Dangerous Memes, or What the Pandorans Let Loose – Susan Blackmore (chapter 7 p297)

The Science of Memes
Memetics is rooted in Universal Darwinism—the idea that natural selection is a general process of which Earthly biology is just one example. Working from his detailed observations of living things, Darwin saw what very few people had ever seen before even though the process is always staring us right in the face. That is, if creatures vary, and if they have to compete for resources so that most of the variants die, and if the successful variants pass on to their offspring whatever it is that helped them survive, then the offspring must be better adapted to the environment in which all this happened than their parents were. Repeat that cycle of copying, varying, and selecting, and design must appear out of nowhere.(p298)

My favorite word in that description is “must.” This “must” is what makes Darwin’s insight the most beautiful in all of science. You take a simple three step algorithm and find that the emergence of design for function is inevitable. Dan Dennett calls it “a scheme for creating Design out of Chaos without the aid of Mind” (Dennett 1995, 50). This is “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” that the algorithmic level is the level that best accounts for the wonders of nature; that all the fantastic and beautiful creatures in the world are produced by lots and lots of tiny steps in a mindless and mechanical algorithm.
The whole process can look like magic—like getting something for nothing—but it isn’t. It is not possible to get matter out of nowhere, but it is possible to get information, or new patterns of matter, apparently out of nowhere by making copies. If the copies vary slightly and not all the copies survive, then the survivors must have something that helped them win the competition—using Darwin’s term, they are more “fit”; they make a better fit to their environment. Then they pass on this advantage to the next generation of copies. And so it goes on.(p299)

Is memetics really so scary? Possibly it is. Among the ideas that upset people are that all “our” ideas are recombinations and adaptations of other people’s, that all creativity comes from the evolutionary algorithm and not from the magic of human consciousness (Blackmore 2007a; Chater 2005), that our inner conscious selves may be memeplexes created by and for the memes (Blackmore 1999), that free will is an illusion, that modern computing technology is creating itself using us, and that the process of memetic evolution is not under our control (Blackmore 1999; Dennett 1995). (p301)

Some survive predominantly because they are useful to their hosts (e.g., effective financial institutions, scientific theories, or useful technologies); others depend on fulfilling human desires and preferences (e.g., the arts, music, and literature); and still others are positively harmful, tricking their hosts into propagating them.(P302)

 A good example here is the evolution of language—long a highly contentious issue with many competing theories (Dunbar 1996; Pinker 1994, 2007). On this memetic view language, like art and all of culture, is not seen as an adaptation of benefit to humans and their genes, but as a parasite turned symbiont. Indeed, all of cultural evolution is seen as happening for the benefit of the memes and in spite of posing a threat to humans and their genes. The human genes did, however, survive but the creature that was once their vehicle (i.e., the human body) gradually turned into a better and better copying machine for the new replicator—the memes. That is how we humans became such effective meme machines.(P304)

..there is indeed an important transition from memes copied by human brains to information copied by technology other than human brains. These “technological memes” are riding on top of both genes and memes to form a new layer of evolution. I’d like to call them “temes.”

The justification is this: replicators do not evolve on their own but coevolve with the machinery that replicates them. In the case of Earth’s first-level replicator, DNA, we have only a sketchy understanding of its origins (Maynard Smith and Szathmáry 1995) but we now see an exquisitely coadapted system of DNA and cellular copying machinery on which most living things on Earth depend. These living things can be thought of as the “vehicles,” or gene machines, that carry the genes around and protect them (Dawkins 1976), or as the “interactors” that interact with the environment to produce differential effects on gene replication (Hull 1988). In the case of human evolution, those vehicles eventually became the copying machinery for a new replicator, memes. Could it then be that the memes will do the same—building themselves meme-vehicles that in turn become the copying machinery for a new kind of replicator, temes? I suggest that this is what is happening all around us now. (P305)

The Evolution of Culture – Daniel C. Dennett (chapter 4 p125)

