The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment

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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. Cultural separatism exemplifies one practice in which one can expect a higher rate of meme-replication—because the meme for separation creates a barrier from exposure to competing ideas. What the study really illustrated, then, was a paradox: when it comes to information, sharing is mostly about me. In keeping with the thesis that in evolution one can regard organisms simply as suitable "hosts" for reproducing genes, Dawkins argues that one can view people as "hosts" for replicating memes.

He hypothesized that one could view many cultural entities as replicators, and pointed to melodies, fashions and learned skills as examples.

A meme may improve its prospects for survival if it becomes part of what Dawkins termed a “memeplex”.

Dawkins initially defined a meme as a noun that “conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit ofimitation” and there have been further attempts to define it more closely. Ideas are clearly in competition with each other so perhaps there’s a selection process going on, analogous to natural selection, through which some ideas prove successful and spread whilst others die out.In addition genes, as the driving force behind replication and therefore reproduction, don’t ‘want’ to produce different genes, they ‘want’ to go on to survive in the next generation. It’s heartbreaking to come across fake friends who can betray you anytime, so always take time to trust people. Dawkins likened the process by which memes survive and change through the evolution of culture to the natural selection of genes in biological evolution. But I do know that my father originally picked up the Chinese-junk meme during an almost identical epidemic at the same school 25 years earlier.

Adversative replication can give an advantage in meme transmission when the meme itself encourages aggression against other memes. Dan Deacon, [44] Kalevi Kull [45] separately argued memes are degenerate Signs in that they offer only a partial explanation of the triadic in Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic theory: a sign (a reference to an object), an object (the thing being referred to), and an interpretant (the interpreting actor of a sign). What is being seen is a process that has evolved through natural selection and favours the genes of lancet fluke or virus, or whatever. The selectionist paradigm requires the reduction of society and culture to inheritance systems that consist of randomly varying, individual units, some of which are selected, and some not; and with society and culture thus reduced to inheritance systems, history can be reduced to 'evolution. As a fellow pedant I understand the Prof’s frustration when a painstakingly crafted description is changed – because then it describes something different.Given that flexibility, it’s difficult for me to understand why psychologists and sociologists would be hostile to the idea of memes. One view sees memes as providing a useful philosophical perspective with which to examine cultural evolution. If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine. She notes that while the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony ( listen ⓘ) form a meme widely replicated as an independent unit, one can regard the entire symphony as a single meme as well.

Since each brain has a limited capacity for memory, memes essentially compete to be remembered, in a new form of evolution: cultural evolution.To say that the information that memes embody is socially transmissible is to say that memes can give rise to other memes through social learning. Of course how much is “high” fidelity isn’t an exact number but if in general (I thought) genes don’t replicate with some high percentage of accuracy then there isn’t enough consistency from one organism to the next for any meaningful changes to even accrue.