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This thread is the off-shoot of a series of PMs between inamilist and myself. We're both, for whatever reason, enamored with memes.

If anyone doesn't know what they are...look it up ( ). Nah, a brief synopsis is below:

Memes are units of cultural inheritance. Ideas. A song is a meme, the belief in God is a meme, the color blue is a meme, and the idea that Jordan is a better player than Wilt is a meme (and vice-versa). Etc. etc. etc.

Memes act as replicators, much as genes act as replicators within our DNA, which replicate themselves through procreation. But memes replicate in our minds. If someone didn't know what a meme was, then read this, the "meme" meme would be transferred to them. It is replicated within them.

No one knows exactly what a meme looks like, because it would be a series of neural firings, and wouldn't be exactly the same thing in each person (maybe I think of something slightly different than you when we think of the color blue, for example). So copying fidelity isn't as high as with genes (meaning, they aren't as perfect a copy of the original) but it is usually close enough that memes can spread and be roughly the same idea.

Catchy memes (A Beatles song, a well-developed scientific theory) will outlast less catchy ones, and replicate more numerously. The memes "compete" (unconsciously, of course) for attention and adherence within human hosts.

Memeplexes form when memes "cooperate" with each other. Religion is a good example of memes making one another stronger in a memeplex. A meme for Roman Catholicism would have many smaller interrelated memes. Belief in God, the Trinity, free will, Mary's virginity, the literal truth of the resurrection, etc. These form a cohesive unit, and the result is a strongly-held meme/belief.

A brief aside: words like "cooperate" and "compete" imply sentience and intent, which memes have neither, but the words are useful to describe their unconscious behavior. They act as though they are competing and/or cooperating, though they aren't doing so with any awareness or intent of performing such acts.

Meme theory extends beyond this, and has implications throughout our culture. It can be a fascinating study of a form of evolution. Evolution is used loosely, because it isn't exactly the same as genetic evolution, though both can be said to undergo pruning via a naturally selective process.

...

Anyway, this is the meme discussion thread. I'll get the ball rolling shortly with some interesting ideas/questions inamilist threw my way recently, but for now will just let this go wherever.

Have memes become a meme in and of themselves? hmm

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Have memes become a meme in and of themselves? hmm

Yes, and a popular one at that, judging by the increase in the word's acceptance in recent years.

Your letting it go wherever just led it directly to me asking you what inimalist asked.


What did inimalist ask?

Originally posted by Bardock42
Your letting it go wherever just led it directly to me asking you what inimalist asked.


What did inimalist ask?

I'll have to paraphrase the conversation, but have to go right now. I'll post tonight.

Originally posted by DigiMark007
I'll have to paraphrase the conversation, but have to go right now. I'll post tonight. Fair enough.


Not sure where this thread should go though. A sort of on topic experiment I assume.

Originally posted by DigiMark007
This thread is the off-shoot of a series of PMs between inamilist and myself. We're both, for whatever reason, enamored with memes.

If anyone doesn't know what they are...look it up ( ). Nah, a brief synopsis is below:

Memes are units of cultural inheritance. Ideas. A song is a meme, the belief in God is a meme, the color blue is a meme, and the idea that Jordan is a better player than Wilt is a meme (and vice-versa). Etc. etc. etc.

Memes act as replicators, much as genes act as replicators within our DNA, which replicate themselves through procreation. But memes replicate in our minds. If someone didn't know what a meme was, then read this, the "meme" meme would be transferred to them. It is replicated within them.

No one knows exactly what a meme looks like, because it would be a series of neural firings, and wouldn't be exactly the same thing in each person (maybe I think of something slightly different than you when we think of the color blue, for example). So copying fidelity isn't as high as with genes (meaning, they aren't as perfect a copy of the original) but it is usually close enough that memes can spread and be roughly the same idea.

Catchy memes (A Beatles song, a well-developed scientific theory) will outlast less catchy ones, and replicate more numerously. The memes "compete" (unconsciously, of course) for attention and adherence within human hosts.

Memeplexes form when memes "cooperate" with each other. Religion is a good example of memes making one another stronger in a memeplex. A meme for Roman Catholicism would have many smaller interrelated memes. Belief in God, the Trinity, free will, Mary's virginity, the literal truth of the resurrection, etc. These form a cohesive unit, and the result is a strongly-held meme/belief.

A brief aside: words like "cooperate" and "compete" imply sentience and intent, which memes have neither, but the words are useful to describe their unconscious behavior. They act as though they are competing and/or cooperating, though they aren't doing so with any awareness or intent of performing such acts.

