What's the basic idea of memetics?
- That culture evolves and exhibits Darwinian dynamics - including adaptation, drift, mutation and recombination.
What is a meme?
- Memes are small sections of heritable cultural information. They represent the heritable basis of culture in the same way that genes represent the heritable basis of organic evolution.
In what respects are memes like genes?
- Genes convey organic inheritance, memes convey cultural inheritance. Memetics is the cultural version of genetics. Memes exhibits memetic drift, memetic hitchhiking, memetic linkage, memetic mutation, memetic variation, memetic load, and memetic cumulative adaptation - which all correspond to their genetic counterparts. There is meme flow, the concept of a meme pool, meme therapy, memeaology and phylomemetics. Memes are subject to selection and their frequencies can be tracked by population memetics. Just as the concept of a gene's eye view is useful, so there is the concept of a meme's eye view.
  Genes and memes may not necessarily be similar to genes in other respects.
In what respects are memes different from genes?
- DNA genes are made from nucleic acids. They are arranged in one-dimensional strings. They are usually copied with high fidelity. The environment where they mutate and recombine is usually the inside of a cell.
  By contrast memes can be represented in any medium, are only sometimes copied with high fidelity, and the environment in which they mutate and recombine is often the human mind.
Are memes "mind viruses"?
- Memes are the cultural equivalent of genes. Just as genes are usually part of organic creatures, so memes are usually part of cultural creatures - and some memes are the genes of cultural viruses. Those are creatures that reproduce quickly, spread from host to host and are usually deleterious to the host's reproductive output. Most viruses are deleterious to their hosts - whereas by contrast, many memes are beneficial. Many memes are more like beneficial symbionts than they are like parasites. The implication of deleterious effects on the host makes 'mind virus' a rather inappropriate synonym for memes in general - but it fairly appropriate for deleterious agents.
How big are memes?
- Memes vary in size. Since memes and memeplexes are what population memetics studies, this effectively rules out things that are very small - simply because practically nobody is interested in their frequency, and some very large things - which are unique.
What is a memeplex?
- That term refers to a collection of memes.
How can you tell whether something is a meme or a memeplex?
- Those are similar concepts, but there are some rules of thumb for dealing with that issue:
  - If some piece of culture has many copies, but its components are independently copied infrequently then it's usually referred to as being meme - rather than a memeplex.
  - If some piece of culture is composed of pieces which are frequently copied around independently of one another - then it's usually referred to as being memeplex - rather than a meme.
Are memes "discrete" or "particulate"?
- Memeplexes can be divided into pieces during transmission - and these then have their own paths to immortality or oblivion. Population memetics requires that memes have frequencies, which requires their boundaries to be defined clearly. Some memes may have natural points of division - rather like a bar of chocolate. However, memes are not required to particulate in other ways.
Can memes overlap with other memes?
- Yes.
Can you have a meme within a meme?
- Yes - though that sometimes makes the larger meme into a memeplex.
Are memes "digital"?
- Not necessarily: analogue genes are just fine - though of course the cumulative effects of noise mean that these are typically less likely to actively support cumulative adaptive evolution.
Is there a memetic code?
- Yes - there are many very different memetic codes - whereas there are only a handful of known genetic codes. The known genetic codes are all closely related - whereas the known memetic codes are not. If you consider a memetic code to be a means of translating between memes and their closest phemes, the most important memetic code translates between memories and actions. However, there are also other memetic codes - since computer programs are also inherited and have their own forms of meme expression.
Does adaptive evolution require high fidelity copying?
- No. That adaptive evolution does not require high fidelity copying is a result from information theory. Shannon's "Noisy-channel coding theorem" (1948) showed that for any given degree of noise contamination of a communication channel, arbitrarily-low error rates were attainable when using it. This was expanded on in the paper "Probabilistic logic and the synthesis of reliable organisms from unreliable components." - from Von Neumann (1952). Shannon and Von Neumann essentially showed how low-fidelity copying could be compensated for by error correction. However, in the absence of high fidelity copying, many types of system with inadequate error correction are likely to exhibit an error catastrophe.

