of information where information is physical and semiotic.
 
This includes field research:  attention/attend and observe and describe/document.
 
Memetica is my name for the dominant interpretation and regime of the world order at present."

-Fragments of Memetica, No. ​37. 

​[20210222]

News:  Recently, Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter was invited to and visited the Santa Fe Institute for lunch and conversation with David C. Krakauer, President and Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute, after Krakauer's endorsement of Bennett-Carpenter's Information Rhetorics book (Routledge, 2026).  They met, talked, and toured the Cowan Campus, Santa Fe, New Mexico on 27 May 2026.  The Santa Fe Institute is the world's leading institution in complexity science and is committed to interdisciplinary work across a range of fields, disciplines, and domains.

Good for libraries and personal use --> discount code: RENC20 -- for INFORMATION RHETORICS book via the Routledge website / Routledge Books (discount code good for 3 months)

https://www.routledge.com/Information-Rhetorics-Memetics-and-the-Dream-of-Reverse-Engineering-Na/Bennett-Carpenter/p/book/9781041194149?_ga=undefined&_gl=1*1az1329*_gcl_au*MjgxOTI3MTM0LjE3ODM0NzcxMDM.*_ga*NzU3NTUwNTUuMTc4MzQ3NzEwNQ..*_ga_0HYE8YG0M6*czE3ODM0NzcxMDUkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODM0NzcxMDUkajYwJGwwJGgw

​

Out now:  "Not Afraid to Rise", a new chapbook by Glen Armstrong

A new collection of poems from Cruel Garters 

​cover image by LBC, 2026.

Forthcoming in October/November 2026 with R. Szostak: 

"One & Many, Again: Revisiting the Philosophy of Interdisciplinarity."   

Panel for the annual meeting of the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies.  Organized by B. Bennett-Carpenter, R. Szostak, and the AIS 2026 organizing committee.

Hosted in partnership by Florida State University, Florida A&M University, and the University of Mississippi.   Panama City Beach, Florida, Oct/Nov 2026 forthcoming.

https://interdisciplinarystudies.org/conference-2026/

"‘Memento vivere’, ‘life, now’ addresses how we humans have lived, do live, and shall live.  It’s an injunction to Wake Up to the life we have to live now in our present situation, informed by the past and looking to the future. 

It may address any human anywhere but need not necessarily exclude non-human life forms such as non-human animals and non-human intelligence (e.g. AI). 

​A most pressing and all absorbing situation for memento vivere (M.V.) is that of living with and in interaction with ‘memetica ecologica’ – an all encompassing ‘ecology’ of ‘information’ both quantitatively and qualitatively that defines the realm in which ‘we live and move, and have our being’, so to speak."

-Memento Vivere Notes, No. 1  [20200926]

"The 'play of signs' is already built in to the fabric of things, the fabric of reality.
 
There are 'signs' that do things. 
 
'Things' may be understood as moments in time, as calcification of actions."

-Fragments of Memetica, No. 36  [20210217]

Forthcoming (October 2026):  "On ‘Minimum Signification’:  The Semiosphere, John Deely, and the Chorus." 

In-person paper presentation to the Semiotic Society of America annual conference, Pittsburgh, 14-18 October 2026 [forthcoming].

Abstract -- In a context of rhetorical, conceptual, and existential limits, a heuristic approach to inquiry is necessary, both as individuals and as a collective.  Within such a heuristic, this presentation briefly explores the question of “minimum signification”.  This exploration of minimum signification is inspired and informed by the wider discussion of the semiosphere among thinkers in semiotics; the work of John Deely, particularly as articulated in Paul Cobley’s John Deely reader; and, also, those thinkers more widely that consider semiosis as including not only the living, bio-psycho-social world but also the non-living, physico-spatio-temporal world.  In particular, I am interested in Deely’s idea that “relations constitute reality” – or, otherwise, his “relational realism”, especially as this intersects with rhetorics of information, for example in the thinking of Eddington, Simondon, Bateson, and Floridi, among others.  Left for another time is the question of how we get from minimum signification to “maximum signification”.
 
Keywords:  rhetorics, signification, semiosphere, Deely, relation, information

Forthcoming:  Book Café: Move/ments and Trends in the Field.

Panel featuring new books in the field, including Information Rhetorics: Memetics and the Dream of Reverse Engineering Nature & Culture. 

​Meeting of the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine at the annual convention of the National Communication Association.  New Orleans, Louisiana.   Forthcoming November 2026.

​Information Rhetorics, a new book by Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter, was recently published by Routledge (April 2026) and is now available through select libraries, amazon, and local bookshops by special order.  A preview is available through Google Books.

Description

Combining a rhetorical approach to the study of memes with profound philosophical concepts about information as a fundamental building block of existence, Information Rhetorics presents a framework for understanding the world through the lens of information transfer.

Drawing from rhetorical theory, semiotics, philosophy of information, and communications studies, the author explores how information – defined not as static facts but as transmitted significance and value – flows through both animate and inanimate realms. He examines how specialized terminologies function across disciplines while connecting to vernacular understandings of information transfer. By positioning memes as a heuristic tool, the author creates an interdisciplinary framework that illuminates economics, spirituality, and social theory.

This book will interest scholars, students, and researchers across disciplines, particularly those working in philosophy of information, rhetoric, semiotics, cultural studies, and communication studies.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction to Memetica: A Contemporary Rhetoric of Information
2 Heuristic toward Everything
3 Memetics as Heuristic Rhetoric
4 Memetica as a Complex Signifying Ecology
5 Information Rhetorics: Holistic and Differentiated
6 Memetica Otherwise/Critiqued
7 Memetica Applied:  Economics, Spirituality, Social Theory
8 Conclusion and What’s Next

Reviews

"I like books that take on big topics and expertly synthesize understandings from diverse fields. Carpenter deals with the whole world and explores how we can best understand this as an 'ecology of information.'  He shows how such an approach guides us to ask new questions about our world."

-- Rick Szostak, University of Alberta, Canada

“A book that shows that the meme is an object of rhetoric and not an object of science.”

-- David Krakauer, President and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems, Santa Fe Institute, USA

"An all-encompassing attempt to conceptualize unity, diversity, and complexity in contemporary contexts. An important brick in the emerging building of memetics. This project is as ambitious as that of Vernadsky’s Noosphere."

-- Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, Professor of Philosophy, Gulf University of Science and Technology, Kuwait


Preview (at Google Books):

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Information_Rhetorics/p4TBEQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Bio

Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter writes philosophy and poetry. He teaches at Oakland University, USA, and consults and coaches at Sollars and Associates, Michigan, USA. Bennett-Carpenter is the author of Death in Documentaries (2018) and Explaining Jesus (2019). His current project is on how humans live.