And besides, the notion of a 'meme' is just a metaphor, like the long-defunct notion of 'holographic memory' - and like 'holographic memory,' the explanatory content of the meme 'theory' is zero.
True, as far as I can see. (About "memes" that is. I have to go look up "holographic memory", having no idea what it is.) I'm often annoyed by the way people breathlessly throw around "meme" when what they mean, by my lights, is "idea", or some related, prosaic, perfectly serviceable older concept. So I'm wondering if any of my few readers might like to take up the challenge and persuade me that "meme theory" has explanatory power. I'm familiar with Dawkins and Dennett on this theme, but not much else. (Well, actually, nothing else. Is this beginning to sound like one of those old "will you do my homework for me" Usenet posts?)
A reply would require that one know his butt from his biceps when it comes to the mechanism of, and prerequisites for, Darwinian selection, as that, to my knowledge, is how memes are supposed to move along. Thus I suggest that a good place to start might be to explain the behavior of "competing memes" to me in these strict terms, thus differentiating the concept from the fuzzier "competing ideas". Then a real-world application of both, demonstrating the superiority of the "meme" approach. But don't feel bound by these strictures if you just want to throw in your two cents from one angle or another. Or, being bored by the whole thing, just click away.
I guess the word "paradigm" fints that "meme." You see the cell phone commercial? "We gotta change our paradiggem!"
Posted by: Dave Worley on July 09, 2002
The original meaning of "meme" was for something that transmitted information through cyberspace the way a gene transmits information in real space. In other words, it carried with it some sort of imbedded code that replicated itself. Nice concept, but I cannot think of a good example offhand. The idea has since been fuzzed out until it now is indistinguishable from "idea" or "trend" or whatever.
Posted by: JM on July 10, 2002
My only interaction with memes is through SciFi. I forget who the author(s) was, perhaps Linda Nagato. I don't think Neal Stephenson discussed memes, but I could be wrong. Both authors are well worth reading. I wish I could be more specific, but unfortunately I read SciFi constantly, and I really can't remember very many specific items from specific stories.
Posted by: Chris Pastel on July 10, 2002
My first encounter with memes was in Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principal. I believe the only difference between meme and idea was the transitional mechanics that meme implies. An idea can come from anybody, and can be transitory or permanent or in-between. A meme is an idea or set of ideas that competes with other ideas and is either transmitted from person to person or dies. This can happen through violent or non-violent means. The book mainly describes how ideas can be transmitted similarly to genes, and it is not always the "best" (ie most logical/reasonable) memes that survive. Usually it is the toughest.
I can't remember much more, as I read it quite a few years ago, and lent it to a friend who lent it to another friend.
Posted by: Enrak on July 10, 2002
Dawkins defines a meme as an idea whose function in a cultural context is analogous to a gene's function in a biological one: to replicate itself. He cites the idea of God as an example of a successful meme. Unfortunately, he does not discuss the relative meme statuses of "soda" and "pop."
Posted by: Jonathan on July 10, 2002
The notion of a meme is "just a metaphor." But so is practically all other knowledge. According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (in Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought), as embodied minds, we simply don't have any other way of thinking about complex things. I have a fairly long post on this here.
In the meantime, all I'll say is that stating that the notion of memes is just a metaphor is basically a tautology and says nothing about the usefulness of the concept. The real question is, does the meme concept, in mapping from the domain of genetics to the domain of cognitive science, add anything to our understanding of the mind?
I don't know, and I think the jury is still out. What I do know is that the meme concept is too often used as a kind of ad hominem argument: "you only think that because you've been colonized by the X meme." That usage is surely not useful, and indeed has "zero explanatory content."
Posted by: Dave Trowbridge on July 11, 2002
I claim no authority in the etymology or meaning of the word. However, I have seen it on a bathroom wall in arlington attached to a website. They may have good ides about it -- www.memes.org
Posted by: MIchael Wade on July 11, 2002
It is another word for "idea." The reason that it's a better word in some contexts is that it rhymes (sort of) with gene, and makes us think of it in that context--as something that, if successful, replicates. And the interesting thing about memetic (as opposed to genetic) evolution and natural selection is that it turns out to be Lamarckian. You can pass on traits that you acquire to your children (and other people).
Posted by: Rand Simberg on July 12, 2002
Martin Gardner once attacked "memetics" on the grounds that there is no natural unit of information that can be called "a meme". I think he compared it to inventing some unit of physical translation called a "tran" and reformulating all of physics in terms of the transmission and modification of trans. He then argued that apart from this vacuous meme concept the whole business was just a bunch of common-sense ideas.
But when I brought this up on Usenet, some biologists immediately pointed out that the concept of "a gene" is pretty nebulous too, and yet it's considered useful in conversation about evolution and genetics.
Also, I'm not so sure that it *is* simple common sense to speak of ideas evolving through a process like natural selection. People often speak as if every idea has to spring full-blown from a unique creator. This is what leads some people to regard the notion of a deity as essential to morality-- otherwise any stupid idea anyone thought up for insane or selfish reasons could be a moral precept as good as any other. The memetics analogy reveals that this is essentially the same false dichotomy asserted by creationists in biology: between special creation or random chance. Moral precepts can also evolve by natural selection (accelerated, in this case, by the "Lamarckian" contributions of individual reason, which is where the analogy breaks down) as they rub up against the rigors of practice.
Like biological evolution, it's not perfect, and sometimes you get whole societies accepting monstrous notions. But it at least explains how there could be a working society without a divine authority handing down its laws. All of this could have been realized prior to Darwin and probably was, but the metaphor can make it easier to think about.
I agree that it's a misuse of the idea to use "meme infection" as a pejorative phrase, as an excuse to avoid considering a proposition seriously. One of the possible reasons that an idea can survive over time-- not the only one, of course-- is that it's accurate and useful.
Posted by: Matt McIrvin on July 13, 2002