Memetics controversies

Do memotypes have phenotypes?
- Some have claimed that memes lack phenotypes (e.g. Keith Stanovich here). There are meme products, though. For instance a recipe is composed of memes, (which can be copied) - however it produces a cake (which is eaten, not copied). The recipe is composed of memes, the cake is composed of meme products. Sometimes there are "naked memes" whose memotype does double-duty as phemotype. However, there are similar "naked genes" in the organic world as well - for example, prions.
Does memetic evolution exhibit Lamarckian inheritance?
- That is a complicated and controversial question. Naively, it appears to exhibit it, as Maynard-Smith, S. J. Gould and others have claimed. However, Geoffrey Hodgson, David Hull, John Wilkins and others have offered a spirited refutation, showing how the naive interpretation is simple minded. However, they mostly fail to recognise the occasions when genuine Lamarckian inheritance arises. So: cultural inheritance is mostly Weismannian, but occasionally Lamarckian.
What are "internalism" and "externalism"?
- Internalism is the idea that memes are some kind of pattern inside brains. Externalism is the idea that memes consist of heritable information, which can be represented in any medium.
Is "internalism" or "externalism" better?
- The main claimed benefits of internalism are that it results in a unique memetic substrate, something like a unique memetic code and it features a clean division between genotype and phenotype. However, internalism suffers from many problems. In particular computers do a lot of copying these days. Audio files spread contagiously through peer-to-peer networks today, but most of the information that is inherited when they are copied never gets into brains. Instead, brains receive a pale shadow of the information that is actually copied. The copying process is performed by machines, although it is usually still triggered by humans. Expanding internalism to include computers (as well as brains) would negate most of its claimed benefits. Internalism also features a curious stage in which genotypes are recreated from phenotypes - and it features ubiquitous Lamarckian inheritance - none of which looks very much like organic genetics. An externalist perspective arises naturally from an information-theory perspective on memetics. It restores germ-line continuity, makes inheritance mostly Weismannian, and makes the link between memetics and genetics deeper and more obvious. So: externalism is better.
  For more on this issue, see here.
Do genes hold memes on a leash?
- This question is based on Lumsden and Wilson's "leash" metaphor. They claimed that "the genes hold culture on a leash". The idea being that DNA-genes constrain cultural variation so it acts in the general direction of the interests of the DNA-genes. The idea of a leash has proved to be a fertile one. The memes are clearly in charge, dragging genes along behind them. Also, the leash is highly-elastic - so the memes have considerable scope to roam. Lastly, it seems possible that one day the leash will completely break - and the memes will leave their old masters behind.
Are mutations blind?
- It is commonly-claimed that mutations in the organic realm are "blind" - whereas those in the cultural realm are "directed". Mutations performed in minds can certainly be smarter than those performed inside cells. So, "blind" seems to be an inappropriate term for cultural mutations.
  Donald Campbell - one of the modern fathers of the field - promoted an idea which he called "Blind Variation and Selective Retention" - which was powerful and poetic. It put "blind" variation at the heart of evolution. Campbell's idea was insightful, powerful and is under-appreciated. However, it employs a curious technical sense of blindness - and so seems to be prone to mislead.
Are mutations random?
- It is sometimes claimed that mutations in the organic realm are "random" - whereas those in the cultural realm are not. When pressed, defenders of this idea say they do not mean literally random, but rather: not biased in the direction of being adaptive. For example, see here. Such claims are almost certainly either wrong or misleading in most cases. Eucaryotic cells, for example have error correction machinery. Error correction is typically applied with zeal that varies according to whether genes are expressed or not - and coding genes generally receive greater correction than non-coding regions. This lowers the average harm done by real mutations. Of course mutations are still deleterious on average - but they are less deleterious than genuinely-random mutations would be. The idea that mutations are random - or even that they are not biased in the direction of being adaptive - makes little sense in organic or cultural evolution. Mutations do not take place at random.
Do memes really replicate?
- The term "replication" was introduced into evolutionary biology by Richard Dawkins. In 1982, he defined it as referring to "anything in the universe of which copies are made". This makes "replicators" into a suitable concept to act as a foundation of evolutionary theory - since all heredity depends on copying. However, conventionally the word "replication" has strong connotations of high fidelity copying. This appears to have caused endless confusion for those who do not bear in mind the difference between the dictionary and what Dawkins said. Since it has caused so many misunderstandings, memeticsts should probably taboo the "replication" terminology - or at least be sure to make absolutely clear what is meant by it whenever it is used.
Is imitation required for memetic transmission?
- No: there are also other ways of transmitting culturally-inherited traits besides behavioural imitation. Susan Blackmore favours a definition of memes based on imitation - but that prevents memetics being a complete theory of cultural transmission. Since non-imitative cultural transmission obeys much the same rules as imitative cultural transmission, science really doesn't seem to need such a division into two similar fields. Any idea that the ability to support memes is what makes humans unique should be ditched: animals have memes too, just not so many of them.
Is all cultural transmission mediated by memes?
- Yes.
Do memes have sex?
- Some memes reproduce asexually. Other memes recombine in a broadly similar manner to the way in which genes recombine. Most would normally say that they had sex - but this depends on exactly what the term sex is defined to mean. Some people deny that memes have sex - for example, Dawkins claims: 'memes don't have chromosomes, alleles or sexual recombination' in The God Delusion.
Are memes alive?
- Memes are alive to about the extent that genes are alive. Genes are certainly components of living systems. It is much the same with memes.

