Take on Memes

A meme is a unit of cultural transmission. It takes its name from the French word “meme” which means “same”, but also contains echoes of mimetic and memory. Whereas genes are passed on biologically, memes are units of information passed on by imitation and reproduction. Willingly or unwillingly we absorb memes from the time we are born. Taking on these units of information is as important to our survival as a healthy set of genes might be.

Even at our birth, people who have specific mimetic loading for birth practice assist us into this world. Even the latest technological tools for microsurgery, the fact that the doctor might wear glasses to help him see, is in itself a product of memes. When someone discovered that a piece of curved glass could magnify things, he transmitted this information to someone else. This information about glass is only one of the millions of memes that assist us in our survival. With poor eyesight the doctor might not have been able to attend medical school & go on to save lives. Simple eyeglasses help us to take on the units of cultural information that help us to get what we need to survive. We learn to speak. We learn to ask.

Our languages are products of memes. From our family units, to our communities, our religions, our inner selves and our worldview, all of these belief systems are mimetic.

Memes are not new, but they have only recently been named. The study of meme dynamics helps us understand ourselves as a species on more than just a biological level. There are many branches of meme theory - meme warfare, memes as parasites, the study of macro memes (religion & theories) and micro memes (words & habits), the brain as a host for memes, the extinction & replication of memes, adaptation of memes by natural selection, the death of memes. Memes are passed on and caught by word, by mouth, by action, by all of our senses. Memes live in us, in the media, on the internet. It has been said that “a human being is an animal infested by memes”. Humans are in some ways faulty carriers of memes – computers are better at this – they can more quickly calculate possible outcomes, but computers for the moment lack a host of processing memes like morality and inspiration.

Memes mutate by re-imagining themselves in light of other memes. Much like our galaxy’s spiral form, memes when reproduced, are not exact replicas of their seed, but are sown another level up or down a spiral path of the long human march.