Dawkins’s invention of the “meme”

Over the last couple of days we’ve been discussing the concept of the meme. It was indeed coined by Richard Dawkins, in chapter 11 of his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene (quoted below), as the mental equivalent of a gene. However, it is clear that though the meme idea represents an attempt to explain the evolution of human mental life, it does not explain the existence of mind and consciousness any more than the standard Darwinian theory of biological evolution does. Even with the addition of Dawkins’s memes, the same fundamental problem with Darwinism I’ve pointed to in many articles at this website persists, which is that there is no way to get from a biological species formed by random accidental genetic mutations which were then “selected” by the fact that the organisms possessing the mutated genes reproduced themselves, to human consciousness and intentionality.

Not only do Dawkins’s memes not bridge the gap between unconscious life and consciousness, but the memes themselves lack the attributes of intentionality and consciousness. They are units of “thought” that get generated, somehow, and then are passed from person to person, from group to group, from book to book, “selected,” just as genes are, by their success in getting themselves replicated. As Ian B. put it yesterday, “Dawkins came up with the meme concept precisely to remove intentionality and rational thought even from our thoughts themselves—to explain the mind as mindless.”

Are we being unfair in attributing to Dawkins a total reductionism? Is he perhaps saying, instead, that memes get replicated because they appeal to human beings for some reason? If so, what is the source of the quality in each person that makes him prefer one meme over another? It could only be another meme. So, again, we’re left with thoughts without thought, mind without intentionality or choice.

Which returns me to the question I asked about Dawkins yesterday. Given his view of human beings as creatures whose mental life is determined by memes, whence cometh his own values and choices, his delight in the phenemona of evolution, his hatred of Christianity? Has he chosen these values and views because he thinks they’re true, good, beautiful, or pleasing, or have they been implanted in him by earlier memes that operate on his thoughts and behavior the way a bacillus operates on an infected organism? By the lights of Dawkins’s own theory, the answer can only be the latter. Therefore he has no right to the opinions he has, because he has them, not because he thinks they’re true, but because his memes determine him to have them. What gives a genetic and memetic robot the authority to speak as a dictator of truth? And if Dawkins protests that he is not a robot, then his theories are false. Either way, he is discredited.

So far, I’ve been treating the meme theory almost respectfully, as an idea which, while wrong, deserves careful refutation. What Dawkins’s theory really deserves, with its notion of “memes [propagating] themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain,” and its comparison of human thought to a parasitic virus, is to be laughed out of court, like Mesmerism or Wilhelm Reich’s Orgone theory. And Dawkins is considered a giant of modern thought?

With that introduction, here is the passage in The Selfish Gene where Dawkins coined the meme:

But do we have to go to distant worlds to find other kinds of replicator and other, consequent, kinds of evolution ? I think that a new kind of replicator has recently emerged on this very planet. It is staring us in the face. It is still in its infancy, still drifting clumsily about in its primeval soup, but already it is achieving evolutionary change at a rate that leaves the old gene panting far behind.

The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. `Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like `gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme.(2) If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to `memory’, or to the French word meme. It should be pronounced to rhyme with `cream’.

Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passed it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain. As my colleague N.K. Humphrey neatly summed up an earlier draft of this chapter: `… memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically.(3) When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. And this isn’t just a way of talking—the meme for, say, “belief in life after death” is actually realized physically, millions of times over, as a structure in the nervous systems of individual men the world over.’

Consider the idea of God. We do not know how it arose in the meme pool. Probably it originated many times by independent `mutation’. In any case, it is very old indeed. How does it replicate itself ? By the spoken and written word, aided by great music and great art. Why does it have such high survival value ? Remember that `survival value’ here does not mean value for a gene in a gene pool, but value for a meme in a meme pool. The question really means: What is it about the idea of a god that gives it its stability and penetrance in the cultural environment ? The survival value of the god meme in the meme pool results from its great psychological appeal. It provides a superficially plausible answer to deep and troubling questions about existence. It suggests that injustices in this world may be recified in the next. The `everlasting arms’ hold out a cushion against our own inadequacies which, like a doctor’s placebo, is none the less effective for being imaginary. These are some of the reasons why the idea of God is copied so readily by successive generations of individual brains. God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture.

Some of my colleagues have suggested to me that this account of the survival value of the god meme begs the question. In the last analysis they wish always to go back to `biological advantage’. To them it is not good enough to say that the idea of a god has `great psychological appeal’. They want to know why it has great psychological appeal. Psychological appeal means appeal to brains, and brains are shaped by natural selection of genes in gene-pools. They want to find some way in which having a brain like that improves gene survival.

