meme is pronounced like the pronoun "me" with an "mmm" attached after it. Memes, a type of replicator, are a hypothetical informational correlary to genes, coined by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. In his book the Selfish Gene, he describes living creatures as merely delivery devices for genes. He holds the view that evolution and species change should not viewed at the level of species, or individual, but at the level of identifying which genes particular individuals have (so instead of talking about the survival of a whole species, you'd ask what is the survival of the gene for blue eyes, or sickle-cell anemia). Memes in contrast to the relatively slowly (relative to human life spans) changing genes, which are info-chunks which fly between the minds of sentient beings, allow for humans and other similar species to adopt behaviorial traits which their genes didn't inherently endow them with. This isn't to say that Memes override genes, but rather that they operate inside the parameters set by genes. So essentially, if you think of a computer, genes give a description and establish the hardware (wetware really) within which the memetic software resides.
If that answer was far too cerebral, then you can functionally think of memes as descrete chunks of information that can be passed around. The concept of catchy tunes as ear-worms, or the idea of viral marketing, or the evolution of a particular message over time (think the stupid grade school game "Telephone") all display memetic qualities.
no theories here...
Yeah. I'm notheory. I'm here cause... um... i guess cause i like irate drawing impliments.
or not.
Alright. So i'm really here because Verileah keeps friggin' bugging me! For similar reasons i include, below, a short and incomplete description of myself:
I am a 22 year old midwesterner who is about to step from undergraduateness into the wide world of god-knows-what. I currently spend my time trying to absorb as much web content-creation technique as i possibly can when i'm not in class or working on starting a student newspaper at my university. Other inexaustive lists of my interests might include my propensity for digital photography, electronic music, particularly trance and dark/tribal house, climbing, canadians or arguing over politics.
I suppose i should field questions in a non-McClelland-like fashion as TeH Bowles has done.
notheory
20 years ago
Verileah
20 years ago
I said it wrong for a long time :X.
Zhavric
20 years ago
You've got a good start for understanding memes. I applaud your knowledge of Dawkins. It was a good summary.
However, I fear that the blog community has taken the concept of memes and turned them into a buzz-word... a "word / thought of the day" if you will. This is only partially correct and, IMO, dangerously short of explaining the full impact and implications of memes. Thinking of a meme as a "thought of the day" as most bloggers do is akin to thinking of Jesus Christ as simply an "historical figure": true, but not NEARLY the entire case.
Let's define a meme as any idea that has the following five attributes:
1) Contains information.
2) Is built from existing information or other memes.
3) Triggers an emotion or desire.
4) Triggers the belief that understanding has occured.
5) Is passed from the infected to others who then become infectious.
While memes cover such mundanities as fashion and blogger thoughts of the day, they also account for much grander concepts. Like politics. And religion.
You see, what Dawkins only touches on is that the stronger the emotion / desire triggered by a meme the more it affects us as we are creatures of desire. We rationalize our desires constantly. Thus, individuals who, knowingly or unknowingly, use memes can command the obedience and allegiance of large groups of people. No, it's not a matter of smart vs. dumb or gullible vs. wise. It's a matter of passionate vs. not passionate.
Memes explain a great many things. They explain why, in a world of HUNDREDS of religions, the majority of humans are the same religion as their parents. It explains why people who love a country can have radically different political beliefs about it. It explains why smart, rational people can believe in irrational concepts.
I am somewhat bitter towards bloggers for, IMO, trivialising the meme.
If that answer was far too cerebral, then you can functionally think of memes as descrete chunks of information that can be passed around. The concept of catchy tunes as ear-worms, or the idea of viral marketing, or the evolution of a particular message over time (think the stupid grade school game "Telephone") all display memetic qualities.
You've got a good start for understanding memes. I applaud your knowledge of Dawkins. It was a good summary.
However, I fear that the blog community has taken the concept of memes and turned them into a buzz-word... a "word / thought of the day" if you will. This is only partially correct and, IMO, dangerously short of explaining the full impact and implications of memes. Thinking of a meme as a "thought of the day" as most bloggers do is akin to thinking of Jesus Christ as simply an "historical figure": true, but not NEARLY the entire case.
Let's define a meme as any idea that has the following five attributes:
1) Contains information.
