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For other uses, see Meme (disambiguation).


A meme (pronounced /miːm/)[1] consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a "culture" in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic A virus (from the Latin virus meaning Toxin or Poison) is a sub-microscopic infectious agent that is unable As a unit of cultural evolution, a meme in some ways resembles a gene. Sociocultural evolution(ism is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and Social evolution, describing how Cultures and societies History See also History of genetics The existence of genes was first suggested by Gregor Mendel (1822-1884 who in the 1860s studied inheritance Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene,[2] recounts how and why he coined the term meme to describe how one might extend Darwinian principles to explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941 is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and Popular science Darwinism is a term used for various different movements or concepts related to a greater or lesser extent to Charles Darwin 's work on Evolution. He gave as examples tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothing-fashions, and the technology of building arches. In Music, a melody (from Greek μελῳδία - melōidía, "singing chanting" also tune, voice, or A catch phrase (or catchphrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a Proposition or Premise to be true Fashion refers to styles of dress (but can also include cuisine literature art architecture and general comportment that are popular in a culture at any given time Technology is a broad concept that deals with a Species ' usage and knowledge of Tools and Crafts and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt

Meme-theorists contend that memes evolve by natural selection (similarly to Darwinian biological evolution) through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance influencing an individual entity's reproductive success. Natural selection is the process by which favorable Heritable traits become more common in successive Generations of a Population of Charles Robert Darwin (February 12 1809 &ndash April 19 1882 was an English naturalist, who realised and demonstrated that all Species of life Foundations of modern biology There are five unifying principles eVolution is the third Album by eLDee, it was due to be released in 2008 In biology mutations are changes to the Nucleotide sequence of the Genetic material of an organism Competition is a rivalry between individuals groups nations or animals for territory or resources So with memes, some ideas will propagate less successfully and become extinct, while others will survive, spread, and, for better or for worse, mutate. In Biology and Ecology, extinction is the cessation of existence of a Species or group of taxa. In biology mutations are changes to the Nucleotide sequence of the Genetic material of an organism "Memeticists argue that the memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive; rather, those memes that replicate the most effectively spread best, which allows for the possibility that successful memes may prove detrimental to their hosts. "[3]

Contents

Origins and concepts

Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene first publicized the concept of memes.
Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene first publicized the concept of memes.

The word meme first came into popular use with the publication of Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene in 1976. Dawkins based the word on a shortening of the Greek "mimeme" (something imitated), making it sound similar to "gene". History See also History of genetics The existence of genes was first suggested by Gregor Mendel (1822-1884 who in the 1860s studied inheritance Dawkins used the term to refer to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as replicators, generally replicating through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient (though not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Memes do not always get copied perfectly, and might indeed become refined, combined or otherwise modified with other ideas, resulting in new memes. These memes may themselves prove more (or less) efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution, analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes. Sociocultural evolution(ism is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and Social evolution, describing how Cultures and societies eVolution is the third Album by eLDee, it was due to be released in 2008

Dawkins defined the meme as "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation", but memeticists in general promote varying definitions of the concept of the meme. The lack of a consistent, rigorous and precise understanding of what typically makes up one unit of cultural transmission remains a problem in debates about memetics.

Etymology

Historically, the notion of a unit of social evolution, and a similar term (from Greek mneme, meaning "memory"), first appeared in 1904 in a work by the German evolutionary biologist Richard Semon titled Die Mnemischen Empfindungen in ihren Beziehungen zu den Originalempfindungen (loosely translated as "Memory-feelings in relation to original feelings"). Social Evolution is the title of an essay by Benjamin Kidd, which became available as a book published by Macmillan and co London in 1894 eVolution is the third Album by eLDee, it was due to be released in 2008 A biologist is a Scientist devoted to and producing results in Biology through the study of Organisms Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship Richard Wolfgang Semon ( August 22 1859 &ndash December 12 1918) was a German zoologist and evolutionary biologist who believed in the According to the OED, the word mneme appears in English in 1921 in L. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Simon's translation of Semon's book: The Mneme.

According to Dawkins, who coined the word "meme" without knowing about mnemes, meme represents a shortened form of mimeme (from Greek mimos, "mimic"). Dawkins said he wanted "a monosyllable word that sounds a bit like gene". [4]

Dawkins' genetic analogy

Richard Dawkins introduced the term after writing that evolution depended not on the particular chemical basis of genetics, but only on the existence of a self-replicating unit of transmission — in the case of biological evolution, the gene. Molecular genetics is the field of Biology which studies the structure and function of Genes at a molecular level Genetics (from Ancient Greek grc-Latn genetikos, “genitive” and that from grc-Latn genesis, “origin” a discipline of Biology, is See also Biological reproduction Self-replication is any process by which a thing might make a copy of itself History See also History of genetics The existence of genes was first suggested by Gregor Mendel (1822-1884 who in the 1860s studied inheritance For Dawkins, the meme exemplifies another self-replicating unit, and most importantly, one which he thought might prove useful in explaining human behavior and cultural evolution. For the Björk song see Human Behaviour Human behavior is the collection of Behaviors exhibited by Human beings and influenced by

Dawkins himself, in a speech on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the publication of The Selfish Gene, described his motivation for postulating memes: he portrayed the idea not so much as an attempt at creating an account for cultural complexity, but rather as seeking something with which the selfish-genetic mechanism would still work with unreliable replicators:

Next question might be, does the information have to be molecular at all? Memes. This is not something that I’ve ever wanted to push as a theory of human culture, but I originally proposed it as a kind of. . . almost an anti-gene, to make the point that Darwinism requires accurate replicators with phenotypic power, but they don’t necessarily have to be genes. What if they were computer viruses? They hadn’t been invented when I wrote The Selfish Gene so I went straight for memes, units of cultural inheritance.

– Richard Dawkins[5]

Examples of memes

Common memes include:

The Memetic Lexicon lists meme-attributes compiled by Glenn Grant under a "share-alike" licence. The examples it offers may help to focus the concept. The Lexicon has circulated since the early 1990s, and evolved into its version 3. 5 of its memeplex (Memelex) in 2004: A Memetic Lexicon. One should keep in mind that Glenn Grant has the background of a writer of fiction rather that of an authority on memetics: many of the terms in the lexicon he simply invented as an experiment in the spread of his own self-generated memes. [1]

Transmission of memes

Life-forms transmit information vertically (from generation to generation) via replication of genes. Memes can also transmit information vertically by replication. Memes also spread from hosts horizontally within a generation. They may also lie dormant for long periods of time: Copernicus re-discovered the ancient heliocentric views of Aristarchus. Aristarchus (Ἀρίσταρχος 310 BC - ca 230 BC) was a Greek Astronomer and Mathematician, born on the island of

Memes spread by the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. For example, the fashion-value that "less is more" spreads through the behavior of people dressing down in understated clothes and acting superior. Fashion refers to styles of dress (but can also include cuisine literature art architecture and general comportment that are popular in a culture at any given time Behavior or behaviour (see spelling differences) refers to the actions or Reactions of an object or Organism, usually This behavior then has the effect of showing others a real-life example of this fashion-value. Verbal transmission can supplement or replace this imitative method.

Those interested in tracking how memes spread through culture may use memetrackers, websites that allow one to see how people receive, use, and spread new information on the Web. A memetracker is a tool for studying the migration of Memes across a group of people A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages The World Wide Web (commonly shortened to the Web) is a system of interlinked Hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. Cameron Marlowe's Blogdex project pioneered research on this topic. Blogdex was an online resource for understanding hot topics of discussion in the Blogosphere.

Memes as discrete units

Although memeticists speak of memes as discrete units, this need not imply that thoughts somehow become quantized or that "atomic" ideas exist which one cannot break down into smaller pieces. History See also Atomic theory, Atomism The concept that matter is composed of discrete units and cannot be divided into arbitrarily tiny The meme as a unit simply provides a convenient way of discussing "a piece of thought copied from person to person", regardless of whether that thought contains others inside it, or forms part of a larger meme. A meme could consist of a single word, or a meme could consist of the entire speech in which that word was first uttered. This forms an analogy to the idea of a gene as a self-replicating set of code. In 1981 biologists Charles J. Lumsden and Edward Osborne Wilson published a theory of gene/culture co-evolution in the book Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. Charles J Lumsden is a Canadian Biologist in the Department of Medicine and Institute of Medical Science University of Toronto. Edward Osborne Wilson (born June 10, 1929) is an American biologist researcher ( Sociobiology, Biodiversity) theorist ( [7] They argued that the fundamental biological units of culture must correspond to neuronal networks that function as nodes of semantic memory. In Psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store retain and subsequently retrieve information Wilson later adopted the term meme as the best existing name for the fundamental unit of cultural inheritance and elaborated upon the fundamental role of memes in unifying the natural and social sciences in his book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. In Science, the term natural science refers to a naturalistic approach to the study of the Universe, which is understood as obeying rules or law of The social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups and individuals including Anthropology, Communication studies Consilience The Unity of Knowledge is a 1998 book by biologist E [8]

Meme-like concepts before Dawkins

Plato used the term eidos to speak of the immutable and eternal nature of an existing thing. Biography Early life Birth and family Plato was born in Athens Greece Plato 's Theory of Forms asserts that Forms (or Ideas) and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess The human mind acted upon this eidos, according to Plato, when reasoning about the world around it. Aristotle rejected this notion in favor of an abstraction and categorization of the world as perceived by the observer. Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.

Descriptions of meme-like concepts appear in Sufi teaching. Sufism ( تصوّف - taṣawwuf, Persian: صوفی‌گری sufigari, Turkish: tasavvuf, Urdu: تصوف Muwakkals rank as separate beings, elementals, that make up human thought (compare Leibniz's monads). The Monadology ( Monadologie, 1714 is one of Gottfried Leibniz ’s works that best define his philosophy monadism. These "elemental thoughts" also appear in the Vajrayana tradition as thoughtform simulacrum. Vajrayana Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayana, Mantranaya, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and A thoughtform is a manifestation of mental energy also known as a ' Tulpa ' in Tibetan Mysticism. Simulacrum (plural -cra also -crums from the Latin simulacrum which means "likeness similarity" is first recorded in the English language in the late

During the Enlightenment the terms "idea", "perception", and "impression" came into use. The Age of Enlightenment or The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century The essential meaning of the term "idea", as then used, involved some existent phenomena resulting from perception of a stimulus and cogitation on that stimulus.

Charles Darwin struggled with the concept in his early notebooks (M and N Notebooks) and never succeeded in adequately addressing the complexities of the human social and cognitive capabilities. Charles Robert Darwin (February 12 1809 &ndash April 19 1882 was an English naturalist, who realised and demonstrated that all Species of life While Darwin lacked proof for a biologically-inheritable element, he had postulated one and seemed quite comfortable with the concept of biologically-inherited social traits. (A modern biologist ignorant of the connotations of the term might characterize the latter concept as "Social Darwinism". Social Darwinism is a theory that competition among all individuals groups nations or ideas drives Social evolution in human societies ) Darwin also wrote of selection of novelty and fashion and quoted Max Müller on the struggle amongst words and grammatical forms:[9]

words are continually cropping up; but as there is a limit to the powers of the memory, single words, like whole languages, gradually become extinct. For the Danish Colonel Max Müller see Second War of Schleswig. As Max Müller has well remarked: — "A struggle for life is constantly going on amongst the words and grammatical forms in each language. The better, the shorter, the easier forms are constantly gaining the upper hand, and they owe their success to their own inherent virtue. " To these more important causes of the survival of certain words, mere novelty and fashion may be added; for there is in the mind of man a strong love for slight changes in all things. The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.

– Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

Gabriel Tarde (1843 - 1904), a French sociologist, developed ideas of cultural transmission based on imitation and innovation of small psychological interactions. Jean-Gabriel De Tarde or Gabriel Tarde in short ( March 12, 1843 in Sarlat, France &ndash May 13, 1904 His sociology attempted to classify social phenomena by the generation and propagation of ideas, practices, and habits. Some have seen this work as an appealing historical and theoretical precursor to memetics. This article is related to the study of self-replicating units of culture not to be confused with Mimetics Memetics is a neo-Darwinian approach

Bertrand Russell repeated several times the phrase "beliefs are contagious" in his writing about human error. Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian

John Laurent in The Journal of Memetics has suggested that the term 'meme' itself may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Richard Wolfgang Semon ( August 22 1859 &ndash December 12 1918) was a German zoologist and evolutionary biologist who believed in the In 1904 Semon published Die Mneme (published in English as The Mneme in 1924). His book discussed the cultural transmission of experiences with insights parallel to those of Dawkins. Laurent found the use of the term mneme in The Soul of the White Ant (1927) by Maurice Maeterlinck (who allegedly plagiarised from Eugène N. Marais) and highlights its parallels to Dawkins's concept. Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Count Maeterlinck ( August 29, 1862 - May 6, 1949) was a Belgian Poet, Playwright, Eugène Nielen Marais ( 9 January, 1871 – 29 March, 1936) was a South African Lawyer, naturalist, Poet

The old saying "Ideas have a life of their own" clearly encapsulates the "meme about memes". Keith Henson has traced this quote back to 1910 where an unknown interviewer of G. K. Chesterton used it - apparently as an old saying at that time. Howard Keith Henson (born 1942 is an American Electrical engineer and Writer on Life extension, Cryonics, Memetics and Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936 was an influential English writer of the early 20th century [2]

One could conceivably trace this idea back to at least 1831, when Victor Hugo wrote: "[. Victor-Marie Hugo ( ( February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) was a French Poet, Playwright, Novelist . . ] every thought, either philosophical or religious, is interested in perpetuating itself [. . . ]" in his book Notre Dame de Paris (translated into English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame) (Book Fifth, Chapter II). The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris is an 1831 French novel written by Victor Hugo.

John Maynard Keynes ended his The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1935) with the following:

[. John Maynard Keynes 1st Baron Keynes CB (ˈkeɪnz "cains" (5 June 1883 &ndash 21 April 1946 was a British Economist whose ideas The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money was written by the English economist John Maynard Keynes. . . ] the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist. [. . . ] I am sure the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas [. . . ] But soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

– John Maynard Keynes[10]

Everett Rogers pioneered the "Diffusion of innovations" theory (formalised in 1962) which explains how and why people adopt new ideas. Everett M Rogers ( March 6, 1931 - October 21, 2004) communications scholar pioneer of Diffusion of innovations theory writer According to Rogers(2003 "Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social System Rogers reflected some of the influence of Gabriel Tarde (1843 - 1904), who set out "laws of imitation" in his book of 1890 that explained how people decided whether to imitate behavior. Jean-Gabriel De Tarde or Gabriel Tarde in short ( March 12, 1843 in Sarlat, France &ndash May 13, 1904 Behavior or behaviour (see spelling differences) refers to the actions or Reactions of an object or Organism, usually

The concept that ideas spread according to genetic rules predates the coining by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene; for example William S. Burroughs asserted that "language is a virus". The term "concept" is traced back to 1554–60 ( l conceptum - something conceived but what is today termed "the classical theory of concepts" is the theory of Aristotle William Seward Burroughs II ( – ˈbʌroʊz was an American Novelist, Essayist, Social critic, painter and Spoken word

Memeplexes

Much of the study of memes focuses on groups of memes called memeplexes (also known as meme complexes or as memecomplexes) — such as religious, cultural, or political doctrines and systems. Much of the study of Memes focuses on groups of memes called meme complexes or "memeplexes Memeplexes contain mutually supportive memes that together become more evolutionarily successful. These memeplexes may also play a part in the acceptance of new memes which, if they fit with a memeplex, can "piggyback" on that success. Memeplexes of religion provide a commonly-cited example. [11] Without some concept of cultural evolution, one might have to postulate repeated and contradictory divine/demonic revelations in order to account for the historical record of religions and for the existence of various and varied denominations. Revelation is the act of revealing or disclosing (see etymology or in the theological perception making something obvious and clearly understood through active or passive communication Denominationalism|List of Christian denominations|Church (disambiguation A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name structure and doctrine within

Memetics

Main article: Memetics

Memetics originated when Richard Dawkins reduced the process of biological genetic evolution to its most fundamental unit: the replicator (or gene). This article is related to the study of self-replicating units of culture not to be confused with Mimetics Memetics is a neo-Darwinian approach Dawkins, in a search for parallels and other things that he might classify as replicators, suggested that the information and ideas in brains — culture, for example — could function as replicators as well. The brain is the center of the Nervous system in animals All Vertebrates and the majority of Invertebrates have a brain Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic Computer software may represent another form of replicator with which evolution may eventually build grand things, whether socially as in the open source movement, or through the use of evolutionary algorithms. Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge In Artificial intelligence, an evolutionary algorithm (EA is a Subset of Evolutionary computation, a generic population-based Metaheuristic

Memetics offers maximum explanatory value in cases where one cannot demonstrate the truth of the contents of the meme. For example, one can readily show that washing hands helps to prevent illness, so the best explanation for the widespread popularity of this practice is that "it works", though memetics still helps explain the rate of spread, and details such as why the practice of washing hands before surgery took so long to catch on. Surgery (from the χειρουργική cheirourgikē, via chirurgiae meaning "hand work" is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental Memetics, however, excels in explaining the spread of certain value-judgements ("chastity is important"), preferences ("pork is repulsive"), superstitions ("black cats bring bad luck") and other scientifically unverifiable beliefs ("'X' is the one true God"); since one cannot easily account for any of these phenomena by conventional scientific methods. Chastity is Sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the ethical norms and guidelines of a culture civilization or Religion. Pork' is the Culinary name for Meat from the domestic Pig ( Sus scrofa) often specifically the fresh meat but can be used as an all-inclusive Superstition ( Latin superstitio, literally "standing over" derived perhaps from standing in awe used in Latin as a unreasonable or excessive belief Luck (also called fortunity) is a chance happening, or that which happens beyond a person's control. God is the principal or sole Deity in Religions and other belief systems that worship one deity. Calling someone's ideas/beliefs/action a "meme", therefore, does not constitute an insult, but dismissing it as "just a meme" does. An insult (also called putdown) is an expression statement or behavior that is considered degrading An atheist, for example, can regard both theism and atheism as memetic.

Memetic methodology

Memetics often takes concepts from the theory of evolution (especially population genetics) and applies them to human culture. Population genetics is the study of the Allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four evolutionary forces Natural selection, Genetic Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic Memetics also uses mathematical models to try to explain many very controversial subjects such as religion and political systems. Note The term model has a different meaning in Model theory, a branch of Mathematical logic. A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos A political system is a System of Politics and Government. It is usually compared to the Law system, Economic system, Cultural Principal criticisms of memetics include the claim that memetics ignores established advances in the fields (such as sociology, cognitive psychology, social psychology, etc. Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" Cognitive psychology is a branch of Psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving memory and language Social psychology is the study of how people and groups interact ) most relevant to the claims and methodologies of memetics.

Memeticists generate much memetic terminology by prepending 'mem(e)-' to an existing, usually biological, term or by putting 'mem(e)' in place of 'gen(e)' in various terms. Examples include: meme pool, memotype, memetic engineer, meme-complex. A meme pool is the sum total of all Memes present in a given population This article is related to the study of self-replicating units of culture not to be confused with Mimetics Memetics is a neo-Darwinian approach Memetic engineering is a term developed and coined by three individuals Leveious Rolando, John Sokol, and Gibran Burchett while they researched and observed Much of the study of Memes focuses on groups of memes called meme complexes or "memeplexes

Well-known memeticists

Susan Blackmore

Susan Blackmore theorized that a "self" merely comprises a collection of memetic stories which she calls the selfplex. Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July, 1951) is an English Freelance writer, Lecturer, and broadcaster on Psychology A narrative or story is a construct created in a suitable format (written spoken poetry prose images song Theater, or Dance) that describes a sequence of Her textbook The Meme Machine, written in 2000 and published with a foreword by Richard Dawkins, broadly covers the field of consciousness studies. The Meme Machine ( 1999) is a Popular science book by Psychologist Susan Blackmore on the subject of Memes Blackmore attempts Consciousness has been defined loosely as a constellation of attributes of Mind such as Subjectivity, Self-awareness, Sentience, and the She served on the editorial board for the Journal of Memetics (an electronic journal) from 1997 to 2001, and has worked as a consulting editor of The Skeptical Inquirer since 1998. The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American Magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI with the subtitle

Keith Henson

Keith Henson wrote two articles on memes in 1987, one published in Analog. Howard Keith Henson (born 1942 is an American Electrical engineer and Writer on Life extension, Cryonics, Memetics and Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American Science fiction Magazine. The other, Memes, MetaMemes and Politics, circulated on the Internet prior to publication. Eric S. Raymond, a long-time friend of Henson's, saw one of the early drafts of a later paper on cults, memes and religion and has publicly credited it as an influence on the theory of peer-esteem rewards he developed to explain the open-source movement. Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4 1957 often referred to as ESR, is a Computer programmer, author and Open source software advocate The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting Open-source software. In the second edition of his book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins approvingly cites Henson's coining of the neologism "memeoids" to refer to "victims who have been taken over by a meme to the extent that their own survival becomes inconsequential. Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941 is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and Popular science A neologism (from Greek neo = "new" + logos = "word" is a word that although devised relatively recently in a specific time period has been "[12]

Some concepts of memetics

Doubts about memetics

In much the same way that the selfish gene concept offers a way of understanding and reasoning about aspects of biological evolution, the meme concept can conceivably assist in the better understanding of some otherwise puzzling aspects of human culture. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic However, if one cannot test for "better" empirically, the question will remain whether or not the meme concept counts as a valid scientific theory. Philosophy of science is the study of assumptions foundations and implications of Science. Memetics thus remains a science in its infancy, a protoscience to proponents, or a pseudoscience to detractors. Protoscience refers to historical philosophical disciplines which existed prior to the development of Scientific method, which allowed them to develop into Science Pseudoscience is defined as a body of knowledge methodology belief or practice that is claimed to be Scientific or made to appear scientific but does not adhere to the

Another objection to the study of the evolution of memes in genetic terms (although not to the existence of memes) involves the fact that the cumulative evolution of genes depends on biological selection-pressures neither too great nor too small in relation to mutation-rates. There seems no reason to think that the same balance will exist in the selection pressures on memes. [13]

