Definition of Meme

A meme (IPA: /mi:m/) is defined within memetic theory as a unit of
cultural information, cultural evolution or diffusion that propagates
from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene
propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic
information and of biological evolution. Multiple memes may propagate
as cooperative groups called memeplexes (meme complexes).

Biologist and evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins coined the term
meme in 1976. He gave as examples tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs,
clothing fashions, ways of making pots, and the technology of building
arches.

Meme theorists contend that memes evolve by natural selection
similarly to Charles Darwin's theory of biological evolution through
the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance
influencing an organism's reproductive success. So with memes, some
ideas will propagate less successfully and become extinct, while others
will survive, spread, and, for better or for worse, mutate. Memeticists
argue that the memes most beneficial to their hosts will not
necessarily survive; rather, those memes that replicate the most
effectively spread best, which allows for the possibility that
successful memes may prove detrimental to their hosts.

The idea of memes has proved a successful meme in its own right,
gaining a degree of penetration into popular culture rare for an
abstract scientific theory.

Richard Dawkins coined the term meme, which first came into popular
use with the publication of his book The Selfish Gene in 1976. Dawkins
based the word on a shortening of the Greek “mimeme” (something
imitated), making it sound similar to “gene”. The concept received
relatively little attention until the late 1980s, when several
academics took it up, notably the American philosopher and cognitive
scientist Daniel Dennett, who promoted the idea firstly in his book on
the philosophy of mind, Consciousness Explained (1991), and then in
Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995). Robert Anton Wilson also discussed the
concept in his writings.

Dawkins used the term to refer to any cultural entity (such as a
song, an idea or a religion) that an observer might consider a
replicator. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural
entities as replicators, generally replicating through exposure to
humans, who have evolved as efficient (though not perfect) copiers of
information and behaviour. Memes do not always get copied perfectly,
and might indeed become refined, combined or otherwise modified with
other ideas, resulting in new memes. These memes may themselves prove
more (or less) efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus
providing a framework for a theory of cultural evolution, analogous to
the theory of biological evolution based on genes.

Considerable controversy surrounds the word meme and its associated
discipline, memetics. In part this arises because a number of possible
(though not mutually exclusive) interpretations of the nature of the
concept have arisen:

1. The least controversial claim suggests that memes provide a
useful philosophical perspective with which to examine cultural
evolution. Proponents of this view argue that considering cultural
developments from a meme's eye view — as if memes, or the people who
carry them, acted to maximise their own replication and survival — can
lead to useful insights and yield valuable predictions into how culture
develops over time. Dawkins himself seems to have favoured this
approach.

2. Other theorists, such as Francis Heylighen, have focused on the
need to provide an empirical grounding for memetics in order for people
to regard it as a real and useful scientific discipline. Given the
nebulous (and in many cases subjective) nature of many memes, providing
such an empirical grounding has to date proved challenging. However, a
recent study by Mikael Sandberg, further elaborates the memetic
approach to empirical studies of innovation diffusion in organisations.

3. A third approach, exemplified by Dennett and by Susan Blackmore
in her book The Meme Machine (1999), seeks to place memes at the centre
of a radical and counter-intuitive naturalistic theory of mind and of
personal identity. Evan Louis Sheehan uses the hierarchical model of
cortical architecture proposed by Jeff Hawkins to develop such a
memetic theory of mind in his book The Mocking Memes: A Basis for
Automated Intelligence.