2) Is built from existing information or other memes.
3) Triggers an emotion or desire.
4) Triggers the belief that understanding has occured.
5) Is passed from the infected to others who then become infectious.
While memes cover such mundanities as fashion and blogger thoughts of the day, they also account for much grander concepts. Like politics. And religion.
You see, what Dawkins only touches on is that the stronger the emotion / desire triggered by a meme the more it affects us as we are creatures of desire. We rationalize our desires constantly. Thus, individuals who, knowingly or unknowingly, use memes can command the obedience and allegiance of large groups of people. No, it's not a matter of smart vs. dumb or gullible vs. wise. It's a matter of passionate vs. not passionate.
Memes explain a great many things. They explain why, in a world of HUNDREDS of religions, the majority of humans are the same religion as their parents. It explains why people who love a country can have radically different political beliefs about it. It explains why smart, rational people can believe in irrational concepts.
I am somewhat bitter towards bloggers for, IMO, trivialising the meme.
Verileah
20 years ago
You know, for this being a thread with "no theories"...
Honestly, when I mentioned the meme thing I was cracking a joke because...well, I guess it wasn't that funny and involves tedious backstory no one cares about :\.
NM :(.
At any rate, I'll freely admit having a limited grasp as to what the hell notheory and David are talking about when they get into their meme discussions. I think you'll find you have a lot in common with those two though :D. I would suggest not writing them off as your run of the mill bloggers; both are true thinkers :).
Honestly, when I mentioned the meme thing I was cracking a joke because...well, I guess it wasn't that funny and involves tedious backstory no one cares about :\.
NM :(.
At any rate, I'll freely admit having a limited grasp as to what the hell notheory and David are talking about when they get into their meme discussions. I think you'll find you have a lot in common with those two though :D. I would suggest not writing them off as your run of the mill bloggers; both are true thinkers :).
Geeii
20 years ago
I was once known as teh thread nazi... I don;'t knokw if I can get there again.
notheory
20 years ago
Oh, how demeaning.
And since i don't agree with at least three of your five points, i'm going to have to ask what motivates claims two through four. Particularly, what i find so strange is the emotion/desire thing you seem to have going on. Dawkin's own model of being is essentially a mechanistic one, people function the way they do not because of desire or their intentional wishes, but simply because they are programmed to behave in certain ways by their genes and then their memes. To think otherwise is to thoroughly miss the point of Dawkin's endeavor.
In the wider scope of things, i did neglect to mention meme complexes, however, this was primarily for time/space concerns. Since this entire thing is hypothetical, it's sort of weird to talk about groups of memes, when theres so much misunderstanding and lack of clarity on memes themselves. The thing about memes is not that they help us account for more data in the world, we already do a pretty good job of explaining most of the phenomena that people cast into memetic theory. The interesting quality that memetics possess is that it proposes an automaticity, and discreteness (chunkability) that most other theories don't have (if you look at discourse theory in linguistics or comparitive studies etc). But causality (such as in the fact that by and large children retain the religion of their parents) is not a feature solely of memetic theory.
And since i don't agree with at least three of your five points, i'm going to have to ask what motivates claims two through four. Particularly, what i find so strange is the emotion/desire thing you seem to have going on. Dawkin's own model of being is essentially a mechanistic one, people function the way they do not because of desire or their intentional wishes, but simply because they are programmed to behave in certain ways by their genes and then their memes. To think otherwise is to thoroughly miss the point of Dawkin's endeavor.
In the wider scope of things, i did neglect to mention meme complexes, however, this was primarily for time/space concerns. Since this entire thing is hypothetical, it's sort of weird to talk about groups of memes, when theres so much misunderstanding and lack of clarity on memes themselves. The thing about memes is not that they help us account for more data in the world, we already do a pretty good job of explaining most of the phenomena that people cast into memetic theory. The interesting quality that memetics possess is that it proposes an automaticity, and discreteness (chunkability) that most other theories don't have (if you look at discourse theory in linguistics or comparitive studies etc). But causality (such as in the fact that by and large children retain the religion of their parents) is not a feature solely of memetic theory.
Geeii
20 years ago
How would the meme theory look from a standpoint disregarding causality. For instance, much of Eastern thought is based upon synchronicity.