Some controversy has become associated with the word meme itself: partly because Richard Dawkins (a self-proclaimed atheist) champions critical thinking and publicly challenges irrational beliefs. Atheism Critical thinking consists of mental processes of discernment, Analysis and Evaluation. He has appeared on television to expose as frauds psychics and mediums who charge fees for their services. The word psychic (ˈsaɪkɨk from the Greek psychikos—"of the soul mental" refers to the claimed ability to perceive things hidden from the normal senses Mediumship is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Louisiana Voodoo, and As a personality, Dawkins appears to some[14] as a crusader against faith-based belief systems, and many of those who come under his scrutiny come to criticize him and the concept of "memes". In the United States of America, the term faith-based is used to describe organizations that are religious in nature and distinguish those organizations from government However, some doubters of memetics challenge the concept of "memes" on a scholastic level and divorce their criticism of memetics from an argumentum ad hominem criticism of Dawkins and his personal views. An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem ( Latin: "argument to the man" "argument against the man" Examples of the varying degrees of criticism of memetics include the following:

Lack of philosophical appeal

One might regard the reduction of the highly complex nature of ideas (such as religion, politics, war, justice, and science itself) to a putatively one-dimensional series of memes as an abstraction and, as such, a process which does not increase one’s understanding. --> Abstraction is the process or result of generalization by reducing the information The highly interconnected, multi-layering of such ideas resists memetic simplification to an atomic or molecular form; as does the fact that each of our lives remains fully enmeshed and involved in such "memes". Personal life (or everyday life or human existence) is the course of an individual Human 's life especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices One cannot view memes through a microscope in the way one can detect genes. The levelling-off of all such interesting "memes" down to some neutralized molecular "substance" such as "meme-substance" would introduce a bias toward scientism and abandon the very thing that makes ideas interesting, richly available, and worth studying. [15][16]

Another philosophical criticism sees memetics as re-introducing, or re-inforcing, the classic pre-20th-century form of Cartesian dualism, that of mind versus body. In Philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are in some Memetics seeks to include in the overall science of evolution such a dualism in the form of meme/gene. This dualism remains tenable, but many prominent philosophers have criticised it widely and historians of philosophy often consider it on the wane. Wittgenstein, in his critique of Cartesian dualism, Philosophical Investigations, argued for the absurdity of positing two parallel worlds, one of "body stuff", the other of "mind stuff" whose interaction one does not (and perhaps can not) know. Philosophical Investigations ( Philosophische Untersuchungen) is along with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of the two major works (See also Wittgenstein's private language argument). The private language argument is a philosophical Argument introduced by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his later work especially in the Philosophical Investigations

However, in response to such criticism one might add that memeticists have started to see memes not as atomic but as complex interactors in an environment of other memes and physical entities, a development pre-figured perhaps in the theory of the association of ideas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Association of Ideas, or Mental association, is a term used principally in the History of philosophy and of psychology to refer to explanations about However, such a response would require memetics to prove it had some value to add to such complexity in order to prevent it falling into the same disuse as the theory of association of ideas. Association of Ideas, or Mental association, is a term used principally in the History of philosophy and of psychology to refer to explanations about

Memetics might counter the charge of dualism by noting Leibniz's monadology. The Monadology ( Monadologie, 1714 is one of Gottfried Leibniz ’s works that best define his philosophy monadism. This provided a direct response to Cartesian dualism based on an indivisible unit, the monad. Memes resemble monads in that they lack physicality (not having shape, size, mass, charge or energy) and yet as a totality they account for reality. Taken together they form the sum of all experience at any given time. But this argument essentially becomes a solipsistic exercise. Solipsism ( Latin: solus, alone + ipse, self is the philosophical idea that "My mind is the only thing that I know exists

Against the charge of dualism, memeticists might counter that memes in fact supersede genetics, science itself then becoming just another meme that aims, not at the "Truth", as such, but at the useful. However, memetics would then have undermined its own truth and the history of its own arrival on the scene, thus becoming yet another ontotheology. Ontotheology means the Ontology of God and/or the theology of Being.

Three variations on the meaning of a meme

  1. The least controversial claim suggests that memes provide a useful philosophical perspective with which to examine cultural evolution. Proponents of this view argue that considering cultural developments from a meme's eye view — as if memes themselves acted (or through the actions of the people who carry them) to maximise their own replication and survival — can lead to useful insights and yield valuable predictions into how culture develops over time. Dawkins himself seems to have favoured this approach.
  2. Other theorists, such as Francis Heylighen, have focused on the need to provide an empirical grounding for memetics in order for people to regard it as a real and useful scientific discipline. Francis Heylighen (born 1960 is a Belgian cyberneticist. He works as a research professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Dutch-speaking Free An academic discipline or field of study is a branch of Knowledge which is taught or Researched at the college or university level Given the nebulous (and in many cases subjective) nature of many memes, providing such an empirical grounding has to date proved challenging. However, a study by Mikael Sandberg, further elaborates the memetic approach to empirical studies of innovation-diffusion in organisations. Inge Jonas Mikael Sandberg (born March 29, 1969, in Kungsbacka, Sweden) is a retired Swedish Ice hockey Goaltender [17]
  3. A third approach, exemplified by Dennett and by Susan Blackmore in her book The Meme Machine (1999),[18] seeks to place memes at the centre of a radical and counter-intuitive naturalistic theory of mind and of personal identity. Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July, 1951) is an English Freelance writer, Lecturer, and broadcaster on Psychology The Meme Machine ( 1999) is a Popular science book by Psychologist Susan Blackmore on the subject of Memes Blackmore attempts Philosophical naturalism has been described in various ways In its broadest and strongest sense naturalism is the metaphysical position that "nature is all there is " Theory of mind " is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs intents desires pretending knowledge etc In Philosophy, personal identity refers to the essence of a self-conscious person that which makes him or her unique Evan Louis Sheehan uses the hierarchical model of cortical architecture proposed by Jeff Hawkins to develop such a memetic theory of mind in his book The Mocking Memes: A Basis for Automated Intelligence. The cerebral cortex is a structure within the Brain that plays a key role in Memory, Attention, perceptual Awareness, Thought, Jeff Hawkins (born June 1, 1957 in Huntington New York) is the founder of Palm Computing (where he invented the Palm Pilot) [19]

It has been suggested that doubters of the existence of the meme embrace an anti-memeite position and clearly define that position with a word and develop a community or culture around that word.

Some prominent researchers in evolutionary psychology and anthropology, including Scott Atran, Dan Sperber, Pascal Boyer, John Tooby and others, argue the possibility of incompatibility between modularity of mind and memetics. Evolutionary psychology ( EP) attempts to explain mental and psychological traits such as Memory, Perception, Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of Scott Atran (born 1952 is an American Anthropologist. Education and early career Atran was born in New York City in 1952 and received his PhD in Anthropology Dan Sperber is a French anthropologist linguist and cognitive scientist currently a Research Director at the Jean Nicod Institute, CNRS. Pascal Boyer (fl c 2000 is an Anthropologist who advocates the idea that human Instincts provide us with the basis for an intuitive Theory of mind that John Tooby is an American anthropologist who together with psychologist wife Leda Cosmides, helped pioneer the field of Evolutionary The concept of modularity is also used in other fields See Modularity. On their view, minds structure certain communicable aspects of the ideas produced, and these communicable aspects generally trigger or elicit ideas in other minds through inference (to relatively rich structures generated from often low-fidelity input) and not high-fidelity replication or imitation. Atran discusses communication involving religious beliefs as a case in point. In one set of experiments, he asked religious people to write down on a piece of paper the meanings of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are a list of religious and moral imperatives that according to Judeo-Christian tradition were authored by God and given Despite the subjects' own expectations of consensus, interpretations of the commandments showed wide ranges of variation, with little evidence of consensus. In another experiment, normal subjects and autistic subjects interpreted ideological and religious sayings (for example, "Let a thousand flowers bloom" or "To everything there is a season"). Autistics showed a significant tendency to closely paraphrase and repeat content from the original statement (for example: "Don't cut flowers before they bloom"). Controls tended to infer a wider range of cultural meanings with little replicated content (for example: "Go with the flow" or "Everyone should have equal opportunity"). Only the autistic subjects — who lack inferential capacity normally associated with aspects of theory of mind — came close to functioning as "meme machines". " Theory of mind " is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs intents desires pretending knowledge etc [20]

To see such an argument for holism as against the kind of atomic reductionism allegedly implied by memetics, see Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"[21]

This central problem with the possibility of memes has an illustration in the inability of such a meme-reductionist proposal to afford an explanation of how memetics itself qualifies as a meme, or, further, how one could describe biological genetics as a rather successful meme current in 20th-century science. Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25 1908 Akron, Ohio &ndash December 25 2000 (known to intimates as "Van" W V O Quine's paper " Two Dogmas of Empiricism " published in 1951, is one of the most celebrated papers of Twentieth century Philosophy Either way memes fail. Providing such an explanation would remove the ground from which the idea of memes themselves arose and so empty memes of all meaning. Without such an explanation memes find themselves without reason, limited to cover all but science and memetics itself.

Lack of rigor

Genetics has a clear model explaining the storage and transmission of genes. Genetics (from Ancient Greek grc-Latn genetikos, “genitive” and that from grc-Latn genesis, “origin” a discipline of Biology, is Indeed, Richard Dawkins himself clearly discusses, in his book The Selfish Gene, how patterns of DNA directly generate patterns of proteins that then combine to construct biological phenotypes — the physical bodies of living things. Those phenotypes have the means for replicating their defining patterns into sex cells for transmitting the patterns to offspring. Memetics, by contrast, as of 2007 has no such commonly accepted model for the storage and transmission of memes. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Memeticists typically assume that memetic "phenotypes" equate with memetic "genotypes" — that every individual believing in one god, for example, carries the same "monotheistic meme" — but do not propose a single well-defined mechanism by which memes are cognitively encoded or transmitted. This lack of rigor seems like a serious — and to critics, fatal — weakness in memetics relative to its genetic model. What are the "particulate" (physically-defined) patterns or entities that have the responsibility or ability to encode and transmit a meme?

General response to criticisms

In response to these criticisms, memeticists might argue that as their discipline does not construe memes as "particulate" entities, they therefore parallel indirectly the entirety of existing evolutionary taxonomy. (For example, one would not preclude fish from the animal kingdom for their lack of lungs. )

The author Evan Louis Sheehan, on the other hand, does attempt to rigorously portray the cognitive representations of memes as "particulate" entities. He defines them as patterns captured in cortical hierarchies, identical in structure to what Jeff Hawkins proposes in his book On Intelligence (2004). Jeff Hawkins (born June 1, 1957 in Huntington New York) is the founder of Palm Computing (where he invented the Palm Pilot) On Intelligence How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines is a book by Palm Pilot -inventor Jeff Hawkins Each hierarchy expresses a complex pattern that the brain-owner has automatically sensed and remembered, as a consequence of simple Hebbian learning. Hebbian theory describes a basic mechanism for Synaptic plasticity wherein an increase in synaptic efficacy arises from the Presynaptic cell's repeated "Sensed patterns" captured in these cortical hierarchies can reflect anything from the shape of a tree to a commonly-performed pattern of behavior that routinely propagates through mimicry. A cortical hierarchy consists of a "molecular" entity, constructed from sub-hierarchies (as the pattern of a tree comprises the sub-patterns of leaves, branches and a trunk), which themselves ultimately comprise "atomic" entities — small, patterned combinations of sensory elements. Memes thus take on a "particulate" nature that allows their combination and re-combination in various ways. Sheehan, in his book The Mocking Memes: A Basis for Automated Intelligence builds a model of creative thinking around a rapidly-evolving Darwinian process of combining and re-combining various causal memes, which represent nothing more than remembered patterns of causality. Creativity is a mental process involving the generation of new Ideas or Concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts

Sheehan describes a meme as any sort of pattern that serves as a template for its own replication. He suggests that an understanding of memetics requires a recognition of how such patterns get themselves automatically translated — according to the strict laws of physics — from substrate to substrate, as from patterns of light entering a human eye to patterns of neural excitations in the retina of that eye, to the Hebbian development of hierarchical patterns of neural connections in the cortex, and ultimately to patterns of muscle contractions that serve to mimic the witnessed behaviors of others.

Philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, in a debate with theologian Alister McGrath, has responded to criticism regarding the lack of rigor in the study of memetics by claiming that words and similar means of spreading and holding ideas provide a clear model for the spread and storage of memes. Cognitive science may be broadly defined as the multidisciplinary study of mind and behavior Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research Alister E McGrath (born January 23, 1953) is a Christian theologian, with a DPhil in Molecular biophysics, noted for his work on A word is a unit of Language that carries meaning and consists of one or more Morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together and has a Phonetic Sheehan suggests the automatic translation of patterns among various substrates as critical to providing the means for spreading and holding patterns of words and ideas. For example, we speak words through vibrational patterns of the larynx, which get translated to pressure waves in air, which then get translated to vibrations of a listener's ear drum, which then get translated to waves of cochlear fluid inside the inner ear, which then get translated to patterns of neural firings, which then get translated to patterns of neural connections, thereby establishing a memory of the spoken words in the listener's mind. The larynx (plural larynges) colloquially known as the voicebox, is an organ in the Neck of Mammals involved in protection of the Sheehan asserts that the constant flitting of memetic patterns from one substrate to another makes memes so difficult to pin down, as analogous to genes, but that the physical processes that translate memetic patterns from substrate to substrate exhibit an usually high level of fidelity.

According to Sheehan, "automatic translations of patterns from substrate to substrate to substrate, and back again, provide looping pathways by which patterns can iteratively replicate, mutate and evolve. " Sheehan claims that "many such looping pathways exist both within a single brain (to create an intelligent mind) and among many brains (to create culture, language and technology). "

Others suggest that many of the criticisms of memetic theory stem from confusion over what the term "gene" refers to. In microbiology, microbiologists see a "gene" as a cistron, a specific region of DNA. Microbiology (from Greek grc μῑκρος mīkros, "small" grc βίος bios, " Life " and grc -λογία History See also History of genetics The existence of genes was first suggested by Gregor Mendel (1822-1884 who in the 1860s studied inheritance Deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) is a Nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known The analogy between memes and genes, however, relates to an evolutionary biologist's gene, an abstract replicatory unit of information. Evolutionary biology is a sub-field of Biology concerned with the origin of Species from a Common descent, and Descent of species People who think of a gene as an actual visible piece of DNA often criticise the memetic analogy because of this. An example of such an "abstract replicatory unit of information" might code for the color of one's hair or for the length of a digit.

Memetic accounts of religion

Memetics regards religion itself as memetic, and Richard Dawkins has often discussed religion. A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos

Evangelistic religious movements act to swell the reach of their faith-meme. Evangelism is the Christian practice of proselytisation. The intention of most evangelism is to effect Eternal salvation to those who do not follow the [22] Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism (and their descendants) have all developed through variation, modification and memetic re-combination from a shared monotheistic meme: Zoroastrianism appears to have functioned as an important and widely-shared religious ancestor,[23] contributing through Judaism to Christianity, Islam and their many derivative religions. Judaism (from the Greek Ioudaïsmos, derived from the Hebrew יהודה Yehudah, " Judah " in Hebrew יַהֲדוּת Yahedut Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. Mormonism is a term used to describe the religious, ideological and cultural elements of certain branches of the Latter Day Saint movement For the Celtic Frost album see Monotheist (album In Theology, monotheism (from Greek grc [[wiktμόνος μόνος]] Zoroastrianism (ˌzɔroʊˈæstriəˌnɪzəm is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings [24] Some of these movements devote a large amount of time and energy to evangelistic activity.

Many of the world's most successful religions demonstrate memetic modification over time — the theologies of the 21st century differ to a greater or lesser extent from the theologies of previous centuries. [25]

In Western countries, universities evolved from medieval religious institutions devoted to learning. The term Western world, the West or the Occident ( Latin: occidens -sunset -west as distinct from the Orient) can have multiple meanings A university is an institution of Higher education and Research, which grants Academic degrees in a variety of subjects Of the nine colonial colleges in the British colonies of North America, eight had affiliations with religious institutions. The Colonial Colleges are nine institutions of Higher education chartered in the American Colonies before the American Revolution (1775&ndash1783 Many US colleges separated themselves from their seminaries, because the First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents federal funding of religious organizations. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress One can think of American academia as an offshoot religion that eliminated less adaptive memes (beliefs in the supernatural) in response to a selective pressure (funding restrictions).

A tendency exists in memetics to disparage religious memes, beginning at least as early as Dawkins's openly-expressed atheism. Dawkins in The God Delusion (2006) calls all religious memes "mind viruses". The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding Some compare this process to a scenario where the action of a virus (here a religion or a "bundle" of religious memes) proves ineffective and maladaptive if it kills its host(s), or to where the presence of less-harmful bacteria on the skin prevent infection by more-harmful organisms. A scenario (from Italian, that which is pinned to the scenery) is a synthetic description of an event or series of actions and events For example, popular Christianity forbids both murder and suicide, and its precise definitions of heresy ensure that properly-educated Christians have difficulty in accepting new religions or new viewpoints which advocate such actions. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings Murder is the unlawful killing of another human person with Malice aforethought, as defined in Common Law countries Heresy, as a blanket term describes a practice or belief that is labeled as unorthodox

Susan Blackmore has made a case that the study of Zen meditation in itself comprises a process of meme "pruning", i. Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, referred to in Chinese as Chan. Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness e. , a means to remove experiential clichés that reduce the value of life. This has not exempted Zen itself from serving as a source of highly mobile memes, such as "the sound of one hand clapping" koan or exclaiming "mu". Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, referred to in Chinese as Chan. Mu ( Japanese / Korean) and Wu ( Chinese traditional 無, simplified 无 Pinyin: wú Jyutping

Daniel Dennett used the idea of religion as a meme (or as a set of memes) as a basis for much of his analysis of religion in his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research Breaking the Spell Religion as a Natural Phenomenon is a 2006 book by the American Philosopher Daniel Dennett, which argues

Fundamentalist Christianity has associated a particular set of politico-social ideas/memeplexes with a separate set of religious ideas/memeplexes that have "replicated" very effectively for many centuries — notions such as "render unto Caesar", individual conscience, or punishment/reward in an afterlife. " Render unto Caesar… " is the beginning of a phrase attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic gospels which reads in full “Render unto Caesar the things Conscience is a hypothesized Ability or faculty that distinguishes whether our actions are right or wrong AfterLife is a film drama set in Scotland directed by Alison Peebles made in 2003 about an ambitious Scottish journalist forced to choose between For other examples of piggybacking involving religious memes, note the conversion-histories of the Hungarians and of Kievan Rus': adoption of Catholicism and Orthodoxy respectively entailed perceived cultural, political and diplomatic benefits and adherence to perceived mainstream civilization. The Kingdom of Hungary (short form Hungary) was a considerable state in Central Europe that existed from 1001 to 1918 then from 1919 to 1946 Kievan Rus′ (Ки́евская Русь romanised: Kievskaya Rus', rusʲ also written as Kyivan Rus′ (Ки́ївська Русь or Kievan [26]

Personal and intangible experiences which might seem "above" memes may rather have subconscious roots in memes absorbed during a lifetime, as depth psychology might suggest. Depth psychology is a broad term that refers to any psychological approach examining the depth (the subtle or unconscious parts of human experience

Memetic accounts of science

The scientific method offers a body of social and experimental techniques which, given certain preconditions — a free press for the circulation of information, a large number of people prepared to see the universe as a mechanism subject to general regularities which humans can observe, describe and model through repeatable experiments and/or observations — acts highly virulently, spreading quickly through an educated population as journals circulate and blogs proliferate. Scientific method refers to bodies of Techniques for investigating phenomena By demonstrating its success at making predictions, science as a practice can make itself more attractive to potential converts. Whether or not experimenters can necessarily verify them, ideas and attitudes — those which scientists tend to hold or those which feel aesthetically pleasing in combination with scientific discoveries — can propagate themselves in societies where science has a high status by the process of meme piggybacking.

Furthermore, one can view the scientific method as a successful meta-memetical means of selecting those memeplexes best suited for explaining observable physical processes, through its mechanism (parallel to the evolutionary algorithm used in computer science) of providing standardized methods for creating and evaluating competing populations of solutions to a given problem. Scientific method refers to bodies of Techniques for investigating phenomena In Artificial intelligence, an evolutionary algorithm (EA is a Subset of Evolutionary computation, a generic population-based Metaheuristic

Memetic explanations of racism

When regarded as non-conscious replicators (much like viruses), individual memes generally lack moral goodness or badness. However, the behaviors that memes generate in individuals and groups can have moral implications. History furnishes many examples of the moral implications of racist/ethnic/class memes when they interact with politics, such as the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda 's minority Tutsis and the moderates of its Hutu majority Racism provides an example of a common meme: an ideology that has come to separate people, causing the deaths of some targets or practitioners (the latter due to backlash) and threatening the lives of those who do not conform with racist norms. List of racism-related topics|Racism by country Racism, by its simplest definition is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that Personal life (or everyday life or human existence) is the course of an individual Human 's life especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices Once introduced into a culture, memes evolve (note antisemitism as a form of xenophobia) and spread through society, sometimes becoming both harmful and attractive so that they spread like a virus. Antisemitism (alternatively spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism; also rarely known as judeophobia) is the Prejudice against or hostility Xenophobia is an intense and/or irrational dislike and sometimes fear of people from other countries A virus (from the Latin virus meaning Toxin or Poison) is a sub-microscopic infectious agent that is unable (Ref. : 1994 G. Burchett)

In Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology,[27] Jack Balkin argued that memetic processes can explain many of the most familiar features of ideological thought. Jack M Balkin (born August 13, 1956 in Kansas City, Missouri) is the Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the An ideology is a set of beliefs aims and Ideas especially in politics His theory of "cultural software" maintained that memes form narratives, networks of cultural associations, metaphoric and metonymic models, and a variety of different mental structures. A narrative or story is a construct created in a suitable format (written spoken poetry prose images song Theater, or Dance) that describes a sequence of In Rhetoric, metonymy (mɨˈtɒnɨmi is the use of a word for a concept or object associated with the concept/object originally denoted by the word Some of these structures can help generate racist and anti-Semitic beliefs, by making this kind of belief spread fast and wide. Conversely, some memes can have moral implications that most observers might deem positive, such as the meme of anti-racism, which tends/aims to generate behaviors of tolerance.

