Commentary: Re-fried Memes

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Memes. Memeplex. Memetics.

Fashionable bafflegab to allow pseudo-intellectuals to talk "intelligently" about things they don't really understand, or a useful context to examine complicated, difficult-to-pin-down ideas and concepts related to cognitive functions and social behaviours?

To be honest, I've not yet made up my mind. On one hand, it certainly seems to be bafflegab in the wrong hands, and very dangerous bafflegab if the baffled gabbers actually believe they understand it.

On the other hand, however, it does have a certain sense of "rightness" to it in some ways, and certainly seems to fit the some of the uses it's put to, at least in certain contexts. At the very least, it sort of makes what can be very slippery subjects more manageable and understandable, and even seems to allow aspects of cognition and social behaviour that were previously hard to 'connect' to be put into a context in which that can be made to fit together in some way - at least for the purposes of a given context, if not more broadly and deeply.

So, I guess it really comes down to who's "using" it and for what ends.

Personally, I think it's an important idea, and whether or not it ultimately turns out to be "right" (if it even can be ultimately determined or usefully considered as "right" or "wrong"), it is certainly a useful tool for examining a number of important phenomena from new perspectives, and allows them to be looked at, in many cases, in relation to each other to varying degrees as well.

I have a running debate with a friend as to the 'validity' of the ideas behind memetics; he takes the idea very seriously and feels it's the "right" way to look at the things it deals with. I take the view (at least for now) that it's merely a "useful" way to look at things. Personally, I am not convinced - yet - that it's essentially "right" in any way. While it does have a certain attractiveness AND seems effective in some ways, I do have issues that I have found hard to express verbally, although mentally/conceptually, they are pretty clear for me. I'll try to do a better job here of expressing those reservations; in fact, part of the purpose of this commentary IS for -me- to work through -my- thoughts on the topic and find an effective way for -me- to think about memetics, and the plusses and minuses as I see 'em.

For those of you unfamiliar with the topic, well, you're probably thinking about stopping reading this about now (even if you haven't already, otherwise you'd not be reading this). For those of you who are expert on the topic, what I have to say probably will do little for you, and likely you'll soon determine that what I say here is not substantive enough for you to bother with. This is for those of you who are interested in the subject, recognize you're not an expert on it, and are interested in whatever you can find on the subject that that could provide some perspective that you haven't considered yet.

Or not. Caveat Lector: Your risk, your decision. ;o)

Okay now...so, a quick review...

Memetics is often defined as "...an approach to evolutionary models of information transfer based on the concept of the meme." It generally has to do with certain cognitive functions and social behaviours, and largely placed in a "human" context when discussed (although I think that if it is a scientifically valid concept, then the supercontext should really be more broad in certain ways (eg. the concept can be, at least generally, applicable in many contexts), and I'll try to touch on that later).

A "meme" is essentially a "unit of information" (in memetic terms). Although the general idea has been around a while, the author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" (as sort of the informational analog to "gene"), and used it to mean things such as: "...tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothes fashions, ways of making pots, or of building arches."

Memes, in this view are "replicators" and subject to evolution and selection pressures much in the same way genes are, albeit with the pressures and environments in which they function being very different. Successful memes spread, unsuccessful ones don't.

Sounds really neat, doesn't it? Seems to make sense, too.

Yep.

But there are issues. Some of them arise from memes:genes analogy itself - certain aspects could be misinterpreted too 'strongly', perhaps, or not in 'quite the right' way. Some arise from the basic ideas, though, and assumptions made about them (memes and the things they represent, or express) that may or may not be 'valid', or at least not 'proveable'. And then, there are certain fundamental questions that need, in my view, to at least be asked - and either answered, or the questions shown to be irrelevant (note: SHOWN, not just 'asserted' to be).

For example, what IS a "meme"? What's it made of? How do we know one when we see one, especially a new one, or new "type" of meme? How do we tell one from another, especially in composite memes (memeplexes)? We know what "genes" are, and what they are made of, or at least pretty much "think" we do...

Very simply, genes are chains of four basic nucleotides (or nucleobases) the encode genetic information for biological organizms. The nucleotides cannot be thrown together in just 'any' order - to qualify as a gene, arrangement (order and structure) is important. So, essentially, genes are biological constructs that encode information. What information do they encode? Well, basically, they encode the information required to replicate themselves; hence, they are called "replicators".

We'll not get into the complex processes involved here - a high-level view is enough for now. But one observation is worth noting: it's not hard to see now how Dawkins, himself an evolutionary biologist, could come up with this way of describing the ideas involved here. He's already quite well disposed to looking at things from an "evolutionary" point of view, and on this point, I'm certainly in tune with his thinking here: I also see evolution as a principle that's expressed in many ways at ALL levels of structure, organization, and complexity; there's certainly no reason why it SHOULDN'T be found in cognitive processes and social behaviour (itself an expression of cognition, in any case).

(I'm also pretty sure he's quite pleased with himself in having played a key role in creating, or at least promoting, a "meme" that's become pretty successful itself!)

So, we have been told that memes are "replicators". But how does this replication work? What, exactly, is being "replicated"? Where does this replication happen, and what processes are at work? Here is one area where things begin to get dicey, I think; at least from a scientific, or at least empirical, point of view...