I have a lot of sympathy with this attitude, and I do not doubt that there are genetic advantages in our having brains of the kind we have. But nevertheless I think that these colleagues, if they look carefully at the fundamentals of their own assumptions, will find that they begging just as many questions as I am. Fundamentally, the reason why it is good policy for us to try to explain biological phemomena in terms of gene advantage is that genes are replicators. As soon as the primeval soup provided conditions in which molecules could make copies of themselves, the replicators themselves took over. For more than three thousand million years, DNA has been the only replicator worth talking about in the world. But it does not necessarily hold these monopoly rights for all time. Whenever conditions arise in which a new kind of replicator can make copies of itself, the new replicators will tend to take over, and start a new kind of evolution of their own. Once this new evolution begins, it will in no necessary sense be subservient to the old. The old gene-selected evolution, by making brains, provided the `soup’ in which the first memes arose. Once self-copying memes had arisen, their own, much faster, kind of evolution took off. We biologists have assimilated the idea of genetic evolution so deeply that we tend to forget that it is only one of many possible kinds of evolution.

Imitation, in the broad sense, is how memes can replicate. But just as not all genes that can replicate do so successfully, so some memes are more successful in the meme-pool than others. This is the analogue of natural selection. I have mentioned particular examples of qualities that make for high survival value among memes. But in general they must be the same as those discussed for the replicators of Chapter 2: longevity, fecundity, and copying-fidelity. The longevity of any one copy of a meme is probably relatively unimportant, as it is for any one copy of a gene. The copy of the tune `Auld Lang Syne’ that exists in my brain will last only for the rest of my life.(4) The copy of the same tune that is printed in my volume of The Scottish Student’s Song Book is unlikely to last much longer. But I expect there will be copies of the same tune on paper and in people’s brains for centuries to come. As in the case of genes, fecundity is much more important than longevity of particular copies. If the meme is a scientific idea, its spread will depend on how acceptable it is to the population of individual scientists; a rough measure of its survival value could be obtained by counting the number of times it is referred to in successive years in scientific journals.(5) If it is a popular tune, its spread through the meme pool may be gauged by the number of people heard whistling it in the streets. If it is a style of women’s shoe, the population memeticist may use sales statistics from shoe shops. Some memes, like some genes, achieve brilliant short-term success in spreading rapidly, but do not last long in the meme pool. Popular songs and stiletto heels are examples. Others, such as the Jewish religious laws, may continue to propagate themselves for thousands of years, usually because of the great potential permanence of written records.

[end of Dawkins excerpt.]

- end of initial entry -

Leonard D. writes:

First off, let me state that I like the concept of memes, and have spread the “meme” meme myself. I think it has some explanatory power, although by no means is it some total explanation of thought. So that is where I am coming from.

You are correct that memes do not explain consciousness. I don’t think anybody including Dawkins takes them as doing so.

I don’t think Dawkins rules out the idea that memes appeal to people and are adopted for that reason. Indeed, he says that memes take advantage of an existing substrate, that is, our minds. [LA replies: But how did our minds acquire the tendency to be attracted to those memes? Are the memes good, true, beautiful? Ok. Then how, out of a process controlled by blind chance and physical survival, did there arise a mind that is attracted to the good, the true, and the beautiful? Also, how did such minds CREATE such memes in the first place?] The point here is not to eliminate human choice completely, but to show how we might adopt ideas that work against our genes’ survival. Because Dawkins is serious about the gene-centered view of evolution, and altruism beyond kin and/or reciprocated action presents a serious problem. Memes overcome that problem, by suggesting a non-genetic account of at least some behavior.

I don’t think your attack on Dawkins (as either a robot, or wrong) will fly, because Dawkins will obviously say that some memes are true, and are adopted in part because people believe they are true. [LA replies: But how did Dawkinsian Man acquire a concept of intellectual truth and love of intellectual truth?] And other memes are adopted because the suit our genetically determined tastes. Either way, there is a grounding for meme-adoption that is something other than memes themselves.

Of course, what people think is true, is in part determined by memes they have uncritically accepted. I.e., they believe in global warming because all of the experts agree on it. Thus, there is still a line here to attack Dawkins somewhat along the lines you suggest. That is what the long piece by Mencius Moldbug (which you didn’t like) does. It identifies Dawkins as a progressive, which means he is, in essence, a religious fanatic. Or perhaps an “areligious fanatic,” if you think that religion demands a God or gods. (Me, I don’t demand gods in other people’s religions.) [LA replies: I gather you’re saying that Dawkins is in the meme soup as much as everyone else, so on what basis does he say his memeplex is true and others’ are false?]

