Compos Mentis

The mean mnemonic meme machine

I began this line of thought at Pierre's blog, and I think you all know where that is, so I'm not putting the link here but you can get to it through the little underlined thing that says "forever gathering on yesterday" and clicking on "comments" after the "first post." Anyway, it sounded like there was some confusion about them so I thought I'd put up my thoughts.
I was reading (again) in Hopkins house, this time a book on cognitive psychology called The Meme Machine. The book was written by Susan Blackmore, in case you want to look for it, but the idea of memes that she considers was created by Richard Dawkins, the celebrated zoologist, in his book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins says that memes are human mental constructs that are repeated. They can be ideas, or songs, or pretty much anything that humans can copy from other humans. The idea of a really annoying jingle pops into my head right now. Blackmore says that the memes are the core of human thought. Most everything we consider or think other than the direct input we are getting from our senses has been something that has been given to us, and we are just copying that behavior. The behavior is the meme. On the other hand, Blackmore and Dawkins run into a tricky situation, though, because they can't really define memes, or at least not scientifically define them. What is the unit of a meme? Is language itself a meme, or only the individual letters and words? Is the song itself one meme, or several? Oftentimes we can recall only one short phrase of a song: look at Beethoven's fifth symphony.
Still, some of what they say regarding memes seems plausible. The idea that they come up with regarding memes is that they are replicators, like genes, and the rule of replicators is that the best ones survive, or more accurately, the ones that survive have traits that favor them in certain situations. In this case, we remember songs that are repetitive and simple, but we'll forget a meme like the essay I'm writing right now, which will fail as a meme because it won't be passed along.
Hopefully you guys get the idea. So what does the existence of memes mean? First of all, I am reminded of the postmodern movement in philosophy, which claims that language cannot be used to accurately describe reality, and so puts the whole history of philosophy in jeopardy. Memetics would show that science does not predict or map the physical world but is merely the strongest meme for its time in its idiom. I think Dawkins and Blackmore would agree with that statement. On the other hand, we are running into a logical paradox here. For the idea of memes to be true, it would have to exist outside the memes themselves. Memetics cannot be a meme otherwise it is becomes nonsensical. This logical contradiction is not necessary, however, if there are rules governing thought outside of memes.
One idea Blackmore repeats in her book is the insistent and constant use of language. People talk to each other all the time, and she says it makes no sense from a biological point of view. Talking wastes energy I could be using to eat or propagate. But memes would thrive in an environment that is all conversation, and, according to Blackmore, the ones that survive best are the ones that have some mechanism to ensure their replication. So when we talk, we know we are right (because the memes are set up so that they last longer with passionate carriers) and we often disregard logical methods of argumentation (because we don't remember those as well as we remember our schemas.) Memes even give us the sense of selfdom because a person would recall them better than a series of memories and sensations. Her evidence is strong and what we see seems to favor the existence of memes.
There are just two problems. One, we can create meanings that overcome (or undercut) our schemas and therefore the level of memetic thought. Logic may perhaps be a meme itself, but it creates ideas and knowledge that was not known before, and while those new ideas can also become memes, the system or principles governing it has to be outside the memes otherwise we have an infinite regression of memes that are not replicators. Second, the society she describes is only our society. Other cultures place much less emphasis on speaking than we do. Perhaps they have not created as many memes to reproduce. But why wouldn't they? They have as much experience as we do. Perhaps it is only in a culture where we spend so much time talking that the idea of memes can come up. Memes do exist, but they are not as overpowering as Ms. Blackmore claims.
The real weakness behind the idea of that memes are more powerful than free will is the idea that languistic and semiotic reality is superior to actual reality. The times I know I'm most alive is when I'm alone in nature and trying not to think about anything, but I remain deep in prayer. The second most is when I'm with another person, and we're not speaking or even really thinking, but we are communing and realizing more of ourselves through the other person. To Blackmore and Dawkins, such experiences would be lost as they reject the spirituality of the events. They cannot explain any real thing that happens to us that is not a meme or a physical experience. But such things exist, though I think that they can be denied by the people who feel them.
I hope I didn't confuse anyone. I'm afraid I was incoherent and disunified. Please ask if you need clarification and I'll try to do better. (I don't know why I put this, I know you guys will reply anyway but I just seem to have a hard time stopping my fingers from typing. Okay...gonna...click...publish...now!)

posted by Emmett @ 09:58