Basically, synchronicity of events states that rather then one event being the cause to the other, they have a common cause, so to speak. In essence, instead of me 'reacting' to a situation from a casual point of view, the same circumstances which gave birth to the situation gave birth to my 'reaction' to it. It explains 'coincidences' as not a fluke, or chance encounter that one has to assume with a casual view but instead a natural event.
The concept, unfortunatly, is hard for me to understand fully, as I am not the most knowledgeable on the subject. Further, it is difficult for anyone witha Western philisophical, religious and scientific background to understand, much less convey =/
I will try and simplifiy it as much as I can so that you can better answer my question.
An example of synchronicity would be as follows:
When driving you pass by a restaurant that a long time friend and you ate at several years prior, the place reminds of you just that friend, and the person, who contacts you maybe once in every three months calls you at that exact moment.
another might be:
While working on a school project dealing with the realities of drugs in modern adolescent america, your cat jumps from your lap to your desk and steps across yoru keyboard; in doing so, the word 'reality' is typed as the cat walks across the keyboard.
Basically, synchronicity of events states that rather then one event being the cause to the other, they have a common cause, so to speak. In essence, instead of me 'reacting' to a situation from a casual point of view, the same circumstances which gave birth to the situation gave birth to my 'reaction' to it. It explains 'coincidences' as not a fluke, or chance encounter that one has to assume with a casual view but instead a natural event.
The concept, unfortunatly, is hard for me to understand fully, as I am not the most knowledgeable on the subject. Further, it is difficult for anyone witha Western philisophical, religious and scientific background to understand, much less convey =/
I will try and simplifiy it as much as I can so that you can better answer my question.
An example of synchronicity would be as follows:
When driving you pass by a restaurant that a long time friend and you ate at several years prior, the place reminds of you just that friend, and the person, who contacts you maybe once in every three months calls you at that exact moment.
another might be:
While working on a school project dealing with the realities of drugs in modern adolescent america, your cat jumps from your lap to your desk and steps across yoru keyboard; in doing so, the word 'reality' is typed as the cat walks across the keyboard.
notheory
20 years ago
Well, synchronicity was actually used by Carl Jung to try and explain a lot of things. I however, can't claim to know terribly much about how he and his students used it, since that's not my intellectual lineage. But, in that regard, it does have some history in western philosophy.
In regards to synchronicity and memes... i don't know, memes are based on the assumption that memes interact causally. The idea is that your infant and childhood brain is quickly filled up with the memes around you, and then as you grow up, some of them become intractable, and form some sort of structure. This structure is some kind of semi-permiable barrier, and some memes hit it and slide off, and others manage to get inside the structure, and change it.
That's the idea anyway. (so that way, you can claim that christian zealots are "innoculated" against things like common sense and science, because of how intractable their belief in a literal interpretation of the bible is for instance)
In regards to synchronicity and memes... i don't know, memes are based on the assumption that memes interact causally. The idea is that your infant and childhood brain is quickly filled up with the memes around you, and then as you grow up, some of them become intractable, and form some sort of structure. This structure is some kind of semi-permiable barrier, and some memes hit it and slide off, and others manage to get inside the structure, and change it.
That's the idea anyway. (so that way, you can claim that christian zealots are "innoculated" against things like common sense and science, because of how intractable their belief in a literal interpretation of the bible is for instance)
Anulien
20 years ago
=/
Verileah
I guess it wasn't that funny and involves tedious backstory no one cares about :\.
=/
Zhavric
20 years ago
The "programming" which you are speaking of is based heavily on our emotions / desires. We are creatures of desire. We are naturally irrational and have to invoke rational thought upon ourselves constantly. That's where memes come in. They aren't always rational, but they DO link to our emotions / desires.
How else would a meme take hold in the mind of a person? If not by emotion / desire then what mechanism would memes latch onto?
No,causality is not a feature of memes... nor have I asserted such. Instead, memes travel from person to person in a manner not unlike a virus. One person is "infected" who then goes to others, shares the information, infecting them, and so on and so on.
We're doing it right now.
