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Memetics

Meme: an information pattern, held in an individual's memory, which is capable of being copied to another individual's memory.Memetics: the theoretical and empirical science that studies the replication, spread and evolution of memes

Cultural evolution, including the evolution of knowledge, can be modelled through the same basic principles of variation and selection that underly biological evolution. This implies a shift from genes as units of biological information toa new type of units of cultural information: memes.A meme is a cognitive or behavioral pattern that can be transmitted from one individual to another one. Since the individual who transmitted the meme will continue to carry it, the transmission can be interpreted as a replication: a copy ofthe meme is made in the memory of another individual, making him or her into acarrier of the meme. This process of self-reproduction (the memetic life-cycle),leading to spreading over a growing group of individuals, defines the meme as areplicator, similar in that respect to the gene (Dawkins, 1976; Moritz, 1991).

Dawkins listed the following three characteristics for any successful replicator:

copying-fidelity:the more faithful the copy, the more will remain of the initial pattern after se

veral rounds of copying. If a painting is reproduced by making photocopies fromphotocopies, the underlying pattern will quickly become unrecognizable.fecundity:the faster the rate of copying, the more the replicator will spread. An industrial printing press can churn out many more copies of a text than an office copying machine.longevity:the longer any instance of the replicating pattern survives, the more copies canbe made of it. A drawing made by etching lines in the sand is likely to be erased before anybody could have photographed or otherwise reproduced it.

Memes versus genes

In these general characteristics, memes are similar to genes and to other replicators, such as computer viruses or crystals. The genetic metaphor for cultural transmission is limited, though. Genes can only be transmitted from parent to child ("vertical transmission"). Memes can be transmitted between any two individuals ("horizontal transmission" or "multiple parenting"). In that sense they are more similar to parasites or infections (cf. Cullen, 1998).For genes to be transmitted, you need a generation. Memes only take minutes to replicate, and thus have potentially much higher fecundity (see Competition between Memes and Genes). On the other hand, the copying-fidelity of memes is in general much lower. If a story is spread by being told from person to person, the final version will be very different from the original one. It is this variabilityor fuzziness that perhaps distinguishes cultural patterns most strikingly fromDNA structures: every individual's version of an idea or belief will be in some

respect different from the others'. That makes it difficult to analyse or delimit memes. This does not imply that meme evolution cannot be accurately modeled, though. After all, genetics was a well-established science long before the precise DNA structure of genes was discovered.

Examples of memes in the animal world are most bird songs, and certain techniques for hunting or using tools that are passed from parents or the social group tothe youngsters (Bonner, 1980). In human society, almost any cultural entity canbe seen as a meme: religions, language, fashions, songs, techniques, scientifictheories and concepts, conventions, traditions, etc. The defining characteristi

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c of memes as informational patterns, is that they can be replicated in unlimited amounts by communication between individuals, independently of any replicationat the level of the genes.

Modelling memes

Memetics can be defined as an approach trying to model the evolution of memes .Memes undergo processes of variation (mutation, recombination) of their internalstructure. Different variants will compete for the limited memory space available in different individuals. The most fit variants will win this competition, and spread most extensively. This spreading can in principle be modelled mathematically (see e.g. Boyd & Richerson, 1985; Cavalli-Sforza & Feldman, 1981; Lumsden& Wilson, 1981; Csanyi, 1991; Lynch, 1998), although in practice it will be verydifficult to determine the exact values of the parameters of the model. A morepractical, qualitative approach is to formulate specific criteria for the fitness of a meme, relative to other memes, taking into account the subsequent stagesof the memetic life-cycle.As is the case with genes, it is not necessary to know the exact coding or eventhe exact size or boundaries of a meme in order to discuss its fitness, and thusto make predictions about its further spreading, survival or extinction withinthe population of competing memes. Such predictions can be empirically tested. For example, a memetic hypothesis might state that simpler memes will spread morequickly. This can be tested by observing the spread (perhaps in a controlled en

vironment) of two memes that are similar in all respects, except that the one issimpler. Theories can also be induced from empirical observation of meme behavior "in the wild" (see e.g. Best, 1998). Given the differences in variation and selection mechanisms, it is also possible to make predictions about the competition between memes and genes.

Variation, replication and selection on the basis of meme fitness determine a complex dynamics. This dynamics will be influenced by the medium through which memes are communicated, and the copying-fidelity, fecundity and longevity it allows. Perhaps the most powerful medium for meme transmission is the computer network, and this implies some specific characteristics for memes on the net.

References:

Aunger R. (ed.) (2000): Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science, Oxford University Press.Best, M., L., 1997; Models for Interacting Populations of Memes: Competition andNiche Behavior. Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 1.Blackmore S. (2000): The Meme Machine, (Oxford Univ. Press).Bonner J.T. (1980): The Evolution of Culture in Animals, (Princeton University Press, Princeton).Boyd R. & Richerson P.J. (1985): Culture and the Evolutionary Process, (ChicagoUniversity Press, Chicago).Cavalli-Sforza L.L. & Feldman M.W. (1981): Cultural Transmission and Evolution:a quantitative approach, (Princeton University Press, Princeton).

Csanyi V. (1991): Evolutionary Systems and Society: a general theory, (Duke University Press, Durham, NC).Cullen B. (1998): "Parasite Ecology and the Evolution of Religion", in: Heylighen F., Bollen J. & Riegler A. (eds.) (1999): The Evolution of Complexity (KluwerAcademic, Dordrecht).Dawkins R. (1976): The Selfish Gene, (Oxford University Press, New York).Heylighen F. (1992) : "Selfish Memes and the Evolution of Cooperation", Journalof Ideas , Vol. 2, #4, pp 77-84.Heylighen F. (1998): "What makes a meme successful? Selection criteria for cultural evolution", in: Proc. 16th Int. Congress on Cybernetics (Association Interna

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t. de Cybernetique, Namur), p. 423-418.Lynch, Aaron (1997) "Units, Events, and Dynamics in Memetic Evolution", Journalof MemeticsLumsden, Charles, and Wilson, Edward (1981): Genes, Mind, and Culture: the Coevolutionary Process, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge).Moritz E. (1990): "Memetic Science: I - General Introduction", Journal of Ideas1, p. 1-23Moritz E. (1995): Metasystems, Memes and Cybernetic Immortality, in: Heylighen F., Joslyn C. & Turchin V. (eds.), The Quantum of Evolution. Toward a theory of metasystem transitions, (Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, New York) (specialissue of "World Futures: the journal of general evolution, vol. 45, p. 155-171).See also:the electronic Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission.an extensive list of web servers on memetics