When1: 1976
When2: 1995
Who: Richard Dawkins [Dawkins, Richard]
What: biologist
Where: USA
works\ Selfish Gene [1976]; Blind Watchmaker [1986]; River out of Eden [1995]
Detail: Ideas or concepts {meme} {mimeme} can exist in brain, replicate, and have selection. Thoughts and ideas in memory or culture replicate themselves in other minds by imitation and transmission. Memes compete for entry into minds. Selective forces act directly on meme physical substrates, because memes restructure brains to make better habitats for themselves and to modify input and output. Perceptions, skills, feelings, and memories have no copies.
Meme sets {memeplex, Wilson} {co-adapted meme complex} can affect survival and reproduction [Dawkins, 1976]. He wrote about Universal Darwinism and replicators [Dawkins, 1995].
Meme copies behavior from another same-species animal {imitation, Dawkins}, but copying varies more than for genes. Memory ties abstractions and agreements together, so imitation is only small part. However, copy does not have same meaning, because brain does not just imitate but processes information. It involves selection and non-selective processes.
Culture also involves sharing knowledge {schema, Dawkins}, not by imitation but by abstraction. Culture also involves sharing beliefs and values {social construction}, not by imitation but by agreement. Culture depends on having a theory of mind and knowing that other people have beliefs, intentions, and desires. Genes {selfish gene} use bodies to reproduce themselves.
Biological Sciences>Biology>History>Evolution
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Date Modified: 2022.0224