da1999

I am trying to draw out any supporters of "the atomic meme" to try and understand this better. richard dawkins original definition of the meme is that it is biolological and on the sub-atomic level theoreticaly visable under a microscope. any ideas on Dawkins definition?

“I have to disagree with Blackmore here. Imitation must have played a role in the spread of this behaviour within each group. There are several pieces of evidence in support of this." As I said in my previous post I tend to agree with you that imitation must play a role with some animals but here are my problems with imitation in the animals we both mentioned. 1) If there is imitation in the chimps which implies replicators at work and this further implies an evolutionary process than why have the technologies of “nut cracking” or “fishing with sticks” not evolve? Knowing that in general, memetic evolution happens faster than genetic evolution, the “fishing with sticks” technologies has not moved or mutated or adapted or selected over other mutations. It has stayed the same for a while. Ok this might be a recent thing for these animals because I have found no archeological evidence of any non-humanoid tools, but still since Jane Goodall first discovered the tool use of primates in the 1960’s the technologies have stayed the same. Skye “I take that information into my brain in one manner and store in an entirely different manner. Then if someone else gets that information from me they obtain it in a different manner to the manner they store it as well.” Do you mean when info comes into our brain it is encoded and than decoded for the transfer of another brain. This is interesting can you direct me to any studies of this. As far as Memetics being Lamarkian it is to a certain extent. Yes there is descent with modification but through out the descent of most memes their still remains “a common theme.” The meme for God has changed many times, but the meme for eternal life that has been part of the various God memes, has not changed. Although the meme is a good analogy for the evolution of knowledge. I Think it should go further, because it doesn’t just explain knowledge. It explains our brains, origin and structure of consciousness, language, art, human social interactions and a number of other things. Memetics is in its infant stages to become a science like Genetics was before the discovery of DNA. The existence of the Gene was speculated but no hard evidence was their of its existence. So to is now the meme. We see and understand the process, but we cannot zero in on it yet. Memetics is a bit more than a theory of knowledge it is a theory of our existence.

although she does an good explanation of a memetic replicator i was looking for a better understanding a genetic replicator.

Does anyone know any authors that deal with the replicator theory?

The supporters of the meme as replicator theory believe that the way to make a science of memetics is to be able to apply an evolutionary processes and the “only” way to do it is to define “strictly” a meme as a replicator that passes from mind to mind through imitation. They would argue any other way couldn’t be tested scientifically. I am not completely sure about this yet. I don’t think all memes are viral or parasitic. I think there is a clear evolution and progression towards complexity. Yes I believe there are “good” that have co-evolved with the genes in a “symbiotic balance” and bad memes that are parasitic and viral to the good memes and genes. Explaining memes through existing learning theories is exactly what Blackmore does. Individual learning which is imprinting, classical and operant conditioning and Social learning, both stimulus and local enhancement is NOT memetic. Blackmore says that these forms of learning do not contain imitation and therefore are not replicators and cannot undergo an evolutionary process. In Blackmores book “The Meme Machine” she says “in classical conditioning some aspect of the environment has been copied into a brain, but it stops with that brain and cannot be passed on by imitation” (44). So to it is with operant conditioning, there is no “true imitation” in fact she says “Much of what we learn, we learn only for ourselves and cannot pass on. Much of human learning is Skinnerian and not memetic” (45). The same is true with social learning “In social learning, one animal may invent a new behavior during individual learning and then somehow lead a second animal into such a situation that it is likely to learn the same new behavior – or perhaps the first can behave in such a way as to change the contingencies of learning for the second animal so that it learns the same (or a similar) new behavior” (50). Looks like copying but isn’t. “details of the first behavior are not transmitted and therefore cannot be built upon and refined by further selective copying” (50). NO true Hereditary, or new replicators so no true Evolution. She admits that one day we might find that social learning will show research that does contain imitation especially in primates, whales, dolphins or some birds. I think we are there to an extent with the Japanese monkeys learned to wash potatoes or Chimpanzees learned to fish for termites with sticks. She would say this is not imitation and I would disagree for now. You said “It has even been proposed that Jesus (aka Joshua. Jesus is Greek for Joshua) and his cohort manipulated certain events so he could be seen to fulfill older prophesies” this is interesting information that I have never heard of can you direct me to where I could find further information on this subject.

Oh yes, I am aware of Dawkins. Susan Blackmore theorizes that there has been a “memetic drive” to create the big brain in humans, therefore the memes now drive the genes. I am torn between the two main theories and looking for a possible way to make them both right. 1- Dawkins 1978 & Blackmore meme as gene, replicator analogy 2- Dawkins 1993, lynch 1996, meme as germ, pathogen analogy Blackmore makes a good case that we should restrict the definition to a strict replicator analogy so an evolutionary process could be applied. What do you think of that? On the other hand I also agree with Robert Aunger memes are like viruses and parasites he says “we are hosts to parasites feeding on our brains that cause us to behave in ways beneficial to them, not us.” I have been working on a theory that unites both: There are 2 types of memes, technology (replicator) and non-technology (viral and parasitic) memes. The first memes were the tech replicator memes they co-evolved with the genes and produced big brains. Non-tech memes began to exist and they are parasitic to the tech memes and the genes. Take religion for instance, in order to replicate in minds it must “use” the tech memes (technology of language, symbols, and books) and also push innate “buttons” like fear. How does this sound?

ok, would it be logical to say that there is a memetic drive to become self-replicating ideas, possably existing on an Internet of some sort? "memes exist only as patterns of thought" do you know where i could research this further? Dennett makes the anaolgy that they are like software in the mind, what do you think of this?

Our brains are big because memes replicate more and better in big brains as opposed to small ones.

Does anyone consider memes replicators? What is the physical substances of a meme?