We are on the same page, though, regarding automaticity of memes. In the hunter-gatherer model of humanity, individuals that can quickly pass on key pieces of information, retain them, and SPREAD them to their families / allies have a much larger advantage over those who cannot.
notheory
And since i don't agree with at least three of your five points, i'm going to have to ask what motivates claims two through four. Particularly, what i find so strange is the emotion/desire thing you seem to have going on. Dawkin's own model of being is essentially a mechanistic one, people function the way they do not because of desire or their intentional wishes, but simply because they are programmed to behave in certain ways by their genes and then their memes. To think otherwise is to thoroughly miss the point of Dawkin's endeavor.
The "programming" which you are speaking of is based heavily on our emotions / desires. We are creatures of desire. We are naturally irrational and have to invoke rational thought upon ourselves constantly. That's where memes come in. They aren't always rational, but they DO link to our emotions / desires.
How else would a meme take hold in the mind of a person? If not by emotion / desire then what mechanism would memes latch onto?
In the wider scope of things, i did neglect to mention meme complexes, however, this was primarily for time/space concerns. Since this entire thing is hypothetical, it's sort of weird to talk about groups of memes, when theres so much misunderstanding and lack of clarity on memes themselves. The thing about memes is not that they help us account for more data in the world, we already do a pretty good job of explaining most of the phenomena that people cast into memetic theory. The interesting quality that memetics possess is that it proposes an automaticity, and discreteness (chunkability) that most other theories don't have (if you look at discourse theory in linguistics or comparitive studies etc). But causality (such as in the fact that by and large children retain the religion of their parents) is not a feature solely of memetic theory.
No,causality is not a feature of memes... nor have I asserted such. Instead, memes travel from person to person in a manner not unlike a virus. One person is "infected" who then goes to others, shares the information, infecting them, and so on and so on.
We're doing it right now.
We are on the same page, though, regarding automaticity of memes. In the hunter-gatherer model of humanity, individuals that can quickly pass on key pieces of information, retain them, and SPREAD them to their families / allies have a much larger advantage over those who cannot.
Zhavric
20 years ago
What you have stated has very little to do with memes.
Memes are primarily concerned with passing information from one person to the next. Memes do not cover external events. A meme may encompass information ABOUT an external event, but ultimately it's just our way of passing along information.
I assert that the five characteristics I listed above are the best definition of memes I've found to date.
So, "Eastern thought" is a meme.
1) Contains information. - Information regarding a particular way of thinking.
2) Is built from existing information or other memes. - Eastern and thought are both independent pieces of information.
3) Triggers an emotion or desire. - This is why it's hard to explain Eastern thought to westerners and why it doesn't catch on so much over here: there's just not an emotion / desire that it appeals to very strongly.
4) Triggers the belief that understanding has occured. - Once you explain it to us we say, "Oh... I sorta get it..."
5) Is passed from the infected to others who then become infectious. - You typed it on the internet and I'm reading it. Check.
Does that make sense?
Geeii
How would the meme theory look from a standpoint disregarding causality. For instance, much of Eastern thought is based upon synchronicity.
Basically, synchronicity of events states that rather then one event being the cause to the other, they have a common cause, so to speak. In essence, instead of me 'reacting' to a situation from a casual point of view, the same circumstances which gave birth to the situation gave birth to my 'reaction' to it. It explains 'coincidences' as not a fluke, or chance encounter that one has to assume with a casual view but instead a natural event.
The concept, unfortunatly, is hard for me to understand fully, as I am not the most knowledgeable on the subject. Further, it is difficult for anyone witha Western philisophical, religious and scientific background to understand, much less convey =/
I will try and simplifiy it as much as I can so that you can better answer my question.
An example of synchronicity would be as follows:
When driving you pass by a restaurant that a long time friend and you ate at several years prior, the place reminds of you just that friend, and the person, who contacts you maybe once in every three months calls you at that exact moment.
another might be:
While working on a school project dealing with the realities of drugs in modern adolescent america, your cat jumps from your lap to your desk and steps across yoru keyboard; in doing so, the word 'reality' is typed as the cat walks across the keyboard.
What you have stated has very little to do with memes.
Memes are primarily concerned with passing information from one person to the next. Memes do not cover external events. A meme may encompass information ABOUT an external event, but ultimately it's just our way of passing along information.
I assert that the five characteristics I listed above are the best definition of memes I've found to date.