Meme theory extends beyond this, and has implications throughout our culture. It can be a fascinating study of a form of evolution. Evolution is used loosely, because it isn't exactly the same as genetic evolution, though both can be said to undergo pruning via a naturally selective process.

...

Anyway, this is the meme discussion thread. I'll get the ball rolling shortly with some interesting ideas/questions inamilist threw my way recently, but for now will just let this go wherever.

Dawkins wrote a book a few years back dedicated to discussing memes. And yeah, it's basically just a mental hand-me-down. I think that its just another word for teaching, and not really a complex theory.

Oh and Wilt > Jordan.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Dawkins wrote a book a few years back dedicated to discussing memes. And yeah, it's basically just a mental hand-me-down. I think that its just another word for teaching, and not really a complex theory.

Oh and Wilt > Jordan.

Aren't memes rather more viral than teaching though?

Can memes change over time?

Yes, memes can evolve, but the word "evolve" has to be recontextualized as change over time to a replicating entity. We generally think of evolution in such strict DNA/gene terms that it's hard to adjust the definition slightly for memes.

Many are co-adaptive, meaning that they enhance one another and change one another over time. Think of lions hunting gazelle. The fastest lions tend to survive because they can track down their prey. Evolution moves toward faster lions due to natural selection. Same with gazelle, whose speed allows them to elude the lions. Over successive generations, both species become faster. Co-adaptive.

The best meme example I can think of is musical genres. The meme for "rap" (and various sub-memes of the genre) was influenced by earlier musical genres, and has changed over the last few decades due to musical influences from competing genres. The rap meme, either collectively in society or individually within a person, is different today than it was in 1985. But it remains a powerful meme, apparently, due to the success and survival of the genre.

...

As for the book Quiero's alluding to, I honestly don't know it. Dawkins coined the term and is credited with "inventing" the meme, but others have actually done more treatment to the theory of them than Dawkins. Dan Dennett and Susan Blackmore come to mind as leading meme theorists, both of whom have dedicated novels to it. The most Dawkins has ever added to his initial theory (which was all of 1 chapter in his first published book) is a couple short essays. He's actually been accused of abandoning the theory after starting the craze. He insists this isn't so, but also admits that others have taken the idea far further than he originally imagined.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Not sure where this thread should go though. A sort of on topic experiment I assume.

Something like that. I actually wanted to gauge interest before posting long conversations between inamilist and I. Better to have some general interest and knowledge before jumping off the philosophical deep end.

Where's the dick?

Originally posted by BackFire
Where's the dick?

Here?

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z238/dadudemon/200px-Dick_Van_Dyke_2_crop.jpg

Originally posted by dadudemon
Here?

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z238/dadudemon/200px-Dick_Van_Dyke_2_crop.jpg




Nah, that's some sort of dyke.

memes dont attract me much. its just complicating a simple thing. we shud infact study how all enviornmental factors not related to genetic evolution directly, survive in the minds of individuals and society as a whole and why they do so. firing of specific neurones is vastly oversimplifying the issue.

the premise is correct but whether the action is or not...there is a small part in either this weeks new scientist or bbc focus about social memory

one such idea is that phobias are handed down in this way and that particular one stemmed from the plague when many houses were deserted and when repopulated were covered in cobwebs

apparently

another fictional aspect i thought was intriguing was in JG Ballard's "the drowned world" which essentially was about global warming (due to solar factors) making the area around the equator uninhabitable and making areas such as london (where the book is set) revert to prehistoric jungle...and because species re-evolved or devolved to species which were long extint....then humans also started to devolve...and biological/genetic memory which had been stored in the human brain over millions of years of evolution started to resurface and make some people become more animalistic not in appearance but psychologically

Originally posted by leonheartmm
memes dont attract me much. its just complicating a simple thing. we shud infact study how all enviornmental factors not related to genetic evolution directly, survive in the minds of individuals and society as a whole and why they do so. firing of specific neurones is vastly oversimplifying the issue.

You took one aspect of memes (the physical manifestation) and acted like that's all there is to it. For something to survive in the mind, it is a meme...saying that "environmental factors" survive in the mind, as something separate from our thoughts/memes, is a gross misunderstanding of the mind.

You also, simultaneously, accused memes of complicating a simple thing and vastly oversimplifying the issue. The post is barely coherent.

