Isn't it strange that in the past people were so peculiar in their tastes,
their prejudices, their sexual attitudes, their treatment of animals, and their
family relationships? Even now, people in some parts of the world have some
really strange ideas about how to feel and behave. Were our ancestors stupid?
What about the great scientists and philosophers of the past, who seemed very
intelligent, yet showed little understanding for the problems of women and minorities?
Many of the great leaders and statesmen of the past even had slaves. Are we
just smarter now -- or what? No, those strange folks in other times and other
lands were making decisions in the same way you do now -- decisions based
on the memes and genes that inhabit their minds.
We all know what genes are, but maybe we are not too clear on "memes". Basically,
memes are beliefs that spread from individual to individual; that is, they replicate
somewhat as genes do. Note that the concept of "memes" itself is a meme!
In this essay I will give a brief introduction to how the mind is influenced
by memes and genes and give examples of the many memes that have great control
over our lives.
ME AND MY MIND
While the subject of the mind and exactly how we humans control ourselves is
very complex and somewhat controversial, a limited review is possible that will
be adequate for the purposes of this essay. (An excellent reference on this
subject is [DENN]).
Our mind controls our body somewhat like an operating system controls a computer.
While the task of genes is primarily to determine the physical characteristics
of our bodies, including our brain and nervous system, they also influence decisions
of the mind. For example, the fact that genes make us feel great pleasure in
sexual activity certainly has a great influence on the mind.
But the mind is also strongly influenced by beliefs -- and that is where memes
come in. In his book, The Selfish Gene [DAWK1], Dawkins defines a meme as a
replicating information pattern that uses minds to make copies into other minds.
That is, memes are thoughts, ideas, beliefs, prejudices, etc. that replicate.
Dawkins writes:
"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 leading from body to body via sperm 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."
(Several good papers on this subject are available on the Internet, for example
see [HENS] and [HALE]).
The memes associated with morals are often referred to by the term "mores" which
my dictionary defines as, "folkways of central importance accepted without question
and embodying the fundamental moral views of a group".
For our purposes here we will assume that the individual's mind makes its decisions
by means of analysis of the inputs as augmented by the genes and memes. Details
on just how genes and memes influence the mind will be discussed in the next
sections.
A comparison to computers may be helpful: Genes correspond to the ROM that is
built into computers. Memes correspond to the programs that run on the computers,
along with the associated data, and are loaded subsequent to the initial boot.
The mind corresponds to the Operating System. Roughly.
Note that the origin of a meme could be based on fact or logical analysis. Memes
should not be equated with myths. But the meme once established in the mind
is just a belief -- regardless of its origin.
Memes are comparable to genes in the fact that they replicate and that they
influence our behavior. But how memes influence the mind is quite different
from the way genes do. Let's look at each approach.
Genes
Our genetic psychological factors are powerful forces that tell us what to do
but, unfortunately, are slow to adapt to a changing world. Tragically, they
are just not adequate for humans interacting with a rapidly changing world.
We are struggling today with emotions -- provided by our genes -- appropriate
for the caveman.
Genes cause problems because they provide psychological directions for a particular
situation that is no longer appropriate. The evolved genetic solutions for certain
problems apparently worked at one time but may no longer do the job. Unfortunately,
it takes thousands of years for the genes to be modified.
Genes affect our behavior in two ways: physical characteristics and sensual
enhancement.
Physical Characteristics
Many of the characteristics of humans, both physical and mental, are determined
at birth. We all are unique when it comes to capabilities, emotions, and physical
makeup. One person's sexual drive can be as different from another's as their
ability to play music or do mathematics is.
Sensual Enhancement
Our physical characteristics, our hormonal makeup, and our other inherited factors
color the sensations sent to the brain from which it must make decisions. That
is, from a given set of external conditions, the message received by the brain
is not the same for every individual. Moreover, the brain's ability to process
these messages is vastly different from individual to individual. Therefore
the decision made by two different brains, based on the same external conditions,
could, and likely will, be quite different for two different individuals.
