The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment

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Peirce, Charles Sanders 1931–1966. The collected papers of Charles S. Peirce 8 vols. C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss & A. W. Burks (eds.), Cambridge: Harvard University press. [Reference to Peirce’s papers will be designated CP followed by volume and paragraph number]. Search in Google Scholar

The word was coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. [14] [20] Examples of memes given in Dawkins' book include melodies, catchphrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches. [21] Aaron Lynch attributed the robustness of religious memes in human culture to the fact that such memes incorporate multiple modes of meme transmission. Religious memes pass down the generations from parent to child and across a single generation through the meme-exchange of proselytism. Most people will hold the religion taught them by their parents throughout their life. Many religions feature adversarial elements, punishing apostasy, for instance, or demonizing infidels. In Thought Contagion Lynch identifies the memes of transmission in Christianity as especially powerful in scope. Believers view the conversion of non-believers both as a religious duty and as an act of altruism. The promise of heaven to believers and threat of hell to non-believers provide a strong incentive for members to retain their belief. Lynch asserts that belief in the Crucifixion of Jesus in Christianity amplifies each of its other replication advantages through the indebtedness believers have to their Savior for sacrifice on the cross. The image of the crucifixion recurs in religious sacraments, and the proliferation of symbols of the cross in homes and churches potently reinforces the wide array of Christian memes. [40] a b Laurent, John (1999). "A Note on the Origin of 'Memes'/'Mnemes' ". Journal of Memetics. 3 (1): 14–19. Archived from the original on 13 April 2021. Saussure, Ferdinand de 1959. Course in general lingusitics. C. Bally, & S.W. Albert (eds.), W. Baskin (trans.). New York: Philosophical Library. https://archive.org/stream/courseingenerall00saus/courseingenerall00saus_djvu.txt (accessed 23 March 2019). Search in Google ScholarSharp, David 2017. One of the last remaining Shakers dies at 89, leaving just 2. AP News. https://apnews.com/749eec6f79634be687653f0aba5773dc (accessed 21 September 2020). Search in Google Scholar Lacan, Jacques 1985. Sign, symbol, imaginary. In M. Blonsky (ed.), On signs, 201–209. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Search in Google Scholar Salingaros, Nikos (2008). "Architectural memes in a universe of information". Theory of Architecture. Umbau-Verlag. ISBN 9783937954073. a b Shifman, Limor (2014). Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 9781461947332. OCLC 860711989. Archived from the original on 22 June 2022 . Retrieved 20 June 2022. Memes reproduce by copying from a nervous system to another one, either by communication or imitation. Imitation often involves the copying of an observed behavior of another individual. Communication may be direct or indirect, where memes transmit from one individual to another through a copy recorded in an inanimate source, such as a book or a musical score. Adam McNamara has suggested that memes can be thereby classified as either internal or external memes (i-memes or e-memes). [11]

Dawkins, Richard (2004). A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love. Boston: Mariner Books. p.263. ISBN 9780618485390. Benitez Bribiesca, Luis (January 2001). "Memetics: A Dangerous Idea" (PDF). Interciencia: Revista de Ciencia y Technologia de América. 26 (1): 29–31. ISSN 0378-1844. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 September 2018 . Retrieved 11 February 2010. If the mutation rate is high and takes place over short periods, as memetics predict, instead of selection, adaptation and survival a chaotic disintegration occurs due to the accumulation of errors. Kristeva, Julia. 1986. Word, dialogue, and novel. In Toril Moi (ed.), A Kristeva reader, 34–62. New York: Columbia University Press. Search in Google Scholar Graham, Gordon (2002). Genes: A Philosophical Inquiry. New York: Routledge. p.196. ISBN 9780415252577.See also: Diffusion of innovations Imitating the famous cover of the Beatles album Abbey Road (1969), on which the band members cross the road in front of the Abbey Road Studios in a row, has become popular with fans and London visitors. The four actresses of the Japanese Manga/ media franchise Milky Holmes reenact the Beatles cover in 2010, extending the original Beatles meme by their film costumes. In 2011, four cosplayers imitate the above meme during the Manga convention Paris Manga 2012 at a zebra crossing in Paris, thus further separating the meme from the root situation of 1969 tied to the Abbey Road zebra crossing. Baudrillard, Jean. 1994. Simulacra and simulation, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Search in Google Scholar Heylighen, Francis (1992). "Selfish Memes and the Evolution of Cooperation". Journal of Ideas. 2 (4): 77–84. Ariana Grande just unveiled the official artwork for her upcoming album, Thank, U Next, but after a little Photoshop-brainstorming session on Sunday, fans may inspire her to consider some new options. Over the weekend … some Arianators started meme-ing the cover of Ari's fifth album with various pics of the "7 Rings" singer…