It’s worth noting that the exact same criticism that Dawkins would level at traditional religion works against all cultural beliefs. For example, Dawkins is a progressive, and as such, he holds “human equality” in roughly the same place as you hold “God.” So we can easily revise his account of the God-belief as follows, by substituting the word “God” with “equality”:

Consider the idea of human equality. We do not know how it arose in the meme pool. Probably it originated many times by independent `mutation.” In any case, it is very old indeed. How does it replicate itself ? By the spoken and written word, aided by great music and great art. Why does it have such high survival value ? Remember that “survival value” here does not mean value for a gene in a gene pool, but value for a meme in a meme pool. The question really means: What is it about the idea of human equality that gives it its stability and penetrance in the cultural environment? The survival value of the human equality meme in the meme pool results from its great psychological appeal. It provides a superficially plausible answer to deep and troubling questions about existence. It suggests that injustices in this world may be rectified by proper appeal to others, and failing that, righteous direct action. The `brotherhood of man” holds out a cushion against our own inferiorities which, like a doctor’s placebo, is none the less effective for being imaginary. These are some of the reasons why the idea of human equality is copied so readily by successive generations of individual brains. Human equality exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture.

Leonard D. replies:

The question as to how evolved minds are attracted to the truth is quite easy to answer: the truth has a survival quality, while falsehood is dangerous (speaking very generally). That is, truth seeking is evolutionarily advantageous; ceterus paribus, a fit animal attempts to know the truth. For example, if you believe that there is no lion in that patch of woods, because the goat-entrails said not, and there is a lion there… then whatever genes you have, that disposed you to credulity on the matter of sign-seeking, will not increase in the gene-pool.

As for goodness or beauty, those things too I imagine are genetically based. But that is a much less tenable (and more tenuous) argument. This is largely because we don’t fully know what these senses really are, and what they are about. I can tell you that, i.e., our perception of feminine beauty has pretty clear genetic reasons for being. But I cannot tell you anything more than a just-so story as to why I think Beethoven’s music is divine. It is; that’s enough.

As for how minds would create ideas in the first place, that is easy enough; they just had the most rudimentary ideas, things that animal would think. Perhaps “sky blue good”. With language comes the ability to say that, and gradually elaborate.

So yes, we are all in the meme-soup together. Dawkins, you and me. Everyone has his ideas about truth, based on… something. I would say this is a largely a function of memes; perhaps you would claim a connection to a higher truth. I would also want to assert an important role in ideas that are self-generated; these may be memes in a very broad sense, but they are at least not successful ones. I don’t see any conflict between the existence of objective truth and meme-theory. Everyone think they know the truth, or at least a lot of it. Most people are wrong about quite a lot. Anytime we have a political conflict, of any kind, we see evidence of this. Either there is human-caused global warming that will with high probability cause severe problems in the next century… or there is not. Someone’s truth detector is [redacted]. I don’t think it’s mine.

Indeed, it is quite possible to look at VFR as primarily, or perhaps even only, as a mechanism for meme-spreading. Those being, of course, the memes that you have deemed interesting. But this is not a particularly interesting statement; rather like saying that “we are all a part of life” as a response to genes. Well, yes.

LA replies:

I’m sorry to say this, but your comment consists mainly of empty verbiage. You’re not saying anything, yet evidently imagining that you’re saying something. You’re repeating phrases, repeating your belief in Darwinian evolution, without giving any arguments. You seem to believe that repeating over and over the thing that is to be proved is the same as proving it.

As for attraction to the truth, yes, animals might improve in their senses, in their ability to sense or intuit where a predator is, where food is, but that’s not the same thing as a concept of truth. A dog, a cat, a gorilla, does not have a concept of truth. (Yes, a dog has loyalty to his master, and great heart, but that is not the same as a love of truth.) You haven’t shown anything leading via the evolutionary process to the appearance of the belief in truth.

Then you write:

As for how minds would create ideas in the first place, that is easy enough; they just had the most rudimentary ideas, things that animal would think. Perhaps “sky blue good”. With language comes the ability to say that, and gradually elaborate.

Again, I’m sorry to say this, but this reads like a parody of complacent Darwinism. It’s like a show on television about the dinosaurs that said, “In the Triassic, dinosaurs were very small … and then they … evolved, and got bigger … and by the time of the Jurassic, they had evolved much more and gotten much bigger.” And this is presented as explaining dinosaur evolution. Your comment about the evolution of ideas is not even on that level. You simply assert the appearance of language out of the blue, and that’s it. It’s “easy enough,” you said. Yes, it certainly is easy enough to pronounce the syllables, “With language comes the ability to say that, and gradually elaborate,” and think that you have said anything.

So yes, we are all in the meme-soup together.

How do you know that? Again, you’re just asserting something, as though it’s been shown.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 14, 2009 08:47 AM | Send