Originally posted by jaden101
the premise is correct but whether the action is or not...there is a small part in either this weeks new scientist or bbc focus about social memory

one such idea is that phobias are handed down in this way and that particular one stemmed from the plague when many houses were deserted and when repopulated were covered in cobwebs

apparently

another fictional aspect i thought was intriguing was in JG Ballard's "the drowned world" which essentially was about global warming (due to solar factors) making the area around the equator uninhabitable and making areas such as london (where the book is set) revert to prehistoric jungle...and because species re-evolved or devolved to species which were long extint....then humans also started to devolve...and biological/genetic memory which had been stored in the human brain over millions of years of evolution started to resurface and make some people become more animalistic not in appearance but psychologically

Most phobias are genetic, such as avoiding spiders, which is many parts of the world would have survival implications. They can be transferred as memes as well, just like children learn not to touch fire from their parents....a phobia of something (we'll stick with spiders, for example) could be a meme becoming too well-embedded in a mind, thus impairing other functions through fear.

It actually touches on something I brought up in the conspiracy forum, of memes that become so firmly rooted as to bat aside rational thought/action by their very nature. A profound fear-meme would impair actions that might otherwise ensure survival, and is an example of a meme becoming very much like a virus. It survives very strongly, maybe even replicates itself in others better, but at the expense of the host body.

Here's the link, because a similar phenomenon can apply to conspiracy theorists: http://www.killermovies.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=9937305#post9937305

not really. i say, if your gonna go beyond genes, then also go beyond the basic battle of ideas inside humans, for i do no think that it is majorly responsible, collectively, in changing enviornment and deciding which ideologies survive and which do not, take the example of today when things are forced onto your mind more than they are judged unbiasly by minds and the best collectively chosen. if i have one problem with hardline evolutionists it this, " they forget too quickly that evolution is random" and think that whatever{behaviour, traits, culture etc etc} survives has evolutionary importance. which isnt true, very few has, specially such dynamic phenomenon as cultures/thought pattern etc, which change over much much smaller periods of time than evolution works.

also, the same idea often has radically different nural actitivty in different individuals.

it complicates the simple concepts of persistance of ideas and thought patterns{not necessarily neural patterns} , but oversimplifies the issue of evolution of the collective humans race as being dependant on little more than the persistance and competition and ultimately selection of neural processes as being responsible for it. when infact a lot more things are just as responsible and there is more to ideas than neural processes.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
not really. i say, if your gonna go beyond genes, then also go beyond the basic battle of ideas inside humans, for i do no think that it is majorly responsible, collectively, in changing enviornment and deciding which ideologies survive and which do not, take the example of today when things are forced onto your mind more than they are judged unbiasly by minds and the best collectively chosen. if i have one problem with hardline evolutionists it this, " they forget too quickly that evolution is random" and think that whatever{behaviour, traits, culture etc etc} survives has evolutionary importance. which isnt true, very few has, specially such dynamic phenomenon as cultures/thought pattern etc, which change over much much smaller periods of time than evolution works.

also, the same idea often has radically different nural actitivty in different individuals.

For the last sentence, I stated as much in my opening post. It's not a new insight, and doesn't invalidate meme theory. It just means their copying fidelity is less precise than genes.

For the former, memes ARE the study of culture and society. The very definition I used includes culture as a primary force. So I'm not sure how you decided that I'm only talking about electrical impulses in the brain, but, um, I'm not. What's the point if all we're talking about is bio-chemical reactions? There isn't one, unless we extend those effects to their phenotypes in society.

And you're very wrong on two other counts. One, that cultural change (you termed it evolution, which is probably not the right label for such change, but meh) is slower that genetic evolution. Given the amount of change we see in the past few thousand years, century, decade, etc. it's literally impossible to say we change more slowly than genetic evolution (which takes hundreds of thousands of years in most species to create noticeable and/or important change).

And second, that evolution is random. Gene/meme mutations are random. Natural selection of them is not. In fact, it is anything but random. Beyond that, meme evolution is dependent on humans transferring them to others via speech, internet, media, etc. And humans are fully aware of their existence, and able to act on their thoughts. Which is why a popular meme spreads like a plague, rather than the snails-pace of genes moving through the gene pool. Not random. Naturally selective, which is a specific process for naturally selecting memes or genes.

^ i still maintain that meme theory is often used by hardline evolutionists to find an evolutionary{i.e. biological surviveability of species} basis to all sociological and macro level phenomenon which to me, just is not true.

not according to proffesor Graham Davey of the University of Sussex who specialises in psychology of fear

although yes some are genetic

some have to be socially aquirred phobias...such as flying...seeing as humans haven't had the means of flying until very recently we wouldn't have changed genetically to be fearful of it

Originally posted by leonheartmm
^ i still maintain that meme theory is often used by hardline evolutionists to find an evolutionary{i.e. biological surviveability of species} basis to all sociological and macro level phenomenon which to me, just is not true.

It has nothing to do with species.