So, "Eastern thought" is a meme.
1) Contains information. - Information regarding a particular way of thinking.
2) Is built from existing information or other memes. - Eastern and thought are both independent pieces of information.
3) Triggers an emotion or desire. - This is why it's hard to explain Eastern thought to westerners and why it doesn't catch on so much over here: there's just not an emotion / desire that it appeals to very strongly.
4) Triggers the belief that understanding has occured. - Once you explain it to us we say, "Oh... I sorta get it..."
5) Is passed from the infected to others who then become infectious. - You typed it on the internet and I'm reading it. Check.
Does that make sense?
notheory
20 years ago
Okay, you've ignored what i said ;)
Memes are a mechanistic, causal model of how information is passed and people are created.
In a memetic framework there are no such things as emotions or desires, or at least, they're an extremely inconvenient and misleading way to talk about the system. It's misleading because it implies that there is something intentional about it, that we have some sort of choice.
Your focus on "emotion/desire" seems to be in regards to people as memetic constructs. But why bother using emotions or desires to describe this at all? People are meme complexes. These complexes, like i said before, innoculate you to some ideas, and are condusive to accepting other ones. it's not about our emotions or desires, it's all about what we're programmed to accept and to reject. And this in no way means that there's anything rational about it, just the same way that biological evolution isn't rational, its a complex dynamic system that just runs. if your mind is filled with garbage, it's because of the context you live in and the stuff that you've been exposed to (although technically speaking, garbage is a subjective and meaningless term in regards to memetics).
Again, as a mechanical model, memetics is very much a causal model. Just the same way epidemiology is about causal relationships. You look for cause and effect relationships between the way diseases spread through a population. Memetics in, so far as it is a theory of information spreading, is definitely causal. Which is also why asides into non-causal memetic theories are kind of weird and hard to think about, since it is such a central component to how memetics works.
Memes are a mechanistic, causal model of how information is passed and people are created.
In a memetic framework there are no such things as emotions or desires, or at least, they're an extremely inconvenient and misleading way to talk about the system. It's misleading because it implies that there is something intentional about it, that we have some sort of choice.
Your focus on "emotion/desire" seems to be in regards to people as memetic constructs. But why bother using emotions or desires to describe this at all? People are meme complexes. These complexes, like i said before, innoculate you to some ideas, and are condusive to accepting other ones. it's not about our emotions or desires, it's all about what we're programmed to accept and to reject. And this in no way means that there's anything rational about it, just the same way that biological evolution isn't rational, its a complex dynamic system that just runs. if your mind is filled with garbage, it's because of the context you live in and the stuff that you've been exposed to (although technically speaking, garbage is a subjective and meaningless term in regards to memetics).
Again, as a mechanical model, memetics is very much a causal model. Just the same way epidemiology is about causal relationships. You look for cause and effect relationships between the way diseases spread through a population. Memetics in, so far as it is a theory of information spreading, is definitely causal. Which is also why asides into non-causal memetic theories are kind of weird and hard to think about, since it is such a central component to how memetics works.
notheory
20 years ago
Also, you never replied to my request for motivations on 2-4.
Your explaination of eastern thought is particularly bizarre. Memes can't be totally defined in terms of other memes, or there would be no content to them. There must be some base meme-chunk for memetics to really work. (and eastern thought being composed of the words eastern and thought is a really weird way to divide that, because "eastern thought" refers to an intellectual tradition, not to the idea of a tradition, and the location from whence it originated)
Second, there is no emotion or desire in a cold hard fact that is being passed around. The fact that there is no king of france does not trigger emotion, it's a neutral peice of information, which like all other memes are simply passed onto whatever meme receiving devices that happen to be out there.
As for the belief that understanding has occured... i find this the most odd. This is similar to a topic in linguistics (and in philosophy as well), which deals with the belief structures of speakers and hearers when a discussion is taking place. But i truly fail to see why this is a necessary part of memetics. It may very well be a necessary component of communication generally speaking, but it has nothing inherently to do with memetics, which is about the spread of information (and ultimately does not require any sorts of belief about the transmission of information).
