memetics

Intelligence is ongoing, individual adaptability. Adaptations that an intelligent species may make in a single generation, other species make over many generations of selective breeding and selective dying.

Humans are often credited with having real foresight, in distinction to the rest of biology which does not. For example, Dawkins compares the 'blind watchmaker' of natural selection with the real human one. 'A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future purpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection . . . has no purpose in mind'.I think this distinction is wrong. There is no denying that the human watchmaker is different from the natural one. We humans, by virtue of having memes, can think about cogs, and wheels, and keeping time, in a way that animals cannot. Memes are the mind tools with which we do it. But what memetics shows us is that the processes underlying the two kinds of design are essentially the same. They are both evolutionary processes that give rise to design through selection, and in the process they produce what looks like foresight.

An idea: a theory or an equation, might sit around unnoticed for decades, centuries, even, before it's rediscovered and put to some use. That's how it works: it makes connections with other ideas, other knowledge, gathering momentum all the time, growing exponentially if it's strong enough. Just like it would connect and grow within the billions of neurons in a single mind.

_а__мо__им п_ед__авление о _оге. __ не знаем, как оно возникло в мимо_онде. _озможно, оно возникало многок_а_но п__ем незави_им__ «м__а_ий». _о в__ком _л__ае __о о_ен_ __а_а_ иде_. _ак она _епли_и__е___? С помо___ ___ного и пи__менного _лова, подк_епл_емого великой м_з_кой и изоб_ази_ел_н_м и_к____вом. _о_ем_ __а иде_ обладае_ _акой в__окой в_живаемо____? _апомним, __о в данном _л__ае «в_живаемо___» озна_ае_ не в_живание гена в гено_онде, а в_живание мима в мимо_онде. _а _амом деле воп_о_ _о__ои_ в _лед___ем: в _ем _а «о_обо___» идеи о _оге, ко_о_а_ п_идае_ ей _ак__ __абил_но___ и _по_обно___ п_оника__ в к_л____н__ __ед_? __живаемо___ _о_о_его мима, в_од__его в мимо_онд, об__ловливае___ его бол__ой п_и_ологи_е_кой п_ивлека_ел_но____. _де_ _ога дае_ на пе_в_й взгл_д п_иемлем_й о_ве_ на гл_бокие и волн___ие воп_о__ о _м__ле ___е__вовани_. _на позвол_е_ наде_____, __о не_п_аведливо___ на __ом _ве_е може_ б___ вознаг_аждена на _ом _ве_е. «__егда п_о__н___е __ки», го_ов_е подде_жа__ на_ в мин___ на_ей _лабо__и, ко_о__е, подобно пла_ебо, о_н_д_ не _е____ _воей дей__венно__и, _о__ и ___е__в___ ли__ в на_ем вооб_ажении. _о_ неко_о__е из п_и_ин, по ко_о__м иде_ _ога _ _акой го_овно____ копи__е___ по_ледова_ел_н_ми поколени_ми индивид_ал_н__ мозгов. _ог ___е__в_е_, п____ ли__ в _о_ме мима _ в__окой в_живаемо____ или ин_ек_ионно____, в __еде, _оздаваемой _елове_е_кой к_л____ой.

If we take memetics seriously then the 'me' that could do the choosing is itself a memetic construct: a fluid and ever-changing group of memes installed in a complicated meme machine.

But if it is true that human minds are themselves to a very great degree the creations of memes, then we cannot sustain the polarity of vision we considered earlier; it cannot be "memes versus us," because earlier infestations of memes have already played a major role in determining who or what we are. The "independent" mind struggling to protect itself from alien and dangerous memes is a myth. There is a persisting tension between the biological imperative of our genes on the one hand and the cultural imperatives of our memes on the other, but we would be foolish to "side with" our genes; that would be to commit the most egregious error of pop sociobiology. Besides, as we have already noted, what makes us special is that we, alone among species, can rise above the imperatives of our genes_ thanks to the lifting cranes of our memes.

[W]e may now be on the threshold of a new kind of genetic takeover. DNA replicators built 'survival machines' for themselves _ the bodies of living organisms including ourselves. As part of their equipment, bodies evolved onboard computers _ brains. Brains evolved the capacity to communicate with other brains by means of language and cultural traditions. But the new milieu of cultural tradition opens up new possibilities for self-replicating entities. The new replicators are not DNA and they are not 158 The Blind Watchmaker clay crystals. They are patterns of information that can thrive only in brains or the artificially manufactured products of brains _ books, computers, and so on. But, given that brains, books and computers exist, these new replicators, which I called memes to distinguish them from genes, can propagate themselves from brain to brain, from brain to book, from book to brain, from brain to computer, from computer to computer.

[W]e may now be on the threshold of a new kind of genetic takeover. DNA replicators built 'survival machines' for themselves _ the bodies of living organisms including ourselves. As part of their equipment, bodies evolved onboard computers _ brains. Brains evolved the capacity to communicate with other brains by means of language and cultural traditions. But the new milieu of cultural tradition opens up new possibilities for self-replicating entities. The new replicators are not DNA and they are not clay crystals. They are patterns of information that can thrive only in brains or the artificially manufactured products of brains _ books, computers, and so on. But, given that brains, books and computers exist, these new replicators, which I called memes to distinguish them from genes, can propagate themselves from brain to brain, from brain to book, from book to brain, from brain to computer, from computer to computer.

I am an enthusiastic Darwinian, but I think Darwinism is too big a theory to be confined to the narrow context of the gene.