I think I see the problem. Let me try to explain. Cultures don't evolve. Neither do species or individuals, technically. For something to evolve, there needs to be a replicating entity. Something that copies itself, so that over time it can adapt and evolve. My father to me isn't an evolution, because it's an entirely new human being. If I'm an adaptation of my dad, it's a piss-poor evolution. But my genes, which are transferred ver batim from parents to child, are evolved because they undergo systematic change over generations. I happen to be the by-product of that, ensuring the gene survival. But I'm not the unit of survival, my genes are.

So too with culture. "Culture" can't replicate itself with any fidelity, nor does a culture collectively decide to copy itself in order to survive...nothing about its machinations attempts to do that. But we can, in fact, see aspects of culture and thought surviving over time and across vast distances. There's a reason for this.

So one has to look more closely, at a smaller level, to see what is actually replicating itself, what is evolving over time. The meme.

Our brains are structured similarly, and specific areas and patterns are responsible for specific thoughts and ideas. This is true for all humans, so the brain is an area where something can indeed copy itself fairly accurately. The fact that it may not be 100% the same is irrelevant. Many genes aren't either. If you and I both hum "Hey Jude," for example, it will be sufficiently close to say that it is the same meme, though perhaps slightly mutated.

I think part of your objection is also that you don't want meme theory to explain all sociological phenomenon. It doesn't, and I haven't made that claim (nor should I). So you're either taking the ideas too far, or you just misunderstand the topic and scope of memes.

Originally posted by jaden101
not according to proffesor Graham Davey of the University of Sussex who specialises in psychology of fear

although yes some are genetic

some have to be socially aquirred phobias...such as flying...seeing as humans haven't had the means of flying until very recently we wouldn't have changed genetically to be fearful of it

I said the exact same thing. You took my quote out of its context. Seeing what a person wants to see, and not what I write, seems to have become its own meme in this cluster of forums.

1st off...i quoted you word for word...so it's exactly what you wrote

secondly...the next part of my post wasn't addressing yours anyway but yes....apparently you're correct

Originally posted by jaden101
1st off...i quoted you word for word...so it's exactly what you wrote

secondly...the next part of my post wasn't addressing yours anyway but yes....apparently you're correct

It was out of context. I showed how it could both be genetic and memetically inherited.



But yeah, I'm right ( ).

Well, for me it looks like an evolutionist version of ID.... some sort of secret weapon or evil twin.

again i wud disagree. ofcourse, you have evidence for your oppinion. still, it seems to me like trying to understand the significance of a 2 hour video made based in C++ by trying ti read 4 digit combination of the zeros and ones which initially make it up.

philosophically, it is the form in things which matter and becomes apparent at certain levels of complication. the form of fundamental laws and force interactions are the most apparent at the subatomic level and that is what is required to understand them. however, the form of an image on a screen can not be made apparent by looking at two or three pixels individually and trying to find patterns in those. even in the best and most uniform of movies, you shall never come up with a pattern which persists or function which changes over time if you try and study 2 or 4 pixels individually of what a computer screen reveals. to even SEE the "form" you will have to look at the whole screen and further, to come up with patterns, you will have to understand what you see on the screen and relate to how that exhibits a complex virtual story inside a percieving individual's head, and THERE you can se form and be able to guess what comes next{i.e. the cop kills so and so character} but by seeing one or two pixels at a time, you will never be able to judge the appearance and tendency of all the pixels on the screen in a way as to make the image which will be percieved by the person into a mental story WHERE its form and rules and tendencies are revealed.

there are simply too many and too complex translations between each level to make sense of macro phenomenon that way.{and not just macro as in large, but also, virtual phenomenon, which may be as apparent and orderly as a mathematical system descending into chaos which form non chronological simultaneous feedback loops which affect the initial condition/functions, given your fundamental point of view}

blargh, anyway, thats my 2 cents.

Heh. Well you obviously don't like the concept, so I won't try to convince you otherwise. My "Hey Jude" example was meant to show how memes make the jump from micro to macro quite easily. There's never a 1:1 connection between all aspects of social phenomenon, but there's enough proven evidence that it's a reasonable endeavor to study them. Since their inception, they have proven to be one of the most powerful systems to date for describing and analyzing societal trends.

no no, i do. but just not the way they are. in places where macro effects translate directly into micro affects, they are useful{i.e. civilisations who are usually enslaved will have higher stress levels and in a broad range, the following trends of stress related neurological symptoms }

but it just isnt applicable in the way that they are often treated to be, not to me anyhow.

Woot memes.

Just some basic stuff:

Memes, as far as a theory is concerned, is very much in its infancy. The most attracting part of the theory, to me, is how potentially powerful it could be, however, like most things that appear to explain "everything", they probably don't.