Science and memetics

Is there a science of memetics?
- No. There is, however, a fledgling science of cultural evolution, which is extremely similar in many respects.
What is the relationship between memetics and cultural evolution in academia?
- These approaches arose in parallel and have not interacted very much. They cover the same subject matter and have reached similar conclusions. However, the few interactions that have taken place have mostly been hostile - perhaps a result of competition for the same niche. Some of the cultural evolution researchers have claimed memetics is inaccurate. To memeticists, these claims usually seem to be based on dubious straw-man attacks - and a failure to find a sympathetic interpretation. To memeticists, many of the the cultural evolution researchers seem to not properly "get" the subject - often by failing to appreciate the depth of the parallels between cultural and organic evolution. Memetics has better terminology and visibility, while cultural evolution has better scientific pedigree.
  The paper "Mathematical Models for Memetics" by Kendal and Laland (2000) goes into the relationship.
What are the advantages of memetics over academic cultural evolution?
- Memetics typically uses the relationship between genes and memes more than cultural evolution theorists do. That has value and is a net positive - though it can also cause confusion. This allows memetics to use concepts such as the meme's eye view and memetic hitchhiking - which most cultural evolution theorists have yet to get to grips with. Memetics has neat terminology. Memetics uses symbiosis-based models - while cultural evolution theorists typically use models based on cultural extensions of the genotype - an 'extended genotype' - and mention symbiosis only rather rarely. Memetics has explored some areas which cultural evolution researchers have not.
What are the advantages of cultural evolution over memetics?
- Cultural evolution has a better standing within academia, and has a lot more scientific papers, models and experiments on its side. It has explored some areas which memetics researchers have not.
What is the problem with modelling culture as an extended genotype?
- Cultural creatures have lives outside their host humans. For example, CDs get broken, books get burned, hard drives crash and are copied. Much culture these days spends a significant fraction of its lifecycle being filtered and copied inside computers. This means that models of symbiosis are a more natural fit than "extended genotype" models. Attempting to include the rest of the lifecycle of the cultural creatures as micro-evolutionary transmission processes between hosts quickly becomes complicated and unwieldy.
Do academic researchers understand that they are using dubious models?
- One possible explanation for some of the models used by academic cultural evolution researchers is that these models are simplified to make them tractable. Modelling culture as an extended genotype can sometimes seem easier than modelling it as a symbiotic relationship. Some of the cultural evolution researchers do sometimes talk about 'cultural organisms' though. Symbiosis and parasitism also get occasional mentions - though usually as an "analogy". However other cultural evolution researchers say things like 'culture is part of human biology' - which seems more like the extended genotype perspective. Plus, some researchers have been known to explicitly defend their models against ones based on independent lifecycles. Overall, it does appear as though many of these researchers have been seduced by their own models.
Are memetics and academic cultural evolution ever going to resolve their differences?
- That is a difficult question. Academic cultural evolution theorists seem determined to discredit memetics as an inaccurate theory. However, there isn't really anything wrong with memetics - and their criticisms of memetics are not significant, since they attack a version of memetics with few real supporters. In turn, memetics students are evidently not too impressed with many of the efforts in academia so far. Though they at least agree that culture evolves, many of the researchers just don't seem to properly understand how culture evolves. Memetics appears to have much to offer to academic students of cultural evolution.