Memetic accounts of personality

Memeticists often define an individual's mind as a "playground for memes" or as an "ecology of memes", where the different memes that have colonized that mind at different times interact with each other. MIND ( Moving In New Directions) (est 1975 is an alternative education high school in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. For example, when a mind successfully infected by the memeplex for religion X becomes exposed to the memeplex for religion Y, memeplex X may repulse memeplex Y: X can block Y from infecting the mind (for instance through use of such memetic components as the meme that "all other religions apart from X are evil"). Evil, in many cultures is used to describe acts or thoughts which are contrary to some particular religion

In a person’s history, language provides the first and most important memetic infection. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Indeed, memeticians generally regard language as a memetically-evolved phenomenon. For example, even at the level of animals, many species have evolved particular cries to convey different meanings, such as "danger", "hungry", "aroused", "go away" or "come here". Experiments can verify the memetic nature of the cries of these species, showing for example that the cries do not arise when humans raise the animals concerned: they do not generate the cries by instinct, but learn them from other animals. Human language, as a memetically-evolved tool, can serve not only to communicate concepts between humans, but also to combine low-abstraction concepts into higher-abstraction ones. A broader definition of a tool is an entity used to interface between two or more domains that facilitates more effective action of one domain upon the other --> Abstraction is the process or result of generalization by reducing the information This combination/abstraction process, seen memetically, constitutes creative breeding of memes, where the interaction of several memes results in the birth of a new, combined meme. For example, the mind of Richard Dawkins saw the creative breeding of its memes for "replicator", "culture", and "mind", and this breeding gave birth to the new meme of "meme".

After humans become infected with the memeplex for language — generally during babyhood — they get infected with a series of higher-abstraction memes, and especially values-memes. Depending on the education received by the person, the lessons drawn from experience, and the surrounding cultural materials (tales, songs, books, etc), a certain ecology and history of meme-infection and interaction builds up within that person’s mind. Education encompasses both the Teaching and Learning of Knowledge, proper conduct, and technical competency Experience as a general concept comprises Knowledge of or skill in or Observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or Memes generate behaviors in their host — either spoken or acted behaviors. Because each person has an individual memetic infection and interaction history, there emerge singular behavior patterns. We conventionally refer to what memeticists regard as meme-generated patterns of behavior as a person's personality.

Memetic engineering

Main article: Memetic engineering

Memetic engineering (a term was coined by Leveious Rolando, Gibran Burchett, and John Sokol. Memetic engineering is a term developed and coined by three individuals Leveious Rolando, John Sokol, and Gibran Burchett while they researched and observed ) consists of the process of developing memes, through meme-splicing and memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the behavior of others. It involves creating and developing theories or ideologies based on an analytical study of societies, their ways of thinking and the evolution of the minds that comprise them. An ideology is a set of beliefs aims and Ideas especially in politics A society is a Population of Humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive Culture and Institutions Attempts at Artificial Meme-Phrase Creation have not met with noted success, though apocryphal stories tell of the putative origins of these sorts of memes. [28]

Sometimes people modify and fabricate memes consciously, even intentionally (think the self-image of advertising agencies, for example — though some argue that the intention comes from the memes). An advertising agency or ad agency is a service Business dedicated to creating planning and handling Advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion This would help to explain how rapidly, extensively and usefully memetic evolution has functioned in and for culture. People apply many ever-evolving meme-based systems of analysis and error-correction to all information flowing in and out. Analysis (from Greek ἀνάλυσις, "a breaking up" is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a In Mathematics, Computer science, Telecommunication, and Information theory, error detection and correction has great practical importance in Just as genetic material has developed gene-based error-correction models, memetic systems have "found" it advantageous to associate with meme-based error-correction models.

However, attempting to popularize a fabricated meme or an unproven theory often results in a backlash against said meme: the originators of a meme may appear to have a hidden agenda, as in the case of intelligent design, the meme of which some perceived as an apparently scientific relabeling of creationism. Intelligent "Creationism" can also refer to Creation myths in general or to a concept about the origin of the soul. [29]

Memetic evolution

Evolution requires not only inheritance and natural selection but also variation, and memes also exhibit this property. "Heir" and "Heiress" redirect here For the men and women fragrances endorsed by Paris Hilton see Heiress (fragrance. Ideas may undergo changes in transmission which accumulate over time. Generations of hosts pass on these changes in the phenotype (the information in brains or in retention systems). A phenotype is any observable characteristic of an Organism, such as its morphology, Development, biochemical or physiological properties In other words, unlike genetic evolution, memetic evolution can show both Darwinian and Lamarckian traits. Charles Robert Darwin (February 12 1809 &ndash April 19 1882 was an English naturalist, who realised and demonstrated that all Species of life Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet Chevalier de Lamarck ( August 1, 1744 &ndash December 18, 1829) was a French Soldier For example, folk tales and myths often become embellished in the retelling to make them more memorable or more appropriate and therefore more impressed listeners have a greater likelihood of retelling them, complete with accumulating embellishments that may serve to modify human behavior. History The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of Romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological The word mythology (from the Greek grc μυθολογία mythología, meaning "a story-telling a legendary lore" More modern examples appear in the various urban legends and hoaxes — such as the Goodtimes virus warning — that circulate on the Internet. An urban legend or urban myth is a form of modern Folklore consisting of stories thought to be factual by those circulating them A hoax is a deliberate attempt to Dupe, Deceive or trick an audience into believing or accepting that something is real when in fact it is not or that The Goodtimes Virus was a Computer virus hoax that spread during the early years of the Internet 's popularity

Dawkins observed that cultures can evolve in much the same way that populations of organisms evolve. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic In Biology a population is the collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular Species; in Sociology Various ideas pass from one generation to the next; such ideas may either enhance or detract from the survival of the people who obtain those ideas, or influence the survival of the ideas themselves. Generation (from the Greek γενεά) also known as procreation, is the act of producing Offspring. This process can affect which of those ideas will survive for passing on to future generations. For example, a certain culture may have unique designs and methods of tool-making that another culture may not have; therefore, the culture with the more effective methods may prosper more than the other culture, ceteris paribus. A broader definition of a tool is an entity used to interface between two or more domains that facilitates more effective action of one domain upon the other la Cēterīs paribus is a Latin phrase literally translated as "with other things the same This leads to a higher proportion of the overall population adopting the more effective methods as time passes. Each tool-design thus acts somewhat similarly to a biological gene in that some populations have it and others do not, and the meme's function directly affects the presence of the design in future generations. History See also History of genetics The existence of genes was first suggested by Gregor Mendel (1822-1884 who in the 1860s studied inheritance Similarly, like the biological evolutionary process, cultures can retain memes that once served a purpose during one epoch or era as vestigial memes — note the survival of astrology. Vestigiality describes homologous characters of Organisms which have lost all or most of their original function in a species through Astrology (from Greek grc ἄστρον astron, "constellation star" and grc -λογία -logia) is a group of Systems Such evolutionary misdirection resembles (debatably) the survival of the vermiform appendix, or of wisdom teeth in humans. In Human anatomy, the appendix (or vermiform appendix; also cecal (or caecal appendix; also vermix) is a blind ended tube connected to the

Propagation of memes

Memes have as an important characteristic their propagation through imitation, a concept introduced by the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde. Imitation is an advanced Behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" Jean-Gabriel De Tarde or Gabriel Tarde in short ( March 12, 1843 in Sarlat, France &ndash May 13, 1904 Imitation involves copying the observed behaviour of another individual. Observation is either an activity of a living being (such as a Human) which senses and assimilates the Knowledge of a Phenomenon, or the recording of data Typically imitators copy behaviour from observing other humans, but they may also copy from an inanimate source, such as from a book or from a musical score. Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of Musical notation; like its analogs -- books pamphlets etc Imitation may depend on brains sufficiently powerful to assess the key aspects of the imitated behavior (what to copy and why) as well as its potential benefits.

Researchers have observed memetic copying in just a few species on Earth, including hominids, dolphins[30] and birds (which learn how to sing by imitating their parents[31] ). EARTH was a short-lived Japanese vocal trio which released 6 singles and 1 album between 2000 and 2001 Dolphins are Marine mammals that are closely related to Whales and Porpoises There are almost forty species of dolphin in seventeen genera. Birds ( class Aves) are bipedal endothermic ( Warm-blooded) Vertebrate animals that lay eggs. Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, which is often contrasted with Speech. A parent is a Father or Mother; one who sires or gives

When imitation first evolved in the animal ancestors of humans, it proved itself a valuable skill for learning, which increased an individual's ability to reproduce genetically. An ancestor is a Parent or ( recursively) the parent of an ancestor (i A skill is the learned capacity or talent to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time energy or both. In the fields of Neuropsychology, Personal development and Education, Learning is one of the most important Mental function of humans Some have speculated that sexual selection of the best imitators further drove a genetic increase in the ability of brains to imitate well. Sexual selection is the Theory proposed by Charles Darwin that states that certain evolutionary traits can be explained by Intraspecific competition

Memetics suggests that memes have the potential for a much more lasting effect than genes: humans continue to quote prophets, popes and teachers who had no known lineal blood-descendants. Most organisms pass their genes on to their offspring sexually, but with every generation the genetic contribution of a given ancestor halves — so that a person only has a quarter of their grandfather's personal genes. Susan Blackmore has evaluated the legacy of Socrates. Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July, 1951) is an English Freelance writer, Lecturer, and broadcaster on Psychology SOCRATES is the European Community action programme in the field of Education. Since the 5th century BC, Socrates' genes have become thoroughly diluted (dispersed); however, his memes still have a profound effect on modern thought and on contemporary philosophical discourse. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language

In modern times, the advent of the Internet — and more specifically of email — has provided memes with a high-fidelity propagation medium that enables highly prolific memes to propagate quickly. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. For example, chain-emails furnish a significant instance: in-depth studies have examined their evolution and mutation based on their differential survival rate. Paper-based chain-letters, predecessors to this meme-distribution net, have also attracted study,[32] but they have a lower propagation-rate due to the higher copying effort, and a higher mutation-rate may have occurred due to manual transcription or degraded photocopying, thus potentially reducing their lifespan. It seems plausible that the first email chain-letters started when recipients transcribed paper-based chain-letters to email, suggesting that memes can move from one propagation medium to another (more efficient) one.

Evolutionary influences on memes

If one accepts the memetic description, it still remains to single out which memes have good potential for spreading. One can make an analogy with biology. To be able to say something about the spread of a gene in birds that affect their wings ornithologists need to know about both population genetics and aerodynamics. Similarly, memeticists need to complement the description of memes with a description of what makes a meme easily absorbable by people other than the original carrier.