Now, to complicate the matter further, the memes get involved.
Memes
To the brain, memes are additional facts that are combined with the genetic
input (discussed above) from which a decision is made. Even though they are
just beliefs, for all practical purposes to the brain they are facts.
For efficiency, beliefs are accepted as factual and the brain moves on. If this
approach were not taken, our brain would get bogged down in analysis to the
point that it would never be able to make a timely decision.
Unlike genes, these memes, or "facts on file", may be added, removed or changed
many times in a person's life time. The ability for humans to rapidly change
our society and our surrounding environment, made it necessary for some adaptive
mechanism to be built in our mind that would allow for these rapid societal
and environment changes.
As we noted above, memes are more effective than genes in dealing with modern
problems due to their ability to rapidly develop. That is, while genetic forces
have evolved over many centuries to adapt to particular problems, memes can
evolve in a lifetime or less. The price to pay for this quick reaction is that
there is little chance for corrections when the memes may be in error. In fact,
the behavior they evoke is not necessarily best for humans (but may be best
for the memes -- see [DAWK2]). They just evolve, mainly based on short term
phenomena, limited information and often, ignorance.
Unfortunately, memes generate psychological forces and emotions that are just
as powerful as genetic forces. Sexual mores, to be discussed shortly, best illustrate
the power of memes.
It is difficult for each of us to make decisions without using memes. Since
memes are involved in our thinking process, we may have to use memes to evaluate
other memes! Even when applying our best effort to think precisely and logically,
we may still be basing our decision on "facts" that are really just memes. After
all, the "scientific method" itself is a meme.
How Memes get established
Memes can evolve spontaneously in a group in response to some problem. That
is, the meme evolves, somewhat like genes, by adapting to conditions and continuously
changing. Most likely our meme for compassion probably evolved this way since
it made life better for everyone in the group.
It is obvious, however, that many memes are "planted" in the group by certain
individuals for their own reasons. The politicians, the schools, the press,
the clergy and others are guilty of sowing a constant stream of memes within
the populace and encouraging their growth. Examples will be given in the next
few paragraphs.
Just like genes, the survivability of a meme depends on its environment. In
that sense, memes that are compatible support each other's growth and survivability.
The meme for religion, for examples, is helped a great deal by the meme that
says we should have "blind faith".
Yet, strangely, we do harbor contradictory memes.
Contradictory Memes coexist
Since we are constantly bombarded with either new memes and the reinforcement
of old memes, it should be no surprise that many of the memes might be contradictory
to each other. What is a surprise is that humans seem to be able to have contradictory
memes cohabiting within their mind at the same time! An example would be a person
who works with computers using analysis and logic all day and yet has many beliefs
in religion and sex that he accepts on blind faith.
Now let us look at how memes and genes work together to get us to do their bidding.
See [DAWK1], page 192.
The Gene/Meme Team
It appears that memes enhance or amplify the influence of genes in many situations.
For example, genes insure that a young man is sexually excited when he views
a young voluptuous girl in the nude. Memes, on the other hand, might make this
young girl even more attractive with clothes on if she were only partially clothed;
or if she is his best friend's wife; or if she admits having just had sex with
someone else; or she is seen buying porno flicks; etc.
Practically, the gene/meme team determine our outlook and our attitudes toward
the world.
Our Individual World View
The genes we have inherited and the memes that we have adopted determine what
our world view is. They provide the perspective in which we view the world and
the basis for our decisions. It is ridiculous for us to make judgments on how
other people act in other times or other societies. For our judgments are based
on our set of memes and their actions were caused by their set of memes. Our
memes are not superior just because we happen to possess them.
We simply should not be critical of other societies based on nothing more than
our own meme/gene makeup. For example, to judge that societies in which marriages
are arranged or where free love is common are inferior to ours is stupid. They
live by their memes and we live by ours. That's all.
