Do you know what a meme is?

[IDMclean]

The Game is a social phenomenon and an anti-memory game, the objective of which is to forget its existence. It is spread mostly by word of mouth, leading to a number of variations, but all share the same basic rules:

 

1. Knowledge of The Game is the only thing required to play it.

2. Thinking of The Game causes a player to lose.

3. A losing player must announce the loss.

 

I lost by the way.

 

I would like to know more about meme theory than I currently know, and to start it off I would like to introduce you all to a game that you may or may not have played before. It represents mememetic replication and is by far hugely interesting.

 

Meme

 

So what do you know of and what do you know that you don't know of memes? Can they be constructed and/or have they been constructed, simulated, or otherwise used in computers? How do you model such a thing? What are the universal attributes of a meme?

[Buffy]

Its exactly like the Game. If you *try* to construct a meme, you *will* fail.

 

In my book, memes are sentient beings created by a social *group* not the creation of an individual: an individual might actually be the *author* of the original textual representation of the meme, but the meme *itself* is a creature of how the social group *reacts* to it!

 

Willed into existence,

Buffy

[IDMclean]

Well in the course of discussing the game design In another thread, I came to have an intellectual idea for a test of the game itself.

 

If the AI is capable of using, making, modifying and spreading Memes around then it will be capable of conception. As the two are more or less one. So the Idea is to model an AI that is grown on memes.

 

Hence what I mean by constructed, simulated, or otherwise used in computer simulation.

 

Also as a side note, I don't believe in things that can't be codified. Things that exist are patterns, patterns are objective and distict, but not seperate from what is observable. A gene here is a gene there, a meme here is a meme there.

 

So let's break the code and see how it works.

[Buffy]

Well in the course of discussing the game design In another thread, I came to have an intellectual idea for a test of the game itself.

...and I think it will fail the test because...

If the AI is capable of using, making, modifying and spreading Memes around then it will be capable of conception.

...which I argue is impossible because a meme is a social phenomenon. You can't just "generate" them.

 

Now conversely:

I don't believe in things that can't be codified. Things that exist are patterns, patterns are objective and distict, but not seperate from what is observable.

Patterns are code and code is patterns.

 

This is where my thinking gets really radical: we wholly underestimate what can be done with "code" because we think of it as been a single level stream of bits, when at its most magical, it is layer upon layer of abstraction that through recursion and self modification is positively god-like. When I look at what we've done in 50 years of computer science, it gives me the willies to think what could be done in the next 50. "I Robot" will be childsplay, but ONLY if we realize that we have to not only build on what we know and *ignore* what we think the "goals" are, but let it build *itself*. Consciousness? Don't start creating it by defining the word, you'll quickly get lost in the woods. You need to let the code *reach* it on its own!

 

Doors of Abstraction,

Buffy

[IDMclean]

I agree rather in totality. I am just saying that how do you setup an information system to deal with data such that the result is what would be called a meme? What atomic emergent algorithms do we put together to get a self propagating, self modifying concept?

 

What are the phenomena of a meme, what attributes do they have? You assert they can't be modelled or you misunderstand my meaning, or I am miscommuncating my meaning. Anyway it goes, there is confusion.

 

I am not saying I want to build a meme like christianity, I am just saying what are the common elements of the phenomena which we call memes, and how can we model them conceptually? They exist, and we can prove them emperically, so we can infact model them.

 

 

If we can model them, we can code them, if we can code them we can simulate. the chain goes on and on but it just means good things.

[Buffy]

A friend of mine from high school used to say "love is circumstantial." So are memes. What makes a meme you ask? Timing! Location! History! The Gestalt of it all! An idea with pretentions of meme-ness 10 years ago might fail where it takes off like wildfire today. Or conversely. And a fallacy of memes is that once they attain meme-ness that they are immortal. In fact most memes are like shooting stars the blast out in an awe-inspiring burst of color and *meaningfulness*, then a day, a month, a year, a decade, at most a century later, they are gone to be noted by students of popular culture. Do they all *die*? No, many do survive, but once they reach the "end of their memeness," the successful memes become so enmeshed in the societal consciousness that they are no longer memes, they are fully integrated into "reality."

 

To the extent that you could Monkey-at-a-Typewriter-like simply churn out concepts, yes, you could generate proto-memes. But if society is not prepared to pick them up and run with them--something that by definition cannot be "manufactured" by an algorithm--then they are simply words on paper, unrealized in their potential.

 

Sound and Fury,

Buffy

[CraigD]

My definition of meme derives from it’s origin in Dawkin’s title phrase “Selfish Genes and Selfish Memes”. As a gene is a sequence of information coded into an organism’s genome sufficient for a cell to express a specific protein, a meme is “code” in an individual’s nervous system sufficient for the individual to “express” a specific behavior. A key feature of memes is that, like genes can be shared among bacteria via plasmids, the neurological states that produce behaviors can be shared among people via communication.