This traditional perspective can obviously explain many features of cul-tural and biological evolution, but it is not uniformly illuminating, nor is it obligatory. I want to show how theorists of culture—historians, anthropolo-gists, economists, psychologists, and others—can benefit from adopting a dif-ferent vantage point on these phenomena. It is a different application of the intentional stance, one which still quite properly gives pride of place to the cui bono question, but which can provide alternative answers that are often overlooked. The perspective I am talking about is Richard Dawkins’s meme’s-eye point of view, which recognizes—and takes seriously—the possibility that cultural entities may evolve according to selectional regimes that make sense only when the answer to the cui bono question is that it is the cultural items themselves that benefit from the adaptations they exhibit.(p128)

How did music start? What was or is the answer to its cui bono question? Steven Pinker is one Darwinian who has recently declared himself baffled about the possible evolutionary origins and survival of music, but that is because he has been looking at music in the old-fashioned way, looking for music to have some contribution to make to the genetic fitness of those who make and partici-pate in the proliferation of music.16 There may well be some such effect that is important, but I want to make the case that there might also be a purely memetic explanation of the origin of music. (p135)

 Habits—good, bad, and indifferent—could persist and replicate, unappreciated and unrecognized, for an indefinite period of time, provided only that the replicative and dispersal machinery is provided for them. The drumming virus is born.Let me pause to ask the question: what is such a habit made of? What gets passed from individual to individual when a habit is copied? Not stuff, not packets of material, but pure information, the information that generates the pattern of behavior that replicates. A cultural virus, unlike a biological virus, is not tethered to any particular physical medium of transmission. (p136)

Finally, one of the most persistent sources of discomfort about memes is the dreaded suspicion that an account of human minds in terms of brains being parasitized by memes will undermine the precious traditions of human creativity. On the contrary, I think it is clear that only an account of creativity in terms of memes has much of a chance of giving us any way to identify with the products of our own minds. We human beings extrude other products, on a daily basis, but after childhood, we don’t tend to view our feces with the pride of an author or artist. These are mere biological by-products, and although they have their own modest individuality and idiosyncrasy, it is not anything we cherish. How could we justify viewing the secretions of our poor infected brains with any more pride? Because we identify with some subset of the memes we harbor. Why? Because among the memes we harbor are those that put a premium on identifying with just such a subset of memes! Lacking that meme-borne attitude, we would be mere loci of interaction, but we have such memes—that is who we are. (p140)

Dawkins 1976 book The Selfish Gene is where the term “meme” is first used. The relevant chapter, chapter 11, is called “Memes: the new replicators” (p 189-201), and was originally the last chapter of the first edition of the book.

Cultural transmission is a major characteristic of humanity, but is not unique to man. Dawkins discusses the research of P.F. Jenkins on the the saddlejack, (p 189) a bird native to New Zealand, which has developed a repertoire of nine distinct songs, and for each of these songs several “dialects” have been recorded in neighbouring regions. A particular dialect could be shared by one bird and its offspring, but this is not a genetic inheritance. The song would be copied by one individual from its territorial neighbours. Occasionally, the invention of a new song was witnessed, caused by a mistake in the copying of an existing one. This new variation could remain in a stable existence for years. Jenkins called this origin of new songs “cultural mutations”, and Dawkins supposes that an analogy can be drawn between cultural and genetic evolution.

Dawkins expresses dissatisfaction with the idea that the gene alone can explain the origins of human behaviour, and with his colleagues’ emphasis on seeking out biological advantages in an attempt to account for various human attributes. The concept of Darwinism, or natural selection, he argues, is far too all-encompassing and significant a theory to concern itself with the gene alone. He suggests if there turns out to be one characteristic that may be truly universal in the development of life (universal in the literal sense, as there may be life elsewhere in the universe) it will turn out to be that “all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.” The DNA molecule, or gene, is simply the dominant replicator that we have for biological evolution here on Earth. It has simply no reason to assume it’s the only one though. Cocky bastard. But in the absence of the ability to visit a distant planet, Dawkins wonders if there may be another way to see an alternative replicator at work, here on our own planet.