The history of memes

Who coined the term "meme"?
- Richard Dawkins coined the term in 1976.
Who coined the term "memetics"?
- Arel Lucas.
When was the concept of memes invented?
- In the 1976 book by Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene. However the very similar concept of 'mneme' dates back to a book by Richard Wolfgang Semon (1921) 'The Mneme'.
How old is the idea?
- It goes back to before Darwin. The basics of cultural evolution in the context of language evolution were understood before organic evolution was proposed.
Did Darwin understand the idea?
- Yes a number of quotes from Darwin (1959 and 1871) illustrate that he understood the basic concepts of cultural evolution. Darwin referenced the evolution of languages in The Origin of Species - using cultural evolution as a metaphor to explain the more controversial idea of organic evolution.

Criticisms

What is the most common criticism of memetics from academics who work on Darwinian culture?
- They frequently claim that memetics only deals with discrete particles which are transmitted with high fidelity.
Are memes discrete particles which are transmitted with high fidelity?
- Not necessarily. Probably the easiest way to verify this is to check with the definition of 'meme' in a dictionary - where no mention of 'discreteness' or 'high fidelity transmission' will be found. As with genes, memes can be exposed to any mutation rate their environment generates. High-fidelity transmission is common and useful, but it is not required. Adaptive evolution requires high fidelity information transmission - so that some signals from ancestors reach descendants more-or-less intact - but that is a bit different.
  As for 'discreteness', memetic transmission is about as discrete as genetic transmission is. Just like genes in sexual organisms, memes can be divided into discrete pieces with different paths into the future at practically any point. What many of those complaining about discreteness often appear to be thinking about is the start and stop codons found in genes. Some types of meme have equivalents to these (e.g. capital letters and full stops) while other types don't. This doesn't have terribly much to do with memetics itself, though - and is more to do with how memes are expressed.
Why are there so few criticisms of memetics in this FAQ?
- That is because there's a whole separate page devoted to criticisms of memetics.

Animal memes

Do animals have memes?
- Yes.
Which animals have memes?
- There's quite a long list of animals that have been shown to exhibit cultural transmission: apes, monkeys, cetaceans, songbirds, rats, meerkats, guppies. Also some invertebrates, such as ants.
What is special about humans, then?
- Humans have cumulative cultural transmission and oppsoable thumbs.
Why does human culture accumulate?
- Humans exceeded some threshold of brain size, population density and tool use that allowed the process to start to snowball.
Is cetacean culture more sophisticated than human culture?
- Maybe - but cetaceans can't use very many tools - so their culture is still confined to their brains.
Why doesn't chimpanzee culture accumulate?
- Probably because their brains are too small and they are still not sociable enough. For whatever reason, they have yet to reach the Chimpanzee equivalent of the stone age - which was when human culture really began to take off.

Memetics people

Who are the proponents of memetics?
- Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Susan Blackmore, Douglas Hofstadter and David Deutsch are a few of them.
Who are the critics of memetics?
- Peter Richerson, Paul Ehrlich, Marcus Feldman, Robert Boyd, Richard Lewontin, Martin Gardner, J. Maynard-Smith, Steven J. Gould, Steven Pinker, Michael Ruse, Dan Sperber, Francisco Gil-White, Jaron Lanier, Massimo Pigliucci, Alister McGrath, Mary Midgley, Richard Barbrook, Maurice Bloch, Andrew Brown, Jonathan Marks, Kim Sterelny, Maria Kronfeldner, William Wimsatt, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb are some of them.

Miscellaneous

What are the applications of memetics?
- Memetics studies human culture from a scientific perspective. It has a range of applications - which include the fields of: marketing, advertising, entertainment, education, self-defense, self-development, propaganda, indoctrination, manipulation, news, politics, the law, morality and religion.
Is memetics the same as social Darwinism?
- Not exactly. "Social Darwinism" refers to the evolution of societies - which contain both genetic and memetic variation. Memetics is concerned more directly with cultural variation.
  Also, "Social Darwinism" is a term which is often used by critics to refer to social policies based on the idea of survival of the fittest - such as capitalism and imperialism. Memetics is not particularly policy oriented - it seeks to understand first. So far it has mostly avoided being associated with politically-undesirable forces.
What is memetic engineering?
- That term refers to the process of deliberately developing or modifying memes, usually with the intent of altering the behaviour of others. Wikipedia has a page on the topic.
Are memes good for you?
- That depends on the memes under discussion. Some memes are advantageous, some are deleterious.
Do memes represent a net benefit to humans?
- Apparently so - at least among our ancestors. Humans have what appear to be meme-supporting adaptations - though they also have a memetic immune system. On average memes are probably beneficial.
Is memetic evolution faster than genetic evolution?
- It is much faster than human genetic evolution. However, some (e.g. David Hull) point out that measurements of the rate of memetic evolution should compare with other entities with similar generation times. In which case, the most appropriate point of comparison for memes is then bacteria or viruses. Compared to them, memetic evolution rates seem more comparable to genetic evolution. Perhaps there will some advantages that arise out of directed mutations and intelligent design - though many of those could be attributed to even faster selective copying processes within minds.
Is intelligent design really an evolutionary mutational mechanism?
- Yes - though of course intelligent mutations arise out of ordinary physical and chemical processes within brains - so intelligently-designed variants that arise within brains still have a clear mechanistic origin.

