The Meme Machine

The thesis of this book is that what makes us different is our ability to imitate. (Location 304)

‘all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities’ (1976, p. 192). This is the foundation for the idea of Universal Darwinism; (Location 354)

First, a theory must be able to explain things better than its rival theories; more economically or more comprehensively. And second, it must lead to testable predictions that turn out to be correct. Ideally, those predictions should be unexpected ones – things that no one would have looked for if they were not starting from a theory of memetics. (Location 419)

that environment must tend to increase. Put into Richard Dawkins’s language, if there is a replicator that makes imperfect copies of itself only some of which survive, then evolution simply must occur. (Location 448)

This is why Dennett describes Darwin’s theory as ‘a scheme for creating Design out of Chaos without the aid of Mind’ (1995, p. 50). (Location 465)

We can now see that even if evolution is only following a simple algorithm, it is a chaotic system and its outcome can be incredibly complex. Moreover, the results cannot be predicted without running it –and it is only being run once. (Location 477)

Memes as replicators For something to count as a replicator it must sustain the evolutionary algorithm based on variation, selection and retention (or heredity). Memes certainly come with variation – stories are rarely told exactly the same way twice, no two buildings are absolutely identical, and every conversation is unique – and when memes are passed on, the copying is not always perfect. As the psychologist, Sir Frederic Bartlett (1932) showed in the 1930s, a story gets a bit embellished or details are forgotten every time it is passed on. There is memetic selection – some memes grab the attention, are faithfully remembered and passed on to other people, while others fail to get copied at all. Then, when memes are passed on there is retention of some of the ideas or behaviours in that meme -something of the original meme must be retained for us to call it imitation or copying or learning by example. The meme therefore fits perfectly into Dawkins’s idea of a replicator and into Dennett’s evolutionary algorithm. (Location 506)

We should think of it like this – evolutionary theory describes how design is created by the competition between replicators. Genes are one example of a replicator and memes another. The general theory of evolution must apply to both of them, but the specific details of how each replicator works may be quite different. (Location 561)

Genes are instructions for making proteins, stored in the cells of the body and passed on in reproduction. Their competition drives the evolution of the biological world. Memes are instructions for carrying out behaviour, stored in brains (or other objects) and passed on by imitation. (Location 569)

Our memes is who we are. (Location 677)

According to Dennett, our minds and selves are created by the interplay of the memes. (Location 677)

Family trees of languages have been constructed that are comparable with the genetic family trees based on differences in DNA. (Location 709)

In his book The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker (1994) explicitly applies evolutionary thinking to the development of languages, looking at heredity, variation and the effects of isolation in allowing sets of variations to accumulate. However, he does not use the idea of a selfish replicator to understand language evolution and nor does he explain why language evolved in the first place. (Location 716)

Note: Feels like a high bar to force the replicator idea Like maybe the memetic evolutionary algorithm is the underlying mechanics of memespace but it doesn’t really answer much Also meme have to be the only thing that is real

His answer has little to do with the innate abilities of the people themselves and everything to do with geography and climate. Food production, and the skills that went along with it, could spread easily across Europe with its East–West axis, but could not spread easily in the Americas with their North–South axis, dramatic climate variations, deserts and mountain ranges. (Location 728)

Note: Of course But people are products of their environment So the people and their geographic benefits or challenges merge as one from a certain memetic point of view

In fact, it seems that farming did not make life easier, nor did it improve nutrition, or reduce disease. The British science writer Colin Tudge (1995) describes farming as ‘the end of Eden’. Rather than being easier, the life of early farmers was utter misery. Early Egyptian skeletons tell a story of a terrible life. (Location 735)

once farming arrives no one has the luxury of saying ‘I want to keep the old way of life’. (Location 745)

Note: The original “technology “ arms race

Science can then be seen as a competitive struggle between rival hypotheses in which only some survive. (Location 773)

Note: Highlander for memes And how the end is when everything becomes one You connect all the dots Then you are born again Big Bang as rebirth

He treats scientific ideas as the replicators and scientists as the interactors (he prefers the term ‘interactor’ to Dawkins’s ‘vehicle’ because of its more active connotations). (Location 794)

Note: Relevant for GUTOE and the binary nature of it

If there are two replicators (or more) then there will inevitably be conflicts of interest – circumstances in which the interests of the genes pull in one direction and those of the memes in the opposite direction. These examples are very important for memetics because they would not be predicted by a purely genetic theory. If they occur, they prove that we need a theory of memes – or at least a theory involving some kind of second replicator. This is what distinguishes memetic theory from other theories of cultural evolution. (Location 806)