As far as individuals are concerned, memes are inadequate to describe their behaviour. This is because that is not what memes are about.

Memes are not even necessarily about culture, so much as they are about the nature of how things pass from one individual to another.

Memes are tied to imitation. Here, imitation means the copying of the information content of one brain to another. So, when I see you looking through a bush to get food, that becomes a meme because I am able to understand the intent (information content) of your actions. In many ways, this is a uniquely human ability, though it has been seen in some animals (whether animals could have memes is a question), and meme theorists propose that it is our ability to imitate that drove the building of our brains. This last claim has been supported by evolutionary models.

The biggest problem for memes at this junction is that they have little to no real explanatory power, other than post hoc analysis. It is very easy to look through history and find trends to support any position, for memes to be taken seriously scientifically, they need to make some predictions.

So, a major question then would be, if cultural and social information was not passed through this type of imitation, what would we see?

Originally posted by inimalist
Woot memes.

Just some basic stuff:

Memes, as far as a theory is concerned, is very much in its infancy. The most attracting part of the theory, to me, is how potentially powerful it could be, however, like most things that appear to explain "everything", they probably don't.

As far as individuals are concerned, memes are inadequate to describe their behaviour. This is because that is not what memes are about.

Memes are not even necessarily about culture, so much as they are about the nature of how things pass from one individual to another.

Memes are tied to imitation. Here, imitation means the copying of the information content of one brain to another. So, when I see you looking through a bush to get food, that becomes a meme because I am able to understand the intent (information content) of your actions. In many ways, this is a uniquely human ability, though it has been seen in some animals (whether animals could have memes is a question), and meme theorists propose that it is our ability to imitate that drove the building of our brains. This last claim has been supported by evolutionary models.

The biggest problem for memes at this junction is that they have little to no real explanatory power, other than post hoc analysis. It is very easy to look through history and find trends to support any position, for memes to be taken seriously scientifically, they need to make some predictions.

So, a major question then would be, if cultural and social information was not passed through this type of imitation, what would we see?

The obvious answer, IMHO, would seem to be that that without information passed in such a way we would not have a culture. With no way for some aspect of a movie to catch the public imagination we it would fail to develop or develop in a largely alien way.

yes it is passed. not by knowable patterns of neurons in your brain, but by ideas which are uniform, whic may or may not {usually do not} form any identifiable or uniform patterns in your brain. ideas are like a an image. the if you try to look at the basic programming in brains to try and identify them you will fail, because sum store it in jpeg, and sum in gif's and so on, almost every individual will have his own format. but if you look at the image itself, youll instantly recognise it. and that is what is really passed on and understood.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
yes it is passed. not by knowable patterns of neurons in your brain, but by ideas which are uniform, whic may or may not {usually do not} form any identifiable or uniform patterns in your brain. ideas are like a an image. the if you try to look at the basic programming in brains to try and identify them you will fail, because sum store it in jpeg, and sum in gif's and so on, almost every individual will have his own format. but if you look at the image itself, youll instantly recognise it. and that is what is really passed on and understood.


can i just say, and there's no offence intended, i think your analogies are absolutely terrible and only serve to complicate your thoughts when you write them...and i'm not neccesarily just refering to this post...

maybe it is my lack of paragraphing that is confusing you. i think i myself am pretty clear about what i said there.

leonheart can't seem to get over the whole neurology aspect of it, without realizing that he's missing the forest for the trees. The picture we all recognize that you alluded to in the analogy (which was a bit overdone), is a meme btw...it wouldn't matter what "file type" it is stored as, which is where you seem to get hung up. That just means its copying fidelity isn't 100%.

yes but what i am trying to tell you is, that the PICTURE is not the meme. the FILETYPE is not the meme. the PROGRAMMING {0s and 1s} in the cpu is the meme. and if you try and identify and create an assumption about the things which AFFECT people in an art gallery, you will be at a loss looking at MEMES{i.e. zeros and ones} because for the same image, you can have very different patterns of zeros and ones based on whether its jpeg or gif format.
but you can very well understand that affect if you look at the projected picture on the screen which ISNT a meme.

The same could be said of genes, which mean nothing in and of themselves. But they have causal effects on larger forces that can be viewed and analyzed apart from the "1's and 0's". To this affect, I'd actually encourage you to check out Richard Dawkins' "The Extended Phenotype" which talks about the long reach of the gene in very eloquent terms (and don't worry...it's a biology book. None of his atheist agenda is present). And the same could easily be said about the meme.

Originally posted by inimalist
Woot memes.

Just some basic stuff:

Memes, as far as a theory is concerned, is very much in its infancy. The most attracting part of the theory, to me, is how potentially powerful it could be, however, like most things that appear to explain "everything", they probably don't.

