Are there any memes out there?

From: Chris Taylor (Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Mar 07 2001 - 11:08:55 GMT

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Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 11:08:55 +0000
From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk>
Organization: University of Manchester
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Subject: Are there any memes out there?
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    Interesting that Robin should mention the point of view that everything
    is (potentially) a meme. I held (uh-oh) that opinion for ages - up until
    yesterday in fact, when for no reason I completely flipped around to the
    view where there are no memes outside heads at all (puctuated
    equilibrium anyone?). Anything can potentially *induce* a meme - any
    artifact, or behaviour in another, but there are no memes 'out there'
    only memetic effects (i.e. effects of memes via their actor hosts).

    This depends on us never 'seeing' the world, only our internal model,
    updated by our senses; transferance of ideas works more like an
    induction coil than anything else (although one should also take account
    of the fact that no two heads ever hold exactly the 'same' meme). Now I
    know that memetics as it has come to be defined is mostly an
    epidemiological study of the pattern of spread of information through
    diverse environments, but where does that leave me?

    What do I call the study of the life in the mind?

    Cheers, Chris.

    BTW with Rorschach blots, the reason they're so vague is cos we're so
    complex, and that makes them only semi-useful as a tool. However the
    value is in being able to observe a new selective mode in operation;
    it's like leaving a brand new food source of form of shelter (etc.) in
    an environment and seeing which of the available species are going to
    move (evolutionarily) to exploit it. The blots, although rather generic,
    favour some things (memories, prejudices) over others. All this is easy
    to explain if our heads (or at least our frontal lobes) are just habitat
    for memes that happen to keep their host vehicle ticking along. Not so
    easy for the classical or (aaargh) 'evolutionary' psychologist (I'm
    still bitter about them nicking the good name).

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
     http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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