Only the number of extant copies (and where those copies reside) determine the measurable success of a gene or of a meme. A strong (but not complete) correlation exists between genes that do well and genes that have a positive effect on the organism which contains those genes. And if we can restrict attention to memes normally interpreted as statements of fact, then a correlation emerges between those memes that do well and those that reflect reality. Attention is the Cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things Generally a fact is defined as something that is true something that actually exists or something that can be verified according to an established standard of evaluation Reality, in everyday usage means "the state of things as they actually exist" However, some genes and memes do survive which owe their success to other factors. Similarly, a correlation exists between successful memes of a technological/economic nature and those that help the economy (such as slavery and free markets (each in their day), for instance). Technology is a broad concept that deals with a Species ' usage and knowledge of Tools and Crafts and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The world economy can be evaluated in various ways depending on the model used and this valuation can then be represented in various ways (for example in 2006 US dollars) As a social-economic system slavery is a legal institution under which a Person (called "a slave" is compelled to work for another A free market is a Market in which property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers

A gene's success in a body may stem from its attempt to bypass the normal sexual lottery by making itself present in more than 50% of zygotes in an organism. For other meanings see Zygote (disambiguation. A zygote (from Greek ζυγωτός zugōtos "joined" or "yoked" Some genes find other ways of having themselves transmitted between cells. The cell is the structural and functional unit of all known living Organisms It is the smallest unit of an organism that is classified as living and is often called Hence multiple factors influence the evolution of genes — not just the success of the species as a whole. Similarly the evolutionary pressures on memes include much more than just truth and economic success. The meaning of the word truth extends from Honesty, Good faith, and Sincerity in general to agreement with Fact or Reality Evolutionary pressures may include the following:

  1. Experience: If a meme does not correlate with an individual's experience, then that individual has a reduced likelihood of remembering that meme. Experience as a general concept comprises Knowledge of or skill in or Observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or
  2. Pleasure/Pain: If a meme results in more pleasure or less pain for its host then the host will have a greater likelihood of remembering it.
  3. Fear/Bribery: If a meme constitutes a threat then people may become frightened into believing it. Fear is an Emotional response to Threats and Danger. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific Stimulus, such as Similarly, if a meme promises some future benefit then people may incline to believe it. The memes "if you do X you will burn in hell" and "do Y and you will go to heaven" provide examples. Memes which pass on the fear of a threat, of the likelihood or effectiveness of a threat, that "something will happen if you do such and such a thing", have a high likelihood of success, and may therefore replicate and remain in the meme-pool. They may assist in this way in the survival of a thought, a theme or a philosophy within a community. In biological terms a community is a group of interacting Organisms sharing an environment.
  4. Censorship: If an organisation destroys any retention-systems containing a particular meme or otherwise controls the usage of that meme, then that meme may suffer a selective disadvantage. An organisation (or organization &mdash see spelling differences) is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals which controls its own performance and
  5. Economics: If people or organisations with economic influence exhibit a particular meme, then the meme has a greater likelihood of benefiting from a greater audience. If a meme tends to increase the riches of an individual holding it, then that meme may spread because of imitation. Such memes might include "Hard work is good" and "Put number one first".
  6. Distinction: If the meme enables hearers to recognize and respect tellers (as leaders, intelligent people, insightful, etc. The word leadership can refer to Those entities that perform one or more acts of leading ), then the meme has a greater chance of spreading. The erstwhile receivers will want to become themselves tellers of the same meme (or of an evolved/mutated version). Thus élite knowledge can provide a promotion to élite status.

Memes, like genes, do not purposely do or want anything — they either get replicated or not. Some meme systems have negative effects on the host or on their host society (revenge killings, for example), but humans generally have a symbiotic relationship with these abstract entities. Revenge (also vengeance, retribution, or vendetta amongst others consists primarily of retaliation against a person or group in response

Memes do not mutate in an exclusively passive way. The brain inhabited by a meme system can carry out a sort of active modification of a meme. One could draw an analogy with a cell's error-correction systems, but they clearly function quite differently. People create and modify memes almost continuously. One can modify, manipulate, and create meme systems in thought, for instance through internal dialogue. As soon as one opens one's mouth and says something (or does something) that one has not copied (but that others can copy), one has unleashed a novel meme. Thus, one could conclude that we all perform the role of a memetic engineer to some degree (even if not consciously).

This seems especially evident in modern society, more notably in the scientific and philosophical realms and in the entertainment industry. The entertainment industry (much of which is informally known as show business or show biz) consists of a large number of sub-industries devoted to Entertainment It has become standard practice for scientists and philosophers alike to assemble memetic systems and to question their philosophical and empirical integrity. In Philosophy, empiricism is a theory of Knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from Experience. On perceiving a flaw, one may seek theoretical (mathematical/thought experiments/logic/analysis) or empirical (experimental/observational) resolution. The word theory has many distinct meanings in different fields of Knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion. Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and A thought experiment (from the German Gedankenexperiment) is a proposal for an Experiment that would test a Hypothesis or Theory Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. Scientific method refers to bodies of Techniques for investigating phenomena A central concept in Science and the Scientific method is that all Evidence must be empirical, or empirically based that is dependent on evidence In scientific inquiry an experiment ( Latin: Ex- periri, "to try out" is a method of investigating particular types of research questions or Observation is either an activity of a living being (such as a Human) which senses and assimilates the Knowledge of a Phenomenon, or the recording of data This happens in large part due to the influence of some of the more "modern" philosophers of the past. Over the last few hundred (or thousand) years, a "philosophy" or paradigm has evolved and developed which benefits the societies in which many embrace it. The word paradigm ( Greek:παράδειγμα (paradigmacomposite from para- and the verb δείχνυμι "to show" as a whole -roughly- meaning "example" That philosophy includes the moral and scientific obligation to take nothing for granted and always to question any new information one perceives. A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event Information as a concept has a diversity of meanings from everyday usage to technical settings People following this tradition have transformed the memetic base of modern science and philosophy. These people include Zoroaster, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Benjamin Franklin and Karl Popper. Zoroaster ( Latinized from Greek variants) or Zarathushtra (from Avestan Zaraθuštra) also referred to as Zartosht (زرتشت SOCRATES is the European Community action programme in the field of Education. Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. Biography Early life Birth and family Plato was born in Athens Greece Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 &ndash 8 January 1642 was a Tuscan ( Italian) Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, and Philosopher Sir Isaac Newton, FRS (ˈnjuːtən 4 January 1643 31 March 1727) Biography Early years See also Isaac Newton's early life and achievements Charles Robert Darwin (February 12 1809 &ndash April 19 1882 was an English naturalist, who realised and demonstrated that all Species of life Albert Einstein ( German: ˈalbɐt ˈaɪ̯nʃtaɪ̯n; English: ˈælbɝt ˈaɪnstaɪn (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955 was a German -born theoretical Benjamin Franklin ( April 17 1790 was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. Sir Karl Raimund Popper ( July 28 1902  &ndash September 17 1994) was an Austrian and British Philosopher and a professor Science accepts nothing as true unless empirical evidence and observation suggests such "truth" strongly and consistently. This entire procedure adheres to a meme-system that has evolved to the point of rejecting almost any absolute truth-claim. This meme-system now includes such novel analytical paradigms as the scientific method and Dewey's Decision-Making model (among many other meme-based systems) to help distinguish useful (or truthful) meme-systems from "bad" ones. The word paradigm ( Greek:παράδειγμα (paradigmacomposite from para- and the verb δείχνυμι "to show" as a whole -roughly- meaning "example" Scientific method refers to bodies of Techniques for investigating phenomena John Dewey (October 20 1859 &ndash June 1 1952 was an American Philosopher, Psychologist, and educational reformer, whose thoughts and ideas have Decision making can be regarded as an outcome of mental processes ( cognitive process) leading to the selection of a course of action among several alternatives

Francis Heylighen of the Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies has postulated what he calls "memetic selection criteria". Francis Heylighen (born 1960 is a Belgian cyberneticist. He works as a research professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Dutch-speaking Free The Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies (CLEA is an interdisciplinary research centre founded at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1995 with the aim These criteria opened the way to a specialized field of applied memetics to find out if these selection criteria could stand the test of quantitative analyses.

The cultural materialism view in anthropology holds that the evolutionary pressures of economy and ecology explain many aspects of human culture. Cultural Materialism is an anthropological research orientation Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of Ecology (from Greek grc οἶκος oikos, "house(hold" and grc -λογία -logia) is the scientific study of For example, the food taboos sometimes enshrined in religions — such as the concepts of sacred cows, kosher and halal — would have prospered because they allowed the believing population to (say) live more hygienically and thus survive longer than non-believers in environments possibly more hostile to survival. Taboo food and drinks are food and drink which people abstain from consuming for religious or cultural reasons The term sacred cow has passed into the English language to mean an object or practice which is considered immune from criticism especially unreasonably so Halal (حلال ḥalāl, halaal) is an Arabic term meaning permissible. Hygiene refers to practices associated with ensuring good health and cleanliness A migration or a change of the economic infrastructure could render the taboo neutral or even adverse. Infrastructure typically refers to the technical structures that support a society such as Roads Water supply, Wastewater, Power grids A taboo is a strong Social prohibition (or ban) against words objects actions or discussions that are considered undesirable or offensive by a group culture

Resistance to certain memes

Karl Popper advocated memetic caution in the strongest possible terms: "The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to extinct a bad idea, before the idea extincts us. Sir Karl Raimund Popper ( July 28 1902  &ndash September 17 1994) was an Austrian and British Philosopher and a professor Intelligence (also called intellect) is an Umbrella term used to describe a property of the Mind that encompasses many related abilities such as the capacities "

Resistance to violent and destructive courses of action has formed a common meme that can guide human cultural and cognitive evolution away from disastrous paths — for instance the U.S. and USSR stockpiled but did not deploy nuclear weapons in action in the period of the Cold War. Cognition is a concept used in different ways by different disciplines but is generally accepted to mean the process of awareness or thought The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from Nuclear reactions either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the Some cultures can consider ignorance a virtue — in particular, ignorance of certain temptations that the culture believes would prove disastrous if pursued by many individuals. See for example the operation of the Index librorum prohibitorum. The Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books" was a list of publications prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church.

The Internet, perhaps the ultimate meme-vector to date, seems to host both sides of this debate. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks In Epidemiology, a vector is an Organism that does not cause Disease itself but which transmits Infection by conveying Pathogens from Opposition to use of the Internet can stem from any number of memes: from ethics to intent to ability to resist hacking or pornography. Pornography or porn is the explicit depiction of Sexual subject matter with the sole intention of sexually exciting the viewer

The Principia Cybernetica project maintains a lexicon of memetics concepts, comprising a list of different types of memes. Principia Cybernetica is an international organisation in the field of Cybernetics and Systems science focused on the collaborative development of a "computer-supported It also refers to an essay by Jaron Lanier, The ideology of cybernetic totalist intellectuals, which criticises "meme totalists" who assert memes over bodies. Jaron Zepel Lanier (born May 3, 1960 in New York City) is computer scientist composer visual artist and author

Memetic virus exchange

One controversial application of the "selfish meme" parallel results in the idea that certain collections of memes can act as "memetic viruses": collections of ideas that behave in the manner of independent life-forms which continue to get passed on — even at the expense of their hosts — simply because of their success at getting passed on. Some observers have suggested that evangelical religions and cults behave in this way; so by including the act of passing on their beliefs as a moral virtue, other beliefs of the religion also get passed along — even if they do not provide particular direct benefits to the believer. Evangelism is the Christian practice of proselytisation. The intention of most evangelism is to effect Eternal salvation to those who do not follow the A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos This article does not discuss "cult" in the original sense of "veneration" or "religious practice" for that usage see Cult (religious practice Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a Proposition or Premise to be true Virtue ( Latin virtus; Greek) is moral Excellence. Personal virtues are characteristics valued as promoting individual

Others maintain that the wide prevalence of human adoption of religious ideas provides evidence to suggest that such ideas offer some ecological, sexual, ethical or moral value; otherwise memetic evolution would long ago have selected against such ideas. For example, some religions urge peace and co-operation among their followers ("Thou shalt not murder") which may possibly tend to promote the biological survival of the social groups that carry these memes. Peace, in the modern usage is a concept defined by the ideal state of relationship as absence of hostility at the international level that of a War. Distinguish from Corporation. Cooperation, co-operation, or coöperation is the process of working or acting together However, the idea of group selection stands on shaky ground (to say the least) in the field of genetics. Accordingly, some consider the idea of selection of ideas beneficial to the group exclusively as unlikely.