Quotes about selfishness can offer insight into the consequences of this behavior and provide guidance on how to deal with it. Best Selfish Friends and Mean People Quotes Genes may be replicators but they are only one example. In Dawkins’ opinion, life anywhere in the universe would be driven by some kind of replicator, whether based on chemistry, electronic circuitry or anything else. This is why he asked, ‘do we have to go to distant worlds to find other kinds of replicator and other, consequent, kinds of evolution?’ and answered, ‘no’. Staring us in the face is a second replicator, ‘It is still in its infancy, still drifting clumsily about in its primeval soup … the soup of human culture’ He wanted a name to convey the sense of a unit of imitation, and one that would rhyme with ‘gene’. Taking, mimeme from the Greek meaning ‘imitated thing’ or ‘that which is imitated’, he chose the word ‘meme’. Examples are ‘tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches’ (Dawkins 1976 p 192). We might add to his list, stories, poems, works of art, money, financial institutions, scientific theories, and much more. All these are copied from person to person with variation and selection; they fit the definition of a meme as replicator. In this way memetics echoes much earlier ideas, and indeed versions of universal Darwinism have a long history (Plotkin 1993, Campbell 2011). Post, Stephen Garrard; Underwood, Lynn G.; Schloss, Jeffrey P.; Hurlbut, Willam B. (2002). Altruism & Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, & Religion in Dialogue. Oxford University Press. p.500. ISBN 9780195143584. theory ( Freud 1922 1959, Redl 1949, Wheeler 1966, Ritter and Holmes 1969, Levy and Nail 1993) and deindividuation Biological evolution is a change in the statistical distribution of biological (phenotypic or genetic) traits within a population (or a set of populations). Whether and how this statistical distribution changes can be explained in terms of two sets of factors (and of the interactions between them): transmission factors and selection factors. Let us consider them in turn. Organisms are causally connected with their descendants by means of what are sometimes called "inheritance channels". These channels are transmission factors. Genetic transmission is the most important of these channels but -- as I have argued elsewhere (Mameli 2004) -- it is not the only one. These causal connections between the generations are responsible for the extent to which (and for the way in which) organisms resemble their offspring. Thereby, such causal connections affect the extent to which (and the way in which) the statistical distribution of a trait in a given generation depends on the statistical distribution of that trait (or some related traits) in the previous generation. Explanations of changes in the distribution of traits that appeal to selection factors, in contrast, refer not to the features of inheritance channels but to the way biological traits affect the chances that organisms have of surviving and reproducing. Selection occurs when a trait increases in frequency because it makes the organisms that possess it more likely to do things that result -- through reproduction -- in the existence of other organisms with the same trait. As Bill Wimsatt has pointed out, the distinction between transmission factors and selection factors is in some cases blurred (Wimsatt 1999), but in general it provides a theoretically fruitful way of analysing biological change.Gardner, Martin (5 March 2000). "Kilroy Was Here". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 11 October 2021 . Retrieved 8 October 2021. Farther down the chart, the Vamps re-enter at No. 24 thanks to fan engagement around their #thevampsmeme competition, where the band encouraged fans to make memes to advertise the U.S. release of their EP Somebody to You (due Aug. 4). Stang, Nicholas F. 2018. Kant’s transcendental idealism. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/kant-transcendental-idealism (accessed 21 March 2019). Search in Google Scholar