Memetics

A lunchtime talk by Cassian Vian for the PRSA knowledge transfer series.

An Introduction to Memetics: from Richard Dawkins to Rick Rolling. 
Memetics is a novel theory of communication which depicts human culture as subject to the same kind of evolutionary processes which have shaped our genes. Its huge interdisciplinary potential for exploring areas as diverse as anthropology and online communication, should make it an intriguing topic for discussion, whatever your academic background.

Cassian Vian is a PHD student doing research into online propaganda; her academic background is in Politics and Journalism. Cassian has been interested in memetics since doing her undergraduate course at Exeter University, in particular how memetics can be used to further our understanding of propaganda. 
Cassian also enjoys silly hats and wearing purple. 



A pretty packed overview of memes and their wanderings in different disciplines.... In terms of the way we learn, our social, conscious and subconscious behaviours, emotional attributes etc I found this just too huge an area to start thinking of as memetic when it seems that anything of any scale can be considered  meme.. far too much room for argument. But returning to the focus of her research - online propoganda, memetics as a way of understanding online networks, virals etc seems much more useful and readily matched.


So, the run-down on memes is briefly:


Term meme first coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, 1976, to explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomenon.
A meme is a cultural replicator that exists in addition to the gene.
'Selfish' wasn't intented to anthropomorphise the gene/meme, rather to show that it only succeeds when it self-replicates (rather than replicating with mutation or not replicating at all).


All little ideas are replicating in the 'pool' of culture (akin gene pool); the memeplex is a collection of multiple memes which band together to facilitate their replication.  Where genes always (?) want to perpetuate, memes don't necessarily facilitate gene perpetuation - e.g. sexual abstinence goes against genetic perpetuation. Sexual abstinence may group with other ideas (e.g. religious beliefs) and perpetuate together as memeplex. 


Genes are passed down in vertical transmission, ie parent to child etc (almost always, except in some odd virus cases). However memes can be transmitted both vertically and horizontally - ideas pass from person to person much faster in time. 


An issue that Cassian raised was that of Imitation - claiming that humans are unique in the ability to imitate (do something that has no necessary genetic advantage, to which they have no pre-disposal of skills, by watching and copying). The context here was comparative psychology (people v animals ?!) and the idea that imitation is a step beyond Social Learning and its fore-runner Contagion (copying actions you already know how to do). 


However meme 'copy fidelity' in people can be very low, as in Chinese Whispers, you may end up with something very different from the original intention... yet with technology there is the potential for copy fidelity to be much higher. I'm not quite sure where technology would be placed on this contagion - social learning - imitation memetic spectrum, I guess there's certainly arguments for the social learning element within amazon recommendations and some facebook apps? Perhaps that's more a question for an ai expert to discuss. But then I'm also not too clear if memes are considered able to act unprecedentedly or if that's just seen as a mutated replication? 
Which returns to the problem, for me, of considering human learning as memetic (only). It doesn't seem to leave room for  inspiration, creativity, being in the element, 'something more'. I wouldn't presume that animals (or any naturally durational thing, trees, rivers etc etc) do not have that ability - I just think that we haven't yet learned to appreciate the subtlety/profundity of their expression. So memes for the internet works well for me. Memes for life needs something more as well!


EMF...