Dawkins notes that one can distinguish a biological virus from its host's normal genetic material by the fact that it can propagate alone, without the propagation of the entire genetic corpus of the host — or half of it, in the case of diploid sexual reproduction; thus, a virus can "sabotage" the host's other genes. "Haplo" redirects here For the fictional character see The Death Gate Cycle. The Evolution of sexual reproduction is a major puzzle The first Fossilized evidence of sexually reproducing Organisms is from Eukaryotes of the Stenian This applies to memes in the sense that a meme that requires the success of its hosts has a greater likelihood of favouring the interests of these hosts than does a meme capable of succeeding even if each host quickly dies. For example, the commonplace meme which encourages people to wash their hands after they use the toilet or before handling food, and which reminds others to do the same, does not appear harmful. In contrast, a meme telling people to quit their jobs, abandon their families, and run around spreading the meme seems quite virulent. Virulence (also called pestiferousness) refers to the degree of Pathogenicity of a Microbe, or in other words the relative ability of a Microbe

Reproductive isolation in meme "speciation"

In traditional population genetics the normal genetic variation, genetic selection, and genetic drift do not lead to the formation of a new species without some form of "reproductive isolation". Population genetics is the study of the Allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four evolutionary forces Natural selection, Genetic Genetic diversity is a level of Biodiversity that refers to the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species Natural selection is the process by which favorable Heritable traits become more common in successive Generations of a Population of In Population genetics, genetic drift is the accumulation of random events that change the makeup of a gene pool slightly but often compound over time Thus in order to split a single species into two species, the two subpopulations of the original species must ultimately lose their ability to interbreed, which would normally maintain their heterogeneity. In Biology, a species is one of the basic units of Biological classification and a Taxonomic rank. Heterogeneous is an adjective used to describe an object or system consisting of multiple items having a large number of structural variations However, once separated, natural selection and/or mere genetic drift acting on the normal genetic variation in the two subspecies will eventually change enough characteristics of the two subgroups to preclude them interbreeding, which (by a common definition of what constitutes a species) means that they will comprise two different species. In Population genetics, genetic drift is the accumulation of random events that change the makeup of a gene pool slightly but often compound over time Examples of reproductive isolation include geographical isolation, where a suddenly-appearing mountain range or river separates two subgroups; temporal isolation (isolation by time), where one subgroup becomes entirely diurnal in its habits while the other becomes entirely nocturnal; or even just "behavioral" isolation, as seen in wolves and domestic dogs: they could interbreed, biologically speaking, but normally they do not. Catastrophism is the idea that Earth has been affected in the distant past by sudden short-lived violent events that were sometimes worldwide in scope In Animal behavior, diurnality indicates an Animal that is active during the Daytime and rests during the Night. As an Animal behavior, nocturnality describes sleeping during the Daytime and being active at Night - the opposite of the diurnal The grey wolf or gray wolf ( Canis lupus) also known as the timber wolf or simply wolf, is a Mammal of the order Carnivora The dog ( Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated Subspecies of the gray wolf, a Mammal of the Canidae family of the order

A similar phenomenon can occur with memes. Normally, the population of individuals having a meme in their consciousness contains sufficient internal variation and mixes enough to keep a given meme relatively intact (although it covers a wide range of variations). Consciousness has been defined loosely as a constellation of attributes of Mind such as Subjectivity, Self-awareness, Sentience, and the Should that population become split, however, without sufficient contact for the two different subgroups of variations of the meme to equilibrate, eventually each group will evolve its own version of that meme, each version differing sufficiently from that of the other group to appear as a distinct entity. A genetic equilibrium occurs when an allele within a gene pool is not changing in frequency (i

The Kellerman meme provides an example of this occurring on the Internet. A search of the web and/or Usenet for the word 'Kellerman' will turn up many citations, describing at great length the behavior of a "Dr. Arthur Kellerman", who, with the willing assistance of the Centers for Disease Control and the public-health lobby, purportedly fabricated studies in order to implicate firearms (and by extension their owners) as a menace to public safety, for the purposes of statist control of the population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (or CDC) is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services based in unincorporated Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease prolonging life and promoting health through the organised efforts and informed choices of society organisations Lobbying includes all attempts to influence Legislators and officials whether by other legislators constituents or organized groups A firearm is a Tool that projects either single or multiple Projectiles at high velocity through a controlled explosion Public security Public safety involves the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the Safety of the general public from significant Danger Statism (or Etatism) is a very loose and often Derogatory term that is used to describe Specific instances of state intervention in personal social The authors of these pages and postings describe purported machinations, "junk science", a subsequent recantation by Dr. Junk science is a term used in US political and legal disputes that brands an advocate's claims about scientific Data, Research, "Kellerman", and the use of his work by proponents of gun control. Gun politics is a set of legal issues surrounding the ownership use and regulation of firearms as well as safety issues related to firearms both through their direct use and through . Compare the work of the differently spelled scientist Arthur Kellermann. Dr Arthur L Kellermann MD MPH FACEP (born 1955 is professor and founding chairman of the department of Emergency Medicine at Emory University in

The original meme of Kellermann and his work on gun-related violent injury has generated a new meme ("Dr. Injury or bodily injury is Damage or Harm caused to the Structure or function of the Body caused by an outside agent or Kellerman is an evil lying gun-grabbing enemy of freedom") by the classic genetic phenomenon of a deletion mutation. Political freedom is the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression A process by which the genetic information of an Organism is changed in a stable manner either in nature or experimentally by the use of Chemicals or Radiation. The sub-population involved had strongly negative attitudes towards Kellermann's work as well as a lack of firsthand familiarity with his studies and career. Career is a term defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as an individual's "course or progress through life (or a distinct portion of life" Because of the "reproductive isolation" caused by the total non-intersection of the results of searches for "Kellerman" and "Kellermann", the Kellerman-meme drifted even further in the direction of negativity, unchecked by facts related to the real Kellermann. As this group encounters new individuals of similar general outlook, they introduce new recruits to the "Kellerman" lore only, and go on to produce their own websites and postings furthering the rapid progress of this meme.

(This phenomenon also demonstrates two other features of memes — the "meme-complex" (memeplex) as a set of mutually-assisting "co-memes" which have co-evolved a symbiotic relationship, and the "Villain vs. Victim" infection strategy. )

Expansion of concept

The propagation of memes follows a phenomenon that also appears in many other fields of study. One can expand the same principles to include all material patterns as well, in the sense that every material pattern in the universe exists to an extent proportional to its frequency of appearance, longevity and ability to reproduce (or to allow copying by others).

The material pattern "shoes", for instance, reproduces dependently on the meme of how to create shoes, which in turn depends on its ability to benefit human beings. Nevertheless one can view it, like the material patterns it depends on, as a "selfish" material pattern, only benefiting human beings to such extent as to favour its own rate of reproduction by human agency.

See also

References

  1. ^ See for example the pronunciation in The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition, 2000; and compare the original suggestion of the coiner of the word recommending a pronunciation to rhyme with "cream": Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. The bandwagon effect, also known as Social proof or "cromo effect" and closely related to opportunism, is the observation that people often do and believe A typical chain letter consists of a Message that attempts to induce the recipient to make a number of copies of the letter and then pass them on to as many recipients Consensus reality (rarely or mistakenly called "consensual reality" is an approach to answering the question 'What is real ?' a profound philosophical question Creativity techniques are methods that encourage original thoughts and Divergent thinking. Sociocultural evolution(ism is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and Social evolution, describing how Cultures and societies A precise definition of culture jamming is elusive It has been called a Resistance movement to Cultural hegemony, whereas some say the defining theme of culture jamming Demagogy (also demagoguery) ( Ancient Greek δημαγωγία from dēmos "people" and agein "to lead" refers to a political According to Rogers(2003 "Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social System Dual Inheritance Theory (DIT also known as Gene-Culture Coevolution, was developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s to explain how Human behavior is a product of In Biology, the term epigenetics refers to changes in Gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence Evolutionary linguistics is the Scientific study of the origins and development of language. A figure of speech, sometimes A frame in Social theory consists of a schema of interpretation, that is a collection of Stereotypes that individuals rely on to understand and respond Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing analyzing and evaluating ideas Herd behaviour describes how individuals in a group can act together without planned direction The history of ideas is a field of Research in History that deals with the expression preservation and change of human Ideas over time The “Hundredth Monkey Effect” is a supposed Phenomenon in which a learned behaviour spreads instantaneously from one group of monkeys to all related monkeys once a critical The hypodermic needle model is a model of communications also referred to as the Magic bullet perspective or the transmission-belt model The memespace is an abstract cultural container populated by Memes Memes are similar to Genes and Viruses in that they tend to propagate, In the study of Memes a memesphere is analogous to a Biosphere in Biology. This article is related to the study of self-replicating units of culture not to be confused with Mimetics Memetics is a neo-Darwinian approach A meme pool is the sum total of all Memes present in a given population Paradigm shift, sometimes known as extraordinary science or revolutionary science, is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his influential Propaganda is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people Rhetoric has had many definitions no simple definition can do it justice A rumour or rumor (see spelling differences) is often viewed as "an unverified account or explanation of events circulating from person to person and See also Biological reproduction Self-replication is any process by which a thing might make a copy of itself Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of sign processes (semiosis or signification and communication signs and Symbols both A snowclone is a type of Cliché and Phrasal template originally defined as "a multi-use customizable instantly recognizable time-worn quoted or misquoted Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological and psychological theories of Knowledge that consider how social phenomena develop in Social Osmosis is the indirect Infusion of social/cultural knowledge The three hares is a circular motif which appears in sacred sites from the Middle and Far East to the churches of south west England (where it is often A literary trope (from Greek τρόπος - tropos "turn" related to the root of τρέπω - trepō "to turn to direct The term " Trope " is both a term which denotes figurative and metaphorical language and one which has been used in various technical senses An urban legend or urban myth is a form of modern Folklore consisting of stories thought to be factual by those circulating them Zeitgeist ( pronounced) is a German language expression literally translated Zeit time; Geist spirit, meaning "the Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989 ISBN 0-19-217773-7 page 192
  2. ^ Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 11. Memes:the new replicators, Oxford University, 1976, second edition, December 1989, ISBN 0-19-217773-7; April 1992, ISBN 0-19-857519-X; trade paperback, September 1990, ISBN 0-19-286092-5
  3. ^ Kelly, Kevin (1994). Out of control: the new biology of machines, social systems and the economic world. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 360. ISBN 0-201-48340-8.  

    "But if we consider culture as its own self organizing system,- a system with its own agenda and pressure to survive- then the history of humanity gets even more interesting. As Richard Dawkins has shown, systems of self-replicating ideas or memes can quickly accumulate their own agenda and behaviours. Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941 is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and Popular science I assign no higher motive to a cultural entity than the primitive drive to reproduce itself and modify its environment to aid its spread. One way the self organizing system can do this is by consuming human biological resources. "

    "In Danny Hillis's terminology, civilized humans are 'the world's most successful symbionts' — culture and biology behaving as mutually beneficial parasites for each other. William Daniel "Danny" Hillis (born September 25, 1956, in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American Inventor, "

  4. ^ Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, USA; 3rd edition, April 24, 2006, ISBN 0-1992-9114-4), p. Events 1479 BC - Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. 192. To quote Dawkins more extensively:

    We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory', or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'.

    – Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989 ISBN 0-19-217773-7 page 192

  5. ^ Dawkins, Richard, Speech at an event at the London School of Economics held to mark the 30th anniversary of the publication of his book, The Selfish Gene, 2006
  6. ^ http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/memetics/temes.htm Temes in technology
  7. ^ Charles J. Lumsden and Edward Osborne Wilson: Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. Charles J Lumsden is a Canadian Biologist in the Department of Medicine and Institute of Medical Science University of Toronto. Edward Osborne Wilson (born June 10, 1929) is an American biologist researcher ( Sociobiology, Biodiversity) theorist ( Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1981. ISBN 0674344758
  8. ^ Edward Osborne Wilson: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Edward Osborne Wilson (born June 10, 1929) is an American biologist researcher ( Sociobiology, Biodiversity) theorist ( Consilience The Unity of Knowledge is a 1998 book by biologist E New York: Knopf, 1998. ISBN 0679450777
  9. ^ Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man, Chapter III, Mental Powers, pp. 90-91.
  10. ^ Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. New York: Harbinger. 1965.
  11. ^ See for example John D. Gottsch: "Mutation, Selection, And Vertical Transmission Of Theistic Memes In Religious Canons" in Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2001. Online version retrieved 2008-01-27. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 98 - Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva.
  12. ^ Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene, p. 330. Oxford University Press, 1989. ISBN 0192860925
  13. ^ Kim Sterelney and Paul E. Griffiths, Sex and Death: And Introduction to Philosophy of Biology, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1999, p. 333
  14. ^ Peter S Williams: "'What do you believe is trues(sic) even though you cannot prove it?' – Comparing Dawkins' Blind Faith with Flew's Evidence" on the "action research network" site ("providing accessible information on science, technology, and society from an intelligent design perspective"). Retrieved 2008-05-30. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 1416 - The Council of Constance, called by the Emperor Sigismund a supporter of Antipope John XXIII burns Jerome of Prague following Reproduced as Peter S Williams: "The Faith Based Dawkins: 'What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?' – Comparing Dawkins' Blind Faith with Flew's Evidence" on the bethinking. org apologetics website of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF), retrieved 2008-05-30. Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF is a UK-based Evangelical Christian charity that operates on university campuses 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 1416 - The Council of Constance, called by the Emperor Sigismund a supporter of Antipope John XXIII burns Jerome of Prague following Note that the original article does not use the technical terms "crusader" or "faith-based" or "belief systems" at all: let alone with reference to Professor Dawkins.
  15. ^ Dieter Lohmar - "Truth", in Lester Embree, Encyclopedia of phenomenology, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997
  16. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morals. Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage, 1967.
  17. ^ Mikael Sandberg: "The Evolution of IT Innovations in Swedish Organizations: A Darwinian Critique of ‘Lamarckian’ Institutional Economics", Journal of Evolutionary Economics Volume 17, Number 1, February, 2007 (on-line 2006, retrieved 2008-02-27; in print 2007)
  18. ^ Susan Blackmore: The Meme Machine. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 1560 - The Treaty of Berwick, which would expel the French from Scotland, is signed by England and the Congregation Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July, 1951) is an English Freelance writer, Lecturer, and broadcaster on Psychology The Meme Machine ( 1999) is a Popular science book by Psychologist Susan Blackmore on the subject of Memes Blackmore attempts Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-19-286212-X
  19. ^ Evan Louis Sheehan: The Mocking Memes: A Basis for Automated Intelligence. Authorhouse, 2006. ISBN 978-1425961602
  20. ^ Scott Atran, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, New York, Oxford University Press, 2002, chapter 9 "The Trouble with Memes". ISBN 0195149300
  21. ^ Quine, W. V. O. , 1952, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", in From a Logical Point of View: Cambridge, Mass. , Harvard University Press.
  22. ^ See for example: "Missionary Program"; retrieved 2008-01-27
  23. ^ See Lawrence Mills, Our Own Religion in Ancient Persia, Chicago, 1913
  24. ^ See for example the discussion and quotations in http://www.zarathushtra.com/z/article/influenc.htm
  25. ^ See History of theology for accounts of the varying emphases and interests of theologians in various traditions over time. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 98 - Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva. This is an overview of the History of Theology in Greek thought Christianity, Judaism and Islam from the time of
  26. ^ Compare for example the discussion in the article Christianization of Kievan Rus'. The Christianization of Kievan Rus' took place in several stages
  27. ^ J M Balkin: Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. ISBN 0300072880
  28. ^ AskOxford: What is the origin of the word 'quiz'?
  29. ^ See for example Mooney, Criss. The Republican War on Science. NY: Basic Books, 2005.
  30. ^ "Vocal learning in whistle production has been demonstrated in bottlenose dolphins . . . " Atlantic Spotted Dolphin vocalizations, chapter Delphinid vocalizationsPDF (797 KB), page 133 — retrieved 2007-08-29. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 708 - Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first time (Traditional Japanese date: August 10, 708)
  31. ^ Compare for example Paul R. Ehrlich, David S. Dobkin, and Darryl Wheye (1988): "Vocal Development", http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Vocal_Development.html
  32. ^ "Chain Letters and Evolutionary Histories", Charles H. Bennett, Ming Li and Bin Ma. Scientific American, June 2003.

Literature

  1. Henson, H. Keith: Memes Meta-Memes and Politics, 1988
  2. Henson, H. Keith and Arel Lucas: "Memes, Evolution, and Creationism", 1989
  3. Khan, Pir Hazrat Inayat: The Music of Life, Omega Uniform Edition, 2nd edition, 1993, trade paperback: 353 pages, ISBN 0-930872-38-X. Howard Keith Henson (born 1942 is an American Electrical engineer and Writer on Life extension, Cryonics, Memetics and Howard Keith Henson (born 1942 is an American Electrical engineer and Writer on Life extension, Cryonics, Memetics and Hazrat Inayat Khan ( July 5, 1882 &ndash February 5, 1927) was the founder of Universal Sufism and the Sufi Order International An introduction to the muwakkals (Eastern memes).
  4. Dennett, Daniel: Consciousness Explained, Boston: Little, Brown and Co. Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research Consciousness Explained (published 1991) is a Book by the American Philosopher Daniel Dennett which offers an account , 1991. ISBN 0316180653
  5. Dennett, Daniel: Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, 1995
  6. Brodie, Richard: Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme. Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research Darwin's Dangerous Idea Evolution and the Meanings of Life ( 1995) is a controversial book by Daniel Dennett which argues that Darwinian Richard "Quiet Lion" Brodie (born November 10 1959 is the original author of Microsoft Word, was employee #77 at Microsoft and is now a professional Integral Press, September 1995, 251 pages, ISBN 0-9636001-1-7
  7. Bloom, Howard: The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History. Howard Bloom (born 1943 in Buffalo New York) is a science writer former magazine editor and author Atlantic Monthly Press, February 1997, 480 pages, ISBN 0-87113-664-3
  8. Blackmore, Susan: The Meme Machine. Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July, 1951) is an English Freelance writer, Lecturer, and broadcaster on Psychology Oxford University Press, 1999, hardcover ISBN 0-19-850365-2, trade paperback ISBN 0-9658817-8-4, May 2000, ISBN 0-19-286212-X
  9. Fog, Agner: Cultural Selection. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1999. ISBN 0-7923-5579-2.
  10. Lynch, Aaron: Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society. Aaron Lynch (February 18 1957 - November 14 2005 was an American writer best known for his book Thought Contagion How Belief Spreads Through Society. Basic Books, 1999, ISBN 0-465-08467-2
    1. Review: "The new pseudo-science of memes"
  11. Stephenson, Neal: Snow Crash. Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known primarily for his Science fiction works in the Postcyberpunk genre Snow Crash is Neal Stephenson 's third Novel, published in 1992 Bantam Doubleday Dell, reprint, 2000, trade paperback: 440 pages, ISBN 0-553-38095-8 (science-fiction novel about a metavirus engineered to activate as a meme in the brain, spreading through a number of vectors such as actual physical viruses, images, and others)
  12. Flannery, Tim: "Eyes at the back of your head: How Richard Semon's memes gave way to Richard Dawkins's memes". Timothy Fridtjof Flannery (born 28 January 1956) is an Australian mammalogist palaeontologist and Global warming activist Times Literary Supplement, October 19, 2001
  13. Atran, Scott: "The Trouble with Memes", Human Nature 12, 4 (2001), S. Events 202 BCE - The Battle of Zama results in the defeat of Carthage and Hannibal. Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. Scott Atran (born 1952 is an American Anthropologist. Education and early career Atran was born in New York City in 1952 and received his PhD in Anthropology 351 ff. [3]
  14. Aunger, Robert: The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think. Free Press, 2002, hardcover ISBN 0-7432-0150-7
  15. Aunger, Robert: Darwinizing culture: the status of memetics as a science. Oxford University Press, 2000, New-York ISBN 0-19-263244-2
  16. Henson, H. Keith: "Sex, Drugs, and Cults. Howard Keith Henson (born 1942 is an American Electrical engineer and Writer on Life extension, Cryonics, Memetics and An evolutionary psychology perspective on why and how cult memes get a drug-like hold on people, and what might be done to mitigate the effects", The Human Nature Review 2002 Volume 2: 343-355 [4]
  17. H. Keith Henson: "Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War."
  18. Lanier, Jaron: "The Ideology of Cybernetic Totalist Intellectuals", an essay which criticises "meme totalists" who assert memes over bodies. Howard Keith Henson (born 1942 is an American Electrical engineer and Writer on Life extension, Cryonics, Memetics and
  19. Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
  20. Principia Cybernetica holds a lexicon of memetics concepts, comprising a list of different types of memes. Principia Cybernetica is an international organisation in the field of Cybernetics and Systems science focused on the collaborative development of a "computer-supported
  21. A list of memetics publications on the web
  22. Ericsson-Zenith, Steven: Memeiosis , a formal characterization of memes. Steven Ericsson-Zenith, born July 6th 1966 is a British /American Computer scientist.
  23. Situngkir, Hokky: Culture as Complex Adaptive System, formal interplays between memetics and cultural analysis.
  24. Chielens, Klaas: The Viral Aspects of Language: A Quantitative Research of Memetic Selection Criteria
  25. Distin, Kate: The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment. Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-521-60627-6
  26. Hugo, Victor: Notre Dame de Paris (translated into English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame), 1831
  27. Dennett, Daniel: Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon , 2006
  28. Gibson, William: Pattern Recognition, page 95, "Word-of-mouth meme thing. Victor-Marie Hugo ( ( February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) was a French Poet, Playwright, Novelist The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris is an 1831 French novel written by Victor Hugo. Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research Breaking the Spell Religion as a Natural Phenomenon is a 2006 book by the American Philosopher Daniel Dennett, which argues William Ford Gibson (born March 17 1948 is an American - Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the Cyberpunk subgenre Pattern Recognition is a novel by Science fiction writer William Gibson published in 2003 We don't really know what it does, yet. ", 2003.

External links

Dictionary

meme

-noun

  1. (philosophy) Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity.
  2. (philosophy) A self-propagating unit of cultural evolution having a resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetics).
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