Memes definitions
Richard Dawkins first coined memes in his
book the Selfish Gene, meme suggestive of “m” for memory or imitation and “eme”
for gene, for the basic unit of hereditary information or replication involved
in cultural as opposed to biological evolution. His original explanation
has been fine tuned by many people afterwards, to illustrate hereby an overview
of different definitions.
Richard Dawkins: The
meme is "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation”, examples
of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots
or of building arches and jumps from “brain to brain via a process which, in
the broad sense, can be called imitation” (Dawkins
1976). Dawkins also referred to
the meme being a “virus” of the mind: When you plant a fertile meme in my mind,
you literally parasite my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s
propagation in just the same way that a virus may parasitize the genetic
mechanism of a host cell (Dawkins
2006).
Susan Blackmore: “The whole idea of a meme is that it's information that is copied with
variation and selection. So any idea that is copied from person to person is a
meme. But an idea that you think up for yourself and is not expressed is not a
meme. The emphasis has to be on copying, because that's what makes evolution
possible” (Blackmore
2008).
Daniel Dennett
(cognitive scientist and philosopher): Cognitive
definition of the Meme: A meme is an
idea, the kind of complex that forms itself into a distinct memorable unit.
It is spread by vehicles that are physical manifestations of the meme (Brodie
1996).
Richard Brodie: A meme is a unit of information in a mind
whose existence influences events such that more copies of itself get created
in other minds. Richard Brodie also
makes it clear that “vehicles” are an important element in spreading memes,
those “vehicles” being the brain. A successful meme is an idea or belief that spreads
easily throughout the population and the most interesting thing about memes is
not whether they are true or false; it is that they are the building blocks of
your mind (Brodie
1996).
Robert Aunger: Memes are ideas that collect people like
trophies, infecting their brains as “mind viruses”. Maybe what we think
hasn’t so much to do with our own free will as with the ongoing activity of
something like “thought genes” operating inside our heads (Aunger
2002).
The memes in the
definition of Henry Plotkin; “A meme is the unit of cultural heredity analogous
to the gene. It is the internal representation of knowledge that does not live
in the external trappings of culture, but in the mind”. Bridge-building methods
evolve because of memes. An engineer might be programmed with memes such as
Suspension bridges are the most efficient for this kind of job; Engineers who
do a good job get their bosses approval; and Getting the approval of my boss is
important. Without any of these three, the engineer might not build a
suspension bridge. All three memes acting together cause something to be built
out in the world. Of course, the engineer works with other engineers,
construction workers, teamsters, and so on, all behaving as directed by their
memes (Brodie
1996).
Concluding you could say that a meme is an
idea which is present in our brain, with the intention to spread to other
people, via any possible communication; the written word (offline and online),
verbally and even non-verbally (sign language).
Memes want to be spread because it is key for their survival. It is
perhaps the question if you could really say: “be spread”, because this does
imply that a vehicle – in this case the human being – has to ensure the
spreading of the particular meme. Or could it be said that memes within a
person ensure themselves that they are being spread, by “controlling” the
brain. Some researchers even say that these combinations of memes make “us”,
however this is a discussion to be looked at in a later stadium.
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