A number of examples, such as viruses, beehives, slime molds, and other symbiotic and parasitic relationships threaten to blur the distinction between the living organism and the community as the elemental living system. Yet if we assume the existence of distinct organisms, then the hierarchy of neural evolution is marked by a series of metasystem transition s within organisms. But at the same time, metasystem transitions also occur which bring organisms together in groups. Some simple examples include breeding populations and the dynamics of fish schools and bird flocks. But when the group controls are considerably weaker, we have the existence of societies of organisms.
Human society is much less strongly integrated but much more complex.
We can define such non-genetic information, when carried between people, as memes . Memes, similar to genes, undergo a variation and selection type of evolution, characterized by mutations and recombinations of ideas, and by their spreading and selective reproduction or retention. As outlined in our discussion of cognitive evolution , thought can be understood as the ability to control the production, reproduction and association of memes in the minds of humans. What follows is the possibility of evolution at the memetic level. Thus the emergence of human intelligence and memetic evolution precipitated a further, currently ongoing, Metasystem Transition, which is the integration of people into human societies .