 

In my book, there are many perils in taking the gene-meme analogy too far. Genes are objectively real features of DNA and RNA. They can currently be identified with precision via gene sequencing, and by a process of elimination, identified with the proteins they produce. Though slight variations in a particular gene – alleles – exists among individuals, and proteins may have slight molecular and structural differences, the mapping of genes to proteins is essentially exact. Efforts to create an ”e-cell”, a mechanical simulation of the expression of genes within a cell, are ongoing, and promise to be successful.

 

Memes, on the other hand, have about the same foundation in objective reality that genes did in Lamarck’s days – we can infer from how behaviors spread in animal (especially human) populations, and are passed from generation to generation (“time binding[/wuki]”) that they exists, but know very little about how they work, either in a completely biomechanical way, or more abstractly. This leads to a serious problem – just as many old ideas about genes proved very wrong, so, it’s almost certain, will many of our current ideas about memes. While the link between genes and proteins can be precisely tested, and, ultimately, a complete and accurate model of the cell can be made, how can we know if a particular meme truly exists and is responsible for a particular behavior? How can we know if a particular meme model is right?

 

With our current, imprecise understanding of memes, it’s hard to know how to use them sensibly. Does it make sense to call religion a meme, and say that the meme of Islam “evolve” from that for Judaism, then mutate into distinct alleles for Sunni, Shi’a, and Sufism? Or should we think of it as being made of smaller memes, like “don’t kill” and “honor thy parents?” This is not just a question of terminology – the choices made for the “granularity” and “cladistics” of memes strongly effect the predictions made by a model of them. There are right and wrong answers to “is this a meme?” that determine how well a memetic model predicts reality.

 

So, how to go about improving the objectivity of [wiki]memetics? Try many different models, keeping and improving on ones that best predict reality? Or dig in reductionistically, and try to understand the biochemistry of thought, explaining on a molecular level such things as the rise and fall of disco?

 

In conclusion, I’m forced to admit that, while I recognize the term, I don’t really know what a meme is.

[hallenrm]

Interesting thread indeed! :)

 

While going through some of the posts and the article in Wikipedia I had this recurring question in my mind.

 

How is a meme different from a thought? Are the two word synonyms?

 

The questions are especially important to me, because all that I have been calling thoughts in many of my posts in this forum seem to be memes.

 

Can somebody help me a bit. :) :phones:

[Buffy]

IHow is a meme different from a thought? Are the two word synonyms?

I think that's the crux of the debate in the thread so far. I argue that what makes a meme different is that it takes on a life of its own spreading throughout a society, *after* its been thought up. A thought is just a thought: it can just sit there or society can reject it outright (possibly only because of timing as I discussed above)....

 

The marketplace of memes,

Buffy

[CraigD]

How is a meme different from a thought? Are the two word synonyms?

I’d say “a meme is to a thought as a gene is to an occurrence of the gene in a genome”. That is, a thought instanciates a meme. In this context, a memory is considered a thought, even when one is not consciously thinking it.

 

For a meme to exist, a corresponding thought/memory must exist. It doesn’t make sense to call all thoughts memes, though. “There’s a nettle – I better not step on it” is a thought, but I don’t think many people would call it a meme.

 

I have a couple of questions in the same vein: Being by definition communicable, are all ideas memes? Are all memes ideas?

[Buffy]

Being by definition communicable, are all ideas memes?

Tee hee! Apparently my proto-meme above is not propagating very well in your micro-habitat, Craig! Course not! Not only is timing everything, some ideas are just plain too stupid to propagate themselves anywhere.

 

Brings up the point: I don't care how good a gene it is, if the cell is diseased and the habitat is noxious, that gene has as much chance of replicating as an igloo in Death Valley in August. Its *not* just the idea that makes a meme...

 

Naturally nurturing,

Buffy

[IDMclean]

A light warning.

 

Buffy's stance is that of Social Memes, where the Meme is external.

My stance, as I have identified it is one of individual Memes, where the meme is internal.

 

It is key to realize the different stances known as Internalist and Externalist. They are not limited to simply memetics but also extend out into philosophy, of course.

 

One attribute which is an obvious must have for anything to be a meme is that it must be reproducable.

[Pyrotex]

...I have a couple of questions in the same vein: Being by definition communicable, are all ideas memes? Are all memes ideas?

Good questions.

The originator of the concept (or meme) of "memes" was Richard Dawkins, who used the idea in his book, "The Selfish Gene", to illustrate that genes weren't the only self-reproductive system on earth.

 

According to Dawkins, a meme is a concept, an understanding, or a human behavior or action that reproduces itself in another mind by the process of "imitation".

 

Not all ideas are memes, according to this definition. And not all memes are ideas, either.

 

If I see someone riding a Segway, and it inspires me to buy a Segway, which inspires others to imitate me, then "riding a Segway" is a meme.

 

If going to church and believing in God is a cultural behavior that is passed on to children through imitation and training, then it is a meme. Training can be thought of as a specific form of inducing imitation.

 

You hum the tune Inna-Godda-Daveeda at work, and after a few weeks, you notice that half the work staff are humming it too. That is the spread of a meme in action.

 

I sit in a physics class and observe a teacher showing how to calculate ballistic trajectories and orbits. I learn how to do this. That's memetic reproduction.