Memetics resources

What books dealing with memetics are there?
- Books on memetics include:
  - Dawkins, Richard (1976) The Selfish Gene.
  - Tyler, Tim (2011) Memetics.
  - Blackmore, Sue (1999) The Meme Machine.
  - Aunger, Robert (2001) Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science.
  - Aunger, Robert (2002) The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think.
  - Brodie, Richard (1995) Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme.
  - Dennett, Daniel C. (1991) Consciousness Explained.
  - Dennett, Daniel C. (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
  For more see Memes on the Memetics Book page and Books in the Memetics References.
What papers have been written on the topic of memetics?
- For many of those see "meme" in the Memetics References.
Are there any memetics journals?
- No, although there used to be the Journal of Memetics. It closed in 2005.
  For current developments in the area, some journals which publish related material are listed here.
Who researches memes these days?
- There is also a list of publications by individual researchers working on memetics or related fields here.
What does all the memetics jargon mean?
- There's a glossary which should help to explain a lot of it.
Are there internet links on the topic of memetics?
- Of course - there are quite a few links here.

Sections

Questions

The nature of memes

Memetics controversies

Science and memetics

The history of memes

Criticisms

Animal memes

Memetics people

Miscellaneous

Memetics resources

Questions and answers

The nature of memes

What's the basic idea of memetics?

What is a meme?

In what respects are memes like genes?

In what respects are memes different from genes?

Are memes "mind viruses"?

How big are memes?

What is a memeplex?

How can you tell whether something is a meme or a memeplex?

Are memes "discrete" or "particulate"?

Can memes overlap with other memes?

Can you have a meme within a meme?

Are memes "digital"?

Is there a memetic code?

Does adaptive evolution require high fidelity copying?

Memetics controversies

Do memotypes have phenotypes?

Does memetic evolution exhibit Lamarckian inheritance?

What are "internalism" and "externalism"?

Is "internalism" or "externalism" better?

Do genes hold memes on a leash?

Are mutations blind?

Are mutations random?

Do memes really replicate?

Is imitation required for memetic transmission?

Is all cultural transmission mediated by memes?

Do memes have sex?

Are memes alive?

Science and memetics

Is there a science of memetics?

What is the relationship between memetics and cultural evolution in academia?

What are the advantages of memetics over academic cultural evolution?

What are the advantages of cultural evolution over memetics?

What is the problem with modelling culture as an extended genotype?

Do academic researchers understand that they are using dubious models?

Are memetics and academic cultural evolution ever going to resolve their differences?

The history of memes

Who coined the term "meme"?

Who coined the term "memetics"?

When was the concept of memes invented?

How old is the idea?

Did Darwin understand the idea?

Criticisms

What is the most common criticism of memetics from academics who work on Darwinian culture?

Are memes discrete particles which are transmitted with high fidelity?

Why are there so few criticisms of memetics in this FAQ?

Animal memes

Do animals have memes?

Which animals have memes?

What is special about humans, then?

Why does human culture accumulate?

Is cetacean culture more sophisticated than human culture?

Why doesn't chimpanzee culture accumulate?

Memetics people

Who are the proponents of memetics?

Who are the critics of memetics?

Miscellaneous

What are the applications of memetics?

Is memetics the same as social Darwinism?

What is memetic engineering?

Are memes good for you?

Do memes represent a net benefit to humans?

Is memetic evolution faster than genetic evolution?

Is intelligent design really an evolutionary mutational mechanism?

Memetics resources

What books dealing with memetics are there?

What papers have been written on the topic of memetics?

Are there any memetics journals?