As far as individuals are concerned, memes are inadequate to describe their behaviour. This is because that is not what memes are about.

Memes are not even necessarily about culture, so much as they are about the nature of how things pass from one individual to another.

Memes are tied to imitation. Here, imitation means the copying of the information content of one brain to another. So, when I see you looking through a bush to get food, that becomes a meme because I am able to understand the intent (information content) of your actions. In many ways, this is a uniquely human ability, though it has been seen in some animals (whether animals could have memes is a question), and meme theorists propose that it is our ability to imitate that drove the building of our brains. This last claim has been supported by evolutionary models.

The biggest problem for memes at this junction is that they have little to no real explanatory power, other than post hoc analysis. It is very easy to look through history and find trends to support any position, for memes to be taken seriously scientifically, they need to make some predictions.

So, a major question then would be, if cultural and social information was not passed through this type of imitation, what would we see? It has always seemed to me that memes are very similar to Piaget's idea of schemas (or was it Bandura? I can't remember, I always mix up the developmental psychologists). If I understand them correctly they are basically ideas we copy and learn that help us survive in the world. Piaget's idea was that people form schemata, or patterns for things based on imitation and experience. When these schemata are challenged by new knowledge or failure they enter a state of disequilibrium. The new information and/or experience can then either be assimilated into an existing scheme (an example would be realizing that huskies and bulldogs are both dogs) or accommodation occurs where the person has to make a new schema for the new information (ex. realizing that not all four legged animals are dogs and that a cow is a separate species).

Of course I could be entirely wrong in that interpretation of meme theory.

Originally posted by Nellinator
It has always seemed to me that memes are very similar to Piaget's idea of schemas (or was it Bandura? I can't remember, I always mix up the developmental psychologists). If I understand them correctly they are basically ideas we copy and learn that help us survive in the world. Piaget's idea was that people form schemata, or patterns for things based on imitation and experience. When these schemata are challenged by new knowledge or failure they enter a state of disequilibrium. The new information and/or experience can then either be assimilated into an existing scheme (an example would be realizing that huskies and bulldogs are both dogs) or accommodation occurs where the person has to make a new schema for the new information (ex. realizing that not all four legged animals are dogs and that a cow is a separate species).

Of course I could be entirely wrong in that interpretation of meme theory.

Actually, inamilist brought up a question to me about memes that contradict each other, and how they resolve one another, which disequilibrium might help to answer.

And they're similar, but not all memes correspond to a behavior, and even less correspond to a survival behavior. But memeplexes do seem to have some things in common with the schemata you mentioned, and how they cooperate and strengthen one another.

most memes are not of much importance as far as survival goes. that is what i am saying. sum are, but most are just random and are neutral or even a little harmful{not TOO harmful though, because those end up killing u or stoppiong u from reproducing}. it is the thing about randomness, all of these things are not of evolutionary importance, inevitably there will be sum which are and definately, there will be lesser than that number, which are hamful to your existance in the enviornment, but the greater part will just be there without evolutionary importance.

Memes also alter what is acceptable. For instance 4chan have created a number of memes youngster accept as "cool", these are actually in any situation but the internet anything but. An example of this would be pedo bear. However the bigger question on internet memes is do they cross from the internet and influence society as a whole. Is 4chan creating a generation where pedophillia is less of an issue?

How exactly is blue a meme? Is it a concept of what blue means, the word blue? Because the color blue itself seems like its more than just an idea.

Although here's a meme for you:
dur

Originally posted by leonheartmm
yes but what i am trying to tell you is, that the PICTURE is not the meme. the FILETYPE is not the meme. the PROGRAMMING {0s and 1s} in the cpu is the meme. and if you try and identify and create an assumption about the things which AFFECT people in an art gallery, you will be at a loss looking at MEMES{i.e. zeros and ones} because for the same image, you can have very different patterns of zeros and ones based on whether its jpeg or gif format.
but you can very well understand that affect if you look at the projected picture on the screen which ISNT a meme.

Now, I neither know much about biology nor about computer sciences or binary code theories.


But wouldn't memes, just like genes, be a certain binary pattern, rather than the binary code itself?

Correct me if I am far off, but genes are DNA sequences or actually, systems of DNA sequences, not DNA itself, wouldn't memes analogously be a sequence of the coding (whichever that is for ideas), so, basically the information of that code, rather than the code itself?

Originally posted by Bardock42
Now, I neither know much about biology nor about computer sciences or binary code theories.


But wouldn't memes, just like genes, be a certain binary pattern, rather than the binary code itself?

Correct me if I am far off, but genes are DNA sequences or actually, systems of DNA sequences, not DNA itself, wouldn't memes analogously be a sequence of the coding (whichever that is for ideas), so, basically the information of that code, rather than the code itself?

Memes are obviously a unit of information or disinformation. I would argue it's "unit", how it is spread is unimportant, but, I think it simply transfers from binary code, to printed word, to imagine, all mediated by conscious or perhaps even unconcious thouht. As the mind is obviously the place which like a virus in a cell allows and propogates replication.

Originally posted by Dick Grayson
Memes are obviously a unit of information or disinformation. I would argue it's "unit", how it is spread is unimportant, but, I think it simply transfers from binary code, to printed word, to imagine, all mediated by conscious or perhaps even unconcious thouht. As the mind is obviously the place which like a virus in a cell allows and propogates replication.

There is lots of stuff in this thread that I want to address, but here is one of the big ones

Meme theory is almost specifically interested in how ideas are spread. Whether or not imitation is fundamental to the spread of idea and culture is the major question underlying memetics.

Also, I have never liked the meme - virus analogy. While an "infection" may be directly analogous to the spread of memes, calling it a virus, and the mostly negative use of the term "meme" on the internet and in pop culture gives people the wrong idea about what memes are and the real power of the theory to explain why certain qualities of ideas make them more likely to be imitated by people.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
most memes are not of much importance as far as survival goes. that is what i am saying. sum are, but most are just random and are neutral or even a little harmful{not TOO harmful though, because those end up killing u or stoppiong u from reproducing}. it is the thing about randomness, all of these things are not of evolutionary importance, inevitably there will be sum which are and definately, there will be lesser than that number, which are hamful to your existance in the enviornment, but the greater part will just be there without evolutionary importance.

You're confusing the word "evolution" and trying to apply memes to genetic evolution. Yes, most memes have nothing to do with human survival. But they are still part of meme evolution, because the point is meme survival....not the survival of the host.

I'll also co-sign what inamilist said. If anything, he has a better grasp of memes than I do, and from my talks with him is at least slightly better read than me on the topic.

^ but again you fail to see my point. memes do not evolve so much as they change. unlike the theory of dna evolution, i wud strongly argue that memes have no underlying purpose for the survival of the FITTEST. memes are just mostly there, sum evolve as ideas evolve, but most are just there, with no preferance either way. un uncertainty far outstrips any statistical significance that may be shown in the collective changing{hence no evolution} of memes.

it is just simpler to call meme ideas, and not confine them to patterns of neurones in the brain. and no, i think your a little wrong, the idea of memes WAS developed by dawkins to coincide with the idea that all things, at a micro or macro level of creatures{from genes to social ideologies} helps in evolution, i.e. all ideas and phenomenon concerned with beings which survive in the long run have evolutionary significance. and that is what i dont agree with. if mematics was just a study of ideas in themselve than it wud be no different than social anthropology. not dissing dawkins, hes a pretty cool guy, but the way i look at things, memes just doesnt seem like a complete concept in what it ventures to explain.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Now, I neither know much about biology nor about computer sciences or binary code theories.


But wouldn't memes, just like genes, be a certain binary pattern, rather than the binary code itself?

Correct me if I am far off, but genes are DNA sequences or actually, systems of DNA sequences, not DNA itself, wouldn't memes analogously be a sequence of the coding (whichever that is for ideas), so, basically the information of that code, rather than the code itself?

yes but in this case the pattern itself is intricately connected with the representative pattern. this is because in memes, we are directly corellating neurological patters{i.e. our PERSPECTIVE is that of sum1 looking into the brain and trying to identify the representative patterns from the actual physical patterns found in the neurological matrices. } and social ideas. the thing your talking about are IDEAS which i think are different from memes exactly because memes is trying to find physically identifyable neural patterns which might be responsible for certain ideas. so u see, here the two are very much seen to be the same thing, as the only way you are looking at ideas is through neural patterns which persist which might explain behaviour.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
yes but in this case the pattern itself is intricately connected with the representative pattern. this is because in memes, we are directly corellating neurological patters{i.e. our PERSPECTIVE is that of sum1 looking into the brain and trying to identify the representative patterns from the actual physical patterns found in the neurological matrices. } and social ideas. the thing your talking about are IDEAS which i think are different from memes exactly because memes is trying to find physically identifyable neural patterns which might be responsible for certain ideas. so u see, here the two are very much seen to be the same thing, as the only way you are looking at ideas is through neural patterns which persist which might explain behaviour. That just doesn't seem to be in accordance of what I read about. Memes. Are you sure that's actually what Memes are about, you might just have something mixed up.