Your explaination of eastern thought is particularly bizarre. Memes can't be totally defined in terms of other memes, or there would be no content to them. There must be some base meme-chunk for memetics to really work. (and eastern thought being composed of the words eastern and thought is a really weird way to divide that, because "eastern thought" refers to an intellectual tradition, not to the idea of a tradition, and the location from whence it originated)
Second, there is no emotion or desire in a cold hard fact that is being passed around. The fact that there is no king of france does not trigger emotion, it's a neutral peice of information, which like all other memes are simply passed onto whatever meme receiving devices that happen to be out there.
As for the belief that understanding has occured... i find this the most odd. This is similar to a topic in linguistics (and in philosophy as well), which deals with the belief structures of speakers and hearers when a discussion is taking place. But i truly fail to see why this is a necessary part of memetics. It may very well be a necessary component of communication generally speaking, but it has nothing inherently to do with memetics, which is about the spread of information (and ultimately does not require any sorts of belief about the transmission of information).
Geeii
20 years ago
*nods* I understand the concept of meme's and know that it has little to do with sychronicity in and of itself, except for the fact they are casual in nature, whereas sychronicity is comepletely seperent, in fact, in direct oppossition with (being acasual)..
notheory
20 years ago
How about this, lets get down some ground rules about replicators.
Dawkins's starts the Selfish Gene with a discussion of replicators. Replicators are any self-copying thing. All replicators have three properties; fidelity, fecundity, and frequency. Fidelity is the copying fidelity, i.e. how similar the original is to the copies it creates. Fecundity is the quantity of each generation of replication (humans have low fecundity, only one or two kids to each birth typically, bugs and fish on the other hand have really high fecundity, and spawn tons and tons of offspring). Frequency is the rate at which replication is performed (humans can only replicate once every 9 months, rabbits, a whole lot sooner).
All replicators exist in some sort of environment. This environment presents certain limits/restrictions on the ability of replicators to reproduce (i.e. there are resources in the environment that are finite).
Replicators just run. There's no thought, no intentionality, no meaning, no purpose. They just function as they were constructed/made/mutated/whatever. Genes are clearly a type of replicator. Dawkins's point about genes is that they are the things that are copied from one generation of a species to the next. Thus, the way we should talk about evolutionary survival is by talking about the survival of genes (or gene complexes). Genes express themselves in traits which are then used to avoid death to the gene passing machinery (i.e. living organisms) before the genes are replicated.
Dawkins acknowledged (remember this book was written in like 67) that clearly genes were not sufficient to explain the complexity of human behavior. So, he sort of summed up and extended a couple other light fanciful musings of other intellectuals at the time and said "perhaps there is another replicator at work in sentient beings like humans." The replicator he was refering to he called the "meme". These memes behave analogously to how genes replicate, that is they too possess these three properties that all replicators have, fecundity, fidelity, and frequency.
-----------------------------
More commentary on 2-4
What i don't like about the 5 qualities that you've listed Zhav, is that you seem to be confusing the inherent properties that the replicator must have, with certain properties of the environment in which they live. Replicators don't need there to make sure that replication has taken place, because if replication hasn't taken place they're an evolutionary dead-end (and so, they wouldn't be a replicator in the first place!). It may be an evolutionarily stable strategy (i.e. a successful way to make copies) to double check that replication has taken place, but it is not a quality of all replicators. So, i'm really unclear why you think that a belief that understanding has taken place is a property of memes.
Moreover, an emotional reaction in the "host" is completely unnecessary because the host has no choice as to whether the meme is perceived. The question is whether the meme takes root and manages to copy itself to other hosts. The question of taking root, is a question of what other memes are in the host which can deflect the incoming meme.
Dawkins's starts the Selfish Gene with a discussion of replicators. Replicators are any self-copying thing. All replicators have three properties; fidelity, fecundity, and frequency. Fidelity is the copying fidelity, i.e. how similar the original is to the copies it creates. Fecundity is the quantity of each generation of replication (humans have low fecundity, only one or two kids to each birth typically, bugs and fish on the other hand have really high fecundity, and spawn tons and tons of offspring). Frequency is the rate at which replication is performed (humans can only replicate once every 9 months, rabbits, a whole lot sooner).
All replicators exist in some sort of environment. This environment presents certain limits/restrictions on the ability of replicators to reproduce (i.e. there are resources in the environment that are finite).