[Buffy]

Buffy's stance is that of Social Memes, where the Meme is external. My stance, as I have identified it is one of individual Memes, where the meme is internal.

No, I'm one of those realists who think that the silly debate about Internalism and Externalism is a waste of time!

 

The important point defining memes is, as you say:

One attribute which is an obvious must have for anything to be a meme is that it must be reproducable.

And therein you destroy the internalist stance: that it is only the idea--because if its only the idea, the ability to reproduce is not provable--as well as belittling the externalist stance--which really is only an argument that the internal effects can't be measured, thus getting to the sticky existentialist conclusion that memes *don't exist* except as cultural phenomenon. I don't argue that the formation of ideas within the brain are "not proto-memes"--which is what the Externalists would say--but I do argue that you can't call a meme a successful one until its pretty useless. Similarly I don't argue that any idea is a meme, because unless that idea *really has the potential* to reproduce, its just another idea. I think that both of these stances are for people who are obsessed with inconsistency. Get over it.

 

To be genetical about it (as Dawkins is), random bits of a DNA molecule represent very sophisticated constructs, but until its a full DNA strand with a healthy environment, IT CANNOT REPRODUCE, and is NOT justifiably called a "gene". So it goes with memes: lots of ideas float around, they have to BOTH surpass a threshold of significance--to use the humming example above, humming a short A note is not the same as humming Auld Lang Syne, which can be highly reproductive--AND it has to happen to occur in a rich growth medium--the office overhearing you humming.

 

This religious argument between these two silly groups gets in the way of understanding the *power* of memes which is that they can transform society.

 

Sho' nuff,

Buffy

[IDMclean]

Good good and all that.

 

However, the purpose I intented the recognition of the difference of stance is that I hold that memes are completely dependent on the social ecology of the mind itself, and you hold that it is dependent on the social ecology of the populus. If I understand you correctly.

 

You hold, near as I can tell, that you need a population to have memes, I hold that you need but a single mind to have a meme. Though it maybe isolated from diversity of enviroments, it still nontheless has an enviroment.

 

Oh and I would argue that memes exist, by the simple fact that we are discussing them. I would also happen to be an existentialist (I think, though I am not sure, I agree with some but not all of the general doctrines).

 

the ability to reproduce is not provable

I would just like you to be aware of that fact that I said Reproducable, not having the ability to reproduce. A meme obviously can not by itself reproduce. It can be reproduced inside the individual, and can be shared between individuals. However by itself it will sit on a table, inert.

 

What I mean by internal is that the meme exists only in people's minds, as a self-replicant pattern, that is communicable to others and is influencable by other memes existing in the enviroment. The enviroment is not limited to the social context, I would think, as the Social context exists as a meta-enviroment to the Individual context. That is the society in this sense is a community of communities of memeplexs.

 

I'm kinda confused. So I am going to wait till I sleep on it somemore.

 

If you could, Buffy, I would like to better understand your philosophical doctrines. I don't know what you mean when you say realist, as that terms is rather ambigious, broad and hugely dependent on what a person accepts as real or universal. Though it's not fit for this thread, post it here, please.

what's your Philosophical/Religious Perspective

[Turtle]

I'm kinda confused.

 

 

That goes without saying. I meme after all, you're a clown. :evil:

[hallenrm]

For a meme to exist, a corresponding thought/memory must exist. It doesn’t make sense to call all thoughts memes, though. “There’s a nettle – I better not step on it” is a thought, but I don’t think many people would call it a meme.

 

I have a couple of questions in the same vein: Being by definition communicable, are all ideas memes? Are all memes ideas?

 

I do not think that is really the reality. A thought, can, in my opinion, exist independent of a individual human being. I would give an example!:)

 

I have many thoughts, as I proclaim my present location is in the world of thoughts. Now, when I try to think about the genesis of these thoughts, I can safely say that it is definitely not the memory of something I had seen, heard or read. These thoughts somehow occur to me spontaneously. While it may be true that my past and present vocation and studies may sometimes facilitate some kinds of thoughts, I am sure most of my thoughts are not originally mine. As I often discover on reading some posts here or my reading of classic literature. Often I can see that many people, who are either living or had lived across the globe (that incidentally is something contrary to what Buffy appears to be saying that memes are localized in space) have had expressed similar thoughts in past and present.

 

That is indeed the reason for my belief that thoughts are conserved some what like energy. This belief recently got support when I was reading an article in the New Scientist. In this article,author quotes a renowned physicist Sussikind to say that All of physics as we know it is conditioned on the fact that information is conserved, even if it's badly scrambled,". Thus perhaps information is also a synonyme to meme or thoughts that have been handed over to the humanity over the ages. :)

 

Memes or (thoughts as I call them) survive the vagaries of time and somehow survive in the universe by a mechanism we do not know (but can only guess). In this context an idea (thought? meme?) occured to me right now, In Bhagwad Gita Lord Krishna is said to have said Soul is immortal.

Did he have memes; thoughts; information in mind when he said so?:evil:

 

;) :cup: :cup: :cup: :cup: