mark9950

I read about this on another board and what is it about?

livius drusus

This thread should answer your questions.

I am moving this thread to S&S which is the proper forum to address the topic of memetics.

liquid

Well, a meme is essentially a unit of knowledge (one might say an idea) that replicates with a high but not total degree of fidelity within the cultural environment.

Because a meme has all the key properties as listed by Darwin when describing natural selection of genetic characteristics (hereditary, variation etc.), it's a reasonable step to hypothesize that a similar process occurs with memes.

The other thread mentioned makes some good points, but I must say I am surprised to the weight given to detractions. The principle one mentioned is that it doesn't explain anything that isn't already explained by social science theories.

Personally, I think most social science theories up to date are actually very poor in terms of the explanatory and predictive power. I think a lot of other scientists would agree with me, and again many would not.

I would also challenge the assertion that predictions are not given. We aren't very good at making them yet, probably because we don't understand the mind well at all, but there's plenty of literature out there with limited amounts of predictions and testing in it.

Memes have actually been very successful in explaining certain changes in the pattern of speech, for example the introduction and spread of anomalous words in popular songs due to the increased emphasis or sibilance of the error. Memetic-style effects are also observed all over the internet, in chain emails, urban myths and the like. There's plenty on google to read about stuff like this, and there's lots of research coming on.

However, memetics isn't established properly yet because the analogy isn't quite seamless amd the field is tricky to develop. We don't know of any single 'genetic code' for memes - likely there isn't one (RNA/DNA parallels!). And we don't really know how to quantify memes either. Additionally, if anything the phenotype/genotype relationships (i.e. the change in what the outcome is in relation to the fundamental blueprints) is even more confused and poorly understood. Minds are tricky things.

I think there are almost certainly memetic-style phenomena that occur, but it remains to be seen whether it is an effective model for all human culture, or just parts of it. It's a really neat idea, and often scientific theories do turn out to be judgeable on beauty, if I might be permitted that fallacious sentimentality!

I think it's odds on to become a significant force in the study of culture; certainly linguistics is near-memetic in any case. We'll see if the meme catches on!

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Off subject a bit, I was just thinking that the spread of lysenkoism in the USSR (basically a fallacious 'socialist' theory of biology/evolution) might be an interesting historical/memetic study. Non-believers get killed, so the idea prevails, until the scientific environment eventually forces the idea to extinction. Plus it nicely ties in with the biology roots of memetics! Funny what you think of when the mind wanders.

Kat_Somm_Faen

Blonde jokes are a meme

So is Jared Fogle who lost some x number of pounds. And a host of other stuff.

Anyway, I consider a meme to be a bit fancy terms for a sort of "culture gene" which we take in during our socialization and then pass on to other people like friends, parents, co-workers, children and on. I kinda find it is similar to many of the pseudo-scince things since it contains exactly much ( for the Average Joe ) to read and skim through but still pick up some weird idea on what a meme is that is strange, weird, flexibe to be used in all sorts of asertions.

Anyway, apparently it is a replicating idea.

The funny one I did hear once is that a meme is "a virus of the mind". But OMG you picked up a funny hoby from a friend, passed on a funny joke - LOOK EVERYONE Its a MEME!

I say BFD and so friggen what?


I find the whole thing puzzling - why the hell devote such atention to memetics? Isnt it obvious that a funny, short, easy to remember and universally understood joke would spread faster than an insider proctologist's joke? The whole thing leaves me thinking why devote such attention to, IMO, a simple and obvious thing...

liquid

Attention is due to memetics because it is a theory that might be able to explain the operation of human culture, something we cannot do at the moment. It's important in the same way that any scientific theory is.

You call it a simple and obvious thing - but so, in a sense, is it's biological counterpart natural selection, and look that the trouble that has had getting accepted! It's also been found to be far more nuanced than the original forms of selection first envisaged.

Memetics is important because it's a solid scientific theory/hypothesis that could affect a lot of social science. I find it puzzling that you don't understand why that's important.

Perhaps in a sense you are one step ahead of the game in the way that you accept it as that obvious. The reasoning behind the idea is very strong and there is some observational evidence, but scientific enquiry is more rigorous than that and it will be many years before we know whether it's a theory that can explain human cultural development. As noted above, there are still issues that need to be addressed.

I think the point I am trying to get across is that the idea of memes is far more powerful than simply funny jokes or mispronunciations. It's scope is essentially almost the entirety of human thought, or at least those parts of it that exist in the context of society. For instance, if it were to provide a fundamental explanation for the development of religious thought, or scientific thought, or the development of music or literature, then that is some serious underpinning theory going on... of course the disclaimer is it hasn't done that yet, but it might.

Magic Primate

I agree except that I have doubts about how solid it is. For example, the physical unit of genetic replication is DNA. What constitutes the basic unit of the structure of a meme?

liquid

I alluded to this in my first post really... the answer is that we don't know. Sort of.

To elaborate, we might have a fairly good idea of the memetic unit in some media, for example written text is composed of letters, with the analogy of codons perhaps being words or sentences.

For others, such as in the mind, we don't have a clue really.

How discrete and codified the information is is certainly an important issue.

I think the phrase you use (I agree it's a good idea but we don't know how solid it is) is probably how the scientific community sees it overall.