Replicators just run. There's no thought, no intentionality, no meaning, no purpose. They just function as they were constructed/made/mutated/whatever. Genes are clearly a type of replicator. Dawkins's point about genes is that they are the things that are copied from one generation of a species to the next. Thus, the way we should talk about evolutionary survival is by talking about the survival of genes (or gene complexes). Genes express themselves in traits which are then used to avoid death to the gene passing machinery (i.e. living organisms) before the genes are replicated.
Dawkins acknowledged (remember this book was written in like 67) that clearly genes were not sufficient to explain the complexity of human behavior. So, he sort of summed up and extended a couple other light fanciful musings of other intellectuals at the time and said "perhaps there is another replicator at work in sentient beings like humans." The replicator he was refering to he called the "meme". These memes behave analogously to how genes replicate, that is they too possess these three properties that all replicators have, fecundity, fidelity, and frequency.
-----------------------------
More commentary on 2-4
What i don't like about the 5 qualities that you've listed Zhav, is that you seem to be confusing the inherent properties that the replicator must have, with certain properties of the environment in which they live. Replicators don't need there to make sure that replication has taken place, because if replication hasn't taken place they're an evolutionary dead-end (and so, they wouldn't be a replicator in the first place!). It may be an evolutionarily stable strategy (i.e. a successful way to make copies) to double check that replication has taken place, but it is not a quality of all replicators. So, i'm really unclear why you think that a belief that understanding has taken place is a property of memes.
Moreover, an emotional reaction in the "host" is completely unnecessary because the host has no choice as to whether the meme is perceived. The question is whether the meme takes root and manages to copy itself to other hosts. The question of taking root, is a question of what other memes are in the host which can deflect the incoming meme.
Zhavric
20 years ago
Answer me this:
How does a meme affect an individual? What causes Sally Jane to be infected with the "short skirts are in this season!" meme? What causes Reverend Bob to accept the Christianity meme?
notheory
Okay, you've ignored what i said ;)
Memes are a mechanistic, causal model of how information is passed and people are created.
In a memetic framework there are no such things as emotions or desires, or at least, they're an extremely inconvenient and misleading way to talk about the system. It's misleading because it implies that there is something intentional about it, that we have some sort of choice.
Your focus on "emotion/desire" seems to be in regards to people as memetic constructs. But why bother using emotions or desires to describe this at all? People are meme complexes. These complexes, like i said before, innoculate you to some ideas, and are condusive to accepting other ones. it's not about our emotions or desires, it's all about what we're programmed to accept and to reject. And this in no way means that there's anything rational about it, just the same way that biological evolution isn't rational, its a complex dynamic system that just runs. if your mind is filled with garbage, it's because of the context you live in and the stuff that you've been exposed to (although technically speaking, garbage is a subjective and meaningless term in regards to memetics).
Again, as a mechanical model, memetics is very much a causal model. Just the same way epidemiology is about causal relationships. You look for cause and effect relationships between the way diseases spread through a population. Memetics in, so far as it is a theory of information spreading, is definitely causal. Which is also why asides into non-causal memetic theories are kind of weird and hard to think about, since it is such a central component to how memetics works.
Answer me this:
How does a meme affect an individual? What causes Sally Jane to be infected with the "short skirts are in this season!" meme? What causes Reverend Bob to accept the Christianity meme?
Zhavric
20 years ago
*tilts head to either side, cracking neck...*
... Right...
Agreed. I have not implied otherwise. Memes are based on existing information and/or existing memes.
Take the meme "Mini-skirts are the cool thing to wear this season!" The meme doesn't work unless you know what a mini-skirt is, what a season is, (both information) nor does it work if you aren't interested in looking cool (another meme).
There are "base chunks" if information, but information is not inherently memetic. For example:
"My computer monitor is baige."
Does this trigger an emotion or desire? Do you have the urge to tell others what color my monitor is? Certainly not... because it's just information, not a meme.
It is the case that you have mixed "information" with "meme". All memes contain information, but not all information is memetic.
Without the belief of understanding, it's not a meme. I, Zhavric, am an atheist. The concept of Christianity does not evoke the propper belief that understanding has occured: I find the notion of the super-natural events in the bible to be too incredible to be believable. Thus, I am not "infected" with the Christianity meme. I am simply a "carrier" if you will.