He suggests that we can find the answer in the “soup of human culture”, and decides to give it the name “meme”, coming from the Greek root “mimeme”, and resembling the word “memory”. In the endnotes of later editions, he gratefully acknowledges that the word “meme” came to be a pretty successful meme, while playing down the notion that he was trying to construct a grand theory of human cultural development. He was more interested in nudging the gene off its pedestal a bit. Among examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, ideas, and ways of making pots or building arches. The meme is capable of being spread in the meme pool, from one person to another, and may be thought of as a type of parasite inhabiting a carrier. It is propagated from one brain to another where it resides as a particular pattern of interconnected neurons.

The God meme is clearly a very successful one and has a very long history, It is replicated by spoken and written word, and is propped up by many works of music and art. Dawkins argues it has great survival value as a meme because it has a great psychological value in the cultural environment. It provides superficial answers to troubling questions of existence and destiny, and comforts people by having them believe that traumas in this life may be rectified in the next. Dawkins is all too aware of colleagues who still insist that there still must be a survival advantage giving rise to this particular idea inhabiting our genetically evolved brains. To counter this Dawkins points out that the mistake that is commonly being made is failing to see the meme as a replicator in its own right, which, like the selfish gene, has no purpose other than to get itself copied. Once evolution had provided us with our complex brains, a suitable vehicle was available and the meme, as a replicator, simply took off of its own accord. It need not be subservient to the gene at all.

Dawkins now discusses the meme in comparison to the gene regarding its development through natural selection, as it appears that some memes do well at copying themselves, while others are soon forgotten. He looks at the three qualities a replicator must have for natural selection to take place; longevity, fecundity and copying fidelity. Longevity for an individual meme will vary from person to person, but successful memes will nevertheless persist in various formats for a considerable time. Fecundity he considers to be much more important, and points out that some memes, such as pop songs, achieve great short term success but then fizzle out, while others last for thousands of years. Copying fidelity is given much more attention, and Dawkins admits to being on shaky ground here. He points out that more complex ideas may be spread from person to person, each having their own different variations, and that which remains common to all may be considered the true meme.

He considers further the similarities between memes and genes in the context of how they may group together. Co-adapted gene complexes have developed in animals, stable groupings of individual genes which get passed on together and can be effectively thought of as single entities. As a comparison to memes, Dawkins says the God meme may be associated with the meme for hell and eternal damnation, as one reinforces the propagation of the other, strengthening both their positions in the meme pool. The meme for faith comes into play here too, as a meme which discourages rational enquiry and a desire for evidence will naturally tend to survive as its viability won’t be questioned. Conversely, a gene for celibacy would surely quickly reach a genetic dead end, but a meme for celibacy would fare much better. In the priesthood, the celibacy meme would stand the best chance of being passed on if the carrier were able to devote as much time as possible to spreading it. Therefore it would have greater survival value than the meme for marriage, which would compete far too much for the priest’s time and resources. These co-adapted meme complexes are therefore very significant, as they take into account the cultural environment (other memes) in which the memes find themselves, and where they must battle for supremacy. Dawkins reflects that whereas the genetic information of an individual gets heavily diluted after a few generations, ideas, academic achievements and works of art can last for a very long time indeed.

Dawkins reiterates the point that when we are looking at the survival of memes in the meme pool, we in no way need to see any biological advantage – memes needn’t provide any advantage to anyone or anything other than themselves.

The chapter ends on an optimistic note, as Dawkins expresses the hope that despite the evolutionary evidence to the contrary, we as a species have developed to the point where we are capable of foresight and true altruism. He supposes that even if we are fundamentally selfish beings, we have the power to resist the selfish genes (and memes) that created us. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators. (p 201)