Genes exist in the "physical" world. They are molecules made up of atoms, and they undergo various chemical reactions to do what they do. Essentially, provided there are the materials at hand to continue doing what they do, i.e. energy and the necessary molecules needed to replicate, they keep on going. When those things are not availble, they don't. Essentially, this means that if whatever entity/organism the gene 'belonged' to was "successful" (either the original or offspring alive and metabolising), then the materials needed to replicate would be available and it could continue to replicate. If the the materials were not available, essentially, that means lack of success (at least for that individual organizm) and replication ceases. Hopefully, success continues to outweigh failures and many organisms survive to reproduce.

Evolution happens when changes to the genetic code occurs - generally through various random processes or causes (which do happen fairly frequently) - and the resulting change in genetic expression confers some survival advantage to the organism (more accurately, its offspring) within its environment. Most changes in genetic code have little, if any, result in this sense - not all genetic code is 'expressive'. Some is also "regulatory", some is "archival" (old, unused portions), and some is for other purposes. And of the changes that do get expressed, not all will have an impact on the survivability of the organism, although if the organism IS successful, of course other traits it has, regardless of their fitness impact, will also be passed on. (Of course there are changes, or mutations, that do have an unfavorable impact, but presumably (usually), they affect the survival (or at least the odds of reproduction) for the organism involved, and don't get passed on.) But anyway - the short answer is that evolution of a species requires both numbers (of reproducing individuals) and time (so that a large enough number of reproductions (replications) can occur) for evolutionary changes to occur.

But what, really, IS the replicator? We know it's not really the organism itself; that's more an expression of the gene, and serves as a vehicle that's 'used' to promote replication, essentially. So, is the replicator the "gene" itself, or the pattern (information) encoded within the gene? My position is that it's the pattern, and in a sense, the idea of memes supports that idea. What is needed is a mechanism for a pattern to be encoded, preserved, and "passed on". Genes are encoded in physical constructs - arrangments of nucleotides (molecules) - made up of molecules, etc. Memes, however, are a bit different. You could look at them as being encoded in songs, books, manuals, stories, and modes of behaviour, but all these are really just sort of temporary "vehicles" to facilitate the preservation and transmission of the memetic patterns. The pattern itself gets embedded in our minds, and that's where it becomes active and important - that's how it gets 'expressed' in real terms.

But can a pattern really "exist" in some non-physical sense apart from the the structure in which it's encoded? Sure, we like to think in terms of 'abstraction' and so on, however we can't even think "abstractly" without a physical substrate for both the thought processes and the information involved. Any pattern, it seems to be, is really a relationship between physical entities/structures/processes, and without this physical underpinning, no 'pattern' - abstract or otherwise - can possibly exist. Even if you can 'encode', say, the "idea" of something in many ways, is this merely the creation of copies of some original "idea" (with varying degrees of completely/accuracy), or is it truly a case of some idea-pattern transcending physical dependency?

Is there some "memetic" code? I think, so far, that's not been determined, and although one would tend to think there should be, perhaps it's carrying the analogy too far. Or is it? Information is encoded in SOME way. It HAS to be for it to be percieved and transmitted between individuals. And it has to be encoded in some consistent, and potentially (or just possibly) universally intelligible way, too (remember the comment above about non-human contexts?). Can there be different ways to encode memes, or the information carried by them? In other words, are memes and/or memetic structures able to encoded via different methods and still retain their "integrity" as memes?

Can a given meme be encoded in very different ways (with very different sets of "nucleobases" or "alphabets") and transmitted (or even stored) via and within different methods and media? Or do these things somehow also contribute to the integrity/consistency of the meme itself in some way, and how it is transmitted and evolves?

In one way, language can be seen as serving as the 'code' for this, however, language itself can be considered as a meme as well. So, to me, what this implies are 'levels' of encoding at work here, levels "below" language. So, while we can point to language as a means of encoding (some subset of, or some types of?) memes at one level, there has to be something more fundamental that underpins the language meme. Also, there are clearly some memes that do appear to be "language specific/dependent", while others seem to be free of this dependency, with language serving mainly as a convenient vehicle to more easily describe/transmit/store them. So then - do memes and genes exist in some way separately from the 'language' that describes them and the media that stores them and through which they propagate? Or is that where we begin to 'reach' a bit?

In what "space" do memes exist? Is it so that we cannot really "see" them; we can only see their expression or some 'representation' of them? Or are these "expressions" and "representations" actually in some way copies (or replications) of the meme itself?

Now, don't misunderstand me here; I'm quite capable of accepting and grokking memes as mental abstrations. In fact, in many ways I prefer to. But let's take an example. Let's take a tune, for example...

I select for this example the tune "Battle Hymn of the Republic" as an example of a successful meme. It's existed for a long time, and has a powerful effect on those who hear it, but with the nature and degree of the effect varying based on the context it's 'experienced' in and the person it's being experienced by. As a work of music, it's encoded both in musical notation and human language (lyrics). However, it's percieved by a person as sounds - music and voices (language) which are then stored in the brain. Anyone who's heard a good rendition of the tune (let's say, by Jim Nabors, for example), can attest that it has a powerful emotional effect on a person - even if you're not particularly religious. The tune's construction, musically and emotionally, hits a person at several levels...


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These are, for me, interesting questions - and it's not just the obvious answers to some of them that makes them interesting, but the fact that it seems these ARE 'valid' questions and they DO seem to have answers - and are interesting to think about.