From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Sun 16 Feb 2003 - 18:21:51 GMT
snip
>It is my belief that memes aren't capable of "trying" to do anything. It
>is the man who keeps them in his head who does the trying
You are correct in the direct sense. At the root of it, memes are just
abstract information. The reason people such as Dawkins started using the
"language of purpose" was to avoid having to spell out each time that genes
(or memes) could cause those animals who contained them to do things which
made the gene (or meme) more common in the "next generation." The *effect*
of this Darwinian selection loop gave rise to a metaphorical "viewpoint" of
"selfish" genes (or memes) which--from this viewpoint--seem to be
"striving" to become more common. A gene or meme can be no more "selfish"
than a rock. The shorthand "language of purpose" is a really useful
shorthand thinking tool in evolutionary biology, but there was never any
intent for it to be taken literally.
snip
>The meme is not a rational entity --
Certainly. By analogy a program on a CD ROM just sits there. For it to do
anything, for us to interact with it, it has to be running on a
computer. A meme (such as the Jehovah's Witness meme) has to be loaded
into a human brain for it to be brought to your door and annoy you.
>it is a tool, just like the ax. We use it to do things. It does not use
>us.
Some memes have aspects of being useful as thinking tools and most of the
time we do use the information in a meme to chip rocks, make shoes or even
million gate computer "chips."
But consider the information in a virus or a computer virus. The
information itself takes advantage of cell duplication machinery and
computers and makes copies. (The latest computer worm that clogged the net
all over the world had a doubling time of 8.5 plus or minus one second.)
Most of the time memes can be understood as just things we learn,
ultimately to the advantage of our genes.
But the pathological cases point out that "ideas (memes) have a life of
their own," sometimes to the detriment of the genes (and the persons) involved.
Sorry to belabor the point, but understanding this model is what memetics
is about.
Keith Henson
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