Modified Ideas

People modify cultural ideas in their minds, and sometimes they pass on the modified versions. Inevitably, there are unintentional modifications as well, partly because of straightforward error, and partly because explicit ideas are hard to [blank] accurately: there is no way to download them directly from one brain to another like computer programs. [blank] native speakers of a language will not give identical definitions of every word. So it can be only rarely, if ever, that two people hold precisely the same cultural idea in their minds. That is why when the founder of a political or philosophical movement or a religion dies, or even before, schisms typically happen. The movement's most devoted followers are often shocked to discover that they disagree about what its doctrines [blank] are.