... Right...
notheory
Memes can't be totally defined in terms of other memes, or there would be no content to them. There must be some base meme-chunk for memetics to really work.
Agreed. I have not implied otherwise. Memes are based on existing information and/or existing memes.
Take the meme "Mini-skirts are the cool thing to wear this season!" The meme doesn't work unless you know what a mini-skirt is, what a season is, (both information) nor does it work if you aren't interested in looking cool (another meme).
There are "base chunks" if information, but information is not inherently memetic. For example:
"My computer monitor is baige."
Does this trigger an emotion or desire? Do you have the urge to tell others what color my monitor is? Certainly not... because it's just information, not a meme.
Second, there is no emotion or desire in a cold hard fact that is being passed around. The fact that there is no king of france does not trigger emotion, it's a neutral peice of information, which like all other memes are simply passed onto whatever meme receiving devices that happen to be out there.
It is the case that you have mixed "information" with "meme". All memes contain information, but not all information is memetic.
As for the belief that understanding has occured... i find this the most odd. This is similar to a topic in linguistics (and in philosophy as well), which deals with the belief structures of speakers and hearers when a discussion is taking place. But i truly fail to see why this is a necessary part of memetics. It may very well be a necessary component of communication generally speaking, but it has nothing inherently to do with memetics, which is about the spread of information (and ultimately does not require any sorts of belief about the transmission of information).
Without the belief of understanding, it's not a meme. I, Zhavric, am an atheist. The concept of Christianity does not evoke the propper belief that understanding has occured: I find the notion of the super-natural events in the bible to be too incredible to be believable. Thus, I am not "infected" with the Christianity meme. I am simply a "carrier" if you will.
notheory
20 years ago
Presumably, Reverend Bob accepts Christianity, because first as a child, he was introduced and raised not just in the church of Christ, but in an envinronment where his entire world view was pervaded with the notion of a Christian theology. In other words, his unformatted brain was routinely filled with memes about Christianity. In time whatever mechanisms of human pyschology start solidifying this loose collection of memes into a solid structure. Rev. Bob solidly believes in some sort of christianity meme because of all the "evidence" (i.e. memes that support this meme) that he has. So when an Islamic meme comes in through his sensory organs and hits his brain, he goes, "No, that can be right, i've already got a meme that contradicts that, and it has all this evidence!"
notheory
20 years ago
Alright, now we're getting to the meat of it :)
So the brain holds both information and memes eh? I would have made the claim that all information is memetic. Experiences, however, are not. Thus, you can tell somebody about an experience you've had, but in so far as we don't have experience transfering devices, you can only communicate these experiences via memetic information.
So the brain holds both information and memes eh? I would have made the claim that all information is memetic. Experiences, however, are not. Thus, you can tell somebody about an experience you've had, but in so far as we don't have experience transfering devices, you can only communicate these experiences via memetic information.
Zhavric
20 years ago
The emotional reaction in an individual is what CAUSES the meme to take root.
Think of it this way: A virus bonds to a host cell by attaching to certain protein molecules on the outside of the cell. To put it in simple terms, a virus has "slot A" and reacts when it comes into contact with "slot B". If we draw an analogy from a meme to a virus then triggering emotional responses are analogous to a virus latching on to the right protein.
This whole time I feel as though you've been talking in very grand terms about the concept of memes as a whole. I'm talking about how an individual person is infected with an individual meme.
Moreover, an emotional reaction in the "host" is completely unnecessary because the host has no choice as to whether the meme is perceived.
The emotional reaction in an individual is what CAUSES the meme to take root.
The question is whether the meme takes root and manages to copy itself to other hosts. The question of taking root, is a question of what other memes are in the host which can deflect the incoming meme.
Think of it this way: A virus bonds to a host cell by attaching to certain protein molecules on the outside of the cell. To put it in simple terms, a virus has "slot A" and reacts when it comes into contact with "slot B". If we draw an analogy from a meme to a virus then triggering emotional responses are analogous to a virus latching on to the right protein.
This whole time I feel as though you've been talking in very grand terms about the concept of memes as a whole. I'm talking about how an individual person is infected with an individual meme.