Meme

A meme means a single content of consciousness (eg, a thought ), which can be passed through communication and duplicated it. This contributes to the socio-cultural evolution. This process is analogous to the theory of Lamarckism, to the effect that acquired characteristics can be passed on to offspring. In contrast, physical properties of individuals will be transmitted by propagation or inheritance by genes; This contributes to the biological evolution.

In both cases, changes are possible in the disclosure and the influence of the environment can cause an enhancement or suppression of further spread. According Csíkszentmihályi a meme is born, " if the human nervous system reacts to an experience ."

The English term meme was introduced in 1976 by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins; He cited the examples: " ideas, beliefs, patterns of behavior ". With this cultural equivalent of the biological gene ( gene english ) he illustrated the principle of natural selection, the basic unit are replicators of information. The term meme he described as self-chosen art word μίμημα to the Greek term, Mimema ( " something Imitation " ) appeals.

Derived from the principle of disclosure is called memetics. The meme is reflected in the " Memvorlage " ( in the brain or other storage media ) and the " Memausführung " (eg communication). The networking of mutually conditional memes of Dawkins was initially as " koadaptiver meme complex" ( " coadapted meme complex" ) refers to what has been contracted to the portmanteau Memplex later.

• 4.1 analogy to the evolutionary mechanism
• 4.2 insights and empirical foundation

Etymology

The word meme is a portmanteau. It is modeled after the English word etymologically gene ( gene) and has several other references:

• The Greek μιμεῖσθαι ( mimic ) mimeisthai and μῖμος mimos ( mime, actor)
• The French même (equal)
• The Latin memor ( remembering, remembering )
• Mime to the English ( mime ) and memory ( memory, memory )

The terms " Memvorlage " and " Memausführung " are often referred to by analogy with the pair of terms " genotype " and " phenotype " of genetics as " memo type " and " Phämotyp ". Example: A score ( memo type ) is used to make music reproducible. The actual sounding music in the concert hall is in accordance with the so-called Phämotyp.

History of Theory

Dawkins attacked by his own admission back to the 1975 theses expressed by the American anthropologist FT Cloak of the existence of " Corpuscles of Culture", by Kulturkörperchen at the neuronal level, as the basis of cultural evolution. Dawkins does not distinguish whether an information is located on a stretch of DNA is stored as a thought in the brain, were printed in a book as a set or as a spoken word of one person to go. Information multiply by Dawkins, whether as a gene by cell division and the consequent replication of the DNA strand or by means of communication at the Mem The transfer of the meme through communication is not a copy ( "blueprint" ) of a thought from brain to to understand the brain, but - by the essential core of the message is recorded and passed on - more like a " baking recipe " for the reproduction of the same idea. Description Models of thoughts memes are subject to very similar principles as that of evolution in biology. Dawkins speaks in this context of " Universal Darwinism ".

Meme as replicator of cultural evolution have a limited analogy to other replicators. In addition to the genes mentioned by Dawkins also viruses, computer viruses or prions. In analogy to processes of cultural replication - as in the theory of evolution - also explained by variation and selection. According to the imperfect replication would lead to different reproductive success of different replicators. As with other replicators in the formation of collective- autocatalytic associations of memes.

The philosopher Daniel Dennett supported the concept of memetics in his book Darwin 's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. As an independent, but spiritually related theory, formulated in 1970 by Otto Koenig Kulturethologie may be referred to. She also deals with the evolution of culture, but not pulling for the construct of the meme approach, but is purely descriptive.

From 1997 to 2005 there was a periodical the Journal of Memetics. Since 2009 the three -monthly journal Memetic Computing.

Application

Natural sciences

Through the membrane hypothesis, some aspects of the evolution of bird dialects can be explained. It is variously also tried to brighten with approaches of memetics complex social phenomena such as language change or the spread of various missionary religions and cults. Furthermore, the representatives of this hypothesis show koevolutive correspondence between genetic and " memetic " evolution (brain development) to.

Religion

To illustrate the concept, Dawkins calls the monotheistic commitment to a God a successful cultural replicator ( eg, measured at its distribution ), while, for example, the belief in the effect of rain dances could not enforce global, sometime even a cultural elite fell victim and now leads a niche. In this case, the meme can " only one God ", are seen as part of an extremely large autocatalytic association, religion.

Sociology

According to Susan Blackmore, the essence of each is the Memplexes that memes replicate better in their interior as part of the group found to be on their own. As an example of a Memplex she cites the example of a chain letter, which typically includes the following ideas:

• Any false or meaningless information,
• Alleged evidence of the seriousness of the information source,
• The assertion that the information for the receiver was important
• The assertion that the information for other people is important,
• The challenge is to continue to send the letter to these people.

On their own, each of these memes relatively poor chances would have to spread within a society. However, as a group, they are often capable of a certain number of people to convince them of the importance of their distribution.

Criticism

Analogy to the evolutionary mechanism

With its analogous application of the evolutionary mechanism to intellectual and cultural processes requires the Memtheorie that memes in a manner comparable genes are discrete units that can be differentiated clearly from other memes; otherwise the unit of selection could not be determined. This is however disputed by cultural scientists and psychologists. Furthermore, Dawkins sets model of cultural evolution has a relatively high copying fidelity advance by errors and inaccuracies resulting only in exceptional cases to mutations. Unlike the high constancy of cultural representations can not be explained by the Memtheorie. The acquisition of cultural representations by individuals only occurs in rare borderline cases without a transformation. An empirical investigation of Scott Atran has shown that normal students grasp the metaphorical meaning as in the reproduction of proverbs and these mutatis mutandis play, whereas autistic people only refer to the literal meaning and most likely " copying " deal with linguistic expressions. Partly because of this weak scientific foundation, the Memtheorie in the social sciences has been unable to enforce, but has been especially rezipiert wide of the public.

Insights and empirical foundation

It is unclear what insights could be found in biological evolutionary theory for research in the humanities, social and cultural studies from the bonds of Memkonzepts. According to the psychologist Gustav Jahoda 's view, the compelling elements of Blackmores Memtheorie in the 19th century, the newer elements So were known, but " speculative and highly questionable ". Is charged with the membrane hypothesis of the claim to analyze social and cultural development in a manner consistent with the scientific understanding of reality, so memetics must show that they can reach different, broader and more resilient -looking statements as the social, Culture and Humanities conventional type if meme is, however, a naturalizing neologism for ideas or thoughts that must be used Occam's razor: entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.

Unlike in the dispute over the biological theory of evolution critics of Memtheorie can point out that it is the existence of memes and their replication mechanisms - unlike for genes - so far no empirical evidence. Even those who considered the Memtheorie as plausible, must therefore ask for empirical evidence.

It has also been criticized for not memetics is a materialist ontology in line: " The followers of memetics promise from her approach, a selection- theoretical explanation of the transfer and spread of ideas. However, memetics is for a conceptually so unclear that it borders on absurdity, on the other hand, it ignores virtually all psychological and social science research on human communication (...). Idealistic Fantasies are not thus acceptable that they appear to contain biological evolution garb. "