^ maybe ur right, ill read up on memes again. its kinda been a while. and im very forgetful these days.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
^ but again you fail to see my point. memes do not evolve so much as they change. unlike the theory of dna evolution, i wud strongly argue that memes have no underlying purpose for the survival of the FITTEST.

...but the memes that are best at copying themselves ("catchy" memes) do survive the best. That IS survival of the fittest. Also, this: memes do not evolve so much as they change ...makes no sense. DNA changes via mutations and the ones best suited to survival are those that make it into future generations. Memes change via cultural forces, and the ones that are best suited to the environment (human culture) are those that survive. It's the exact same idea. You tried to separate "evolution" and "change" without realizing the two are intrinsically linked to one another.

lmao, its been so long since i read about memes that i forgot. and YOU are wrong , i remembered now. the reason i was getting confused was because you were implying{as u just said} that the memes BEST SUITED for the culture remain. that isnt true, the memes which are copied the most can just as easily be the worst suited for the culutural and biological survival of the species. that is why they play a role according to dawkins to explain a reason beyond just the mainly physical enviornment which can be responsible for directing evolutionary trends.

and yes, change in itself isnt evolution. collective change which favours the most well fit and doesnt favour those that do not fit in so well with the enviornment is evolution. just change is change, it can be anything.
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still, i think memes as a concept are not that great. its easier to just call them the social world and ideas beyond the basic instinctive and geographical which can affect evolution, hence making it better suited for scientific social anthropology. memes seems too narrow, and yea there are people who wud go on to directly corellate recurring patterns in the neural matrix and collective human behaviour{i.e. memes which is very hard to define and ambiguous} and these are well reputed scientist.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
lmao, its been so long since i read about memes that i forgot. and YOU are wrong , i remembered now. the reason i was getting confused was because you were implying{as u just said} that the memes BEST SUITED for the culture remain. that isnt true, the memes which are copied the most can just as easily be the worst suited for the culutural and biological survival of the species. that is why they play a role according to dawkins to explain a reason beyond just the mainly physical enviornment which can be responsible for directing evolutionary trends.

Once again mincing terms. "Best suited" doesn't mean the ones that are most beneficial. It means the ones that copy themselves the best, because they obviously flourish in their environment. So the "best suited" memes are the ones that copy the most.

I'm talking strictly about meme evolution, not its affects on society, which could definitely be negative at times.

^exactly, glad to know were on the same track. the above statement clearly states the reason why i find memes, as a concept, too confusing and counter productive in the study of human evolution. it is better to stick with just sociological "ideas", use social anthropology to find out their impact on society and then see how they might lead to the greater propogation of certain gene pools in the society.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
^exactly, glad to know were on the same track. the above statement clearly states the reason why i find memes, as a concept, too confusing and counter productive in the study of human evolution. it is better to stick with just sociological "ideas", use social anthropology to find out their impact on society and then see how they might lead to the greater propogation of certain gene pools in the society.

Except that meme evolution is intrinsically tied to cultural change. But fair enough.

^so is the development and propogation of ideas in sociology.

I thought meme was strictly a 4chan word.

A cat is fine too.

what about "gato" ?

For your viewing pleasure. A brief lecture by meme theorist Dan Dennett:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/116

Shouldn't this have been titled memetics?

No.



...either one works as well, really. Just a random decision that doesn't really mean much one way or the other.

Very Carl Jung...

Originally posted by DigiMark007
For your viewing pleasure. A brief lecture by meme theorist Dan Dennett:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/116

...to get it to this page.

Know your internet memes:

Ta-Cg6nPhng


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I only briefly read about meme's in Dawkin's God Delusion, but just from that, it seemed like meme's were something that you could trace back in order to find the survival mechanism or whatever that started a paticular trend that seems to have no real purpose in regard to biological survival.

His example included religion, but still, I took it as the idea that you could trace organized religion back to the meme of, as a child, obeying your elders so that you would have a better chance of survival.
I didn't really understand it that much, but it seems that memes are basically cultural genes to explain how certian social trends came to be.

Originally posted by Tptmanno1
I only briefly read about meme's in Dawkin's God Delusion, but just from that, it seemed like meme's were something that you could trace back in order to find the survival mechanism or whatever that started a paticular trend that seems to have no real purpose in regard to biological survival.

His example included religion, but still, I took it as the idea that you could trace organized religion back to the meme of, as a child, obeying your elders so that you would have a better chance of survival.
I didn't really understand it that much, but it seems that memes are basically cultural genes to explain how certian social trends came to be.

In a nutshell, yes. And you're right, there's no biological purpose to them. Or if there is, it is incidental. The survival unit is the meme itself, not the person who is host to the meme.