In fact, it is important to keep in mind that any judgment you make about anything
is directly based on -- or at least contaminated by -- memes and genes. Even
your opinion of this essay comes from a foundation of memes that this essay
may be critical of! So, could you just turn off your memes until you finish
reading this article please! Just kidding.
Logical Thinking
Can we think without being influenced by memes and genes? While we can't completely
eliminate the influence of memes and genes we certainly can diminish their impact.
Further, we can adopt the "Scientific Method" which requires that all conclusions
be subject to verification. That is, we can keep an open mind for errors in
our thinking and try to minimize accepting anything on blind faith.
THE MEMETIC MINE FIELD
In this section I will list some of the common memes we live with. It is difficult
not to pass judgment on some of these memes as many appear not to be in the
best interests of our society. But the primary purpose here is to list the memes,
not to judge them. Let's start with the richest source of funky memes -- our
love life!
Sex, Love, Marriage
"Sex is Immoral outside of Marriage"
This well known, apparently religious based, meme is blindly followed by many
people who aren't even into religion! Many people feel guilt if they have sex
outside of marriage and have given little thought to the origin of that feeling.
Relations between the Sexes
There is always a great deal of memetic activity in this area!
Sexual Harassment
There is no doubt that humans, particularly men, have done some pretty heartless
and cruel things to members of the opposite sex just to get sexual favors. To
combat this problem, laws have been passed and memes have been established.
Both, unfortunately, have gone too far.
The current "sexual harassment" meme now deems sexual harassment what used to
be harmless and entertaining sexual flirtation between the sexes. Apparently
this meme can be turned on or off since some women admit that the actions that
would be deemed "sexual harassment" in one situation might be deemed "desirable
flirting" in another.
It is interesting that in the past, for a man to have refrained from flirting
would have hurt some women's feelings due to the sexual meme that they possessed
then.
Male/Female Relationships
This essay is far too short to cover all the memes alive and well in this area!
Instead I will only discuss the prejudicial memes and that will done below in
the "Prejudices" section.
Death
Funerals and other ceremonies surrounding a death are powerful and ancient memes
that remain unchallenged in the most modern of communities. The United States
has spent millions retrieving the bones of service men and others from foreign
countries without a thought as to what could be in those bones that make them
so valuable.
Cleanliness
The meme that makes us want to be forever spotlessly clean probably, on balance,
is a good one but does get a bit silly at times. Lovers, husband and wives,
etc. refuse to share a tooth brush but otherwise swap bodily fluids with abandonment!
Even people who actively support environmental causes still insist on a shower
and clean clothes everyday without the tiniest consideration of a rational justification
for wasting energy on a somewhat fastidious purpose.
Politics and Government
There are too many memes associated with government to enumerate. I will mention
a couple, not necessarily the most important.
"The government can fix all our problems"
This powerful political meme causes all of us a lot of grief and expense. In
reality, it is quite rare that government ever solves any problems without creating
far greater ones, and, at the same time, relieving the taxpayers from a lot
of their money. The fact that government has been so successful in instilling
this meme in most of the population and in keeping it alive (in spite of all
evidence of their success to the contrary), is quite astounding!
"Let the government pay for it"
Another meme that the government has been very successful in establishing is
that they can provide services for free. How often do you hear someone say,
"It doesn't cost anything - the government is paying for it!" Right!
"The Sanctity of Government"
This meme has taken some hits here in the USA in recent times but will probably
survive. Recently, President Clinton had to admonish the people that it was
wrong to be critical of the government.
Well, maybe so, but a rational person must realize that the government, including
law enforcement agencies, is composed of people looking after their own best
interests and who, in fact, have a long history of corruption and deceit. We
would probably be better off if we simply gave the government the respect it
deserves -- based on its record.
"People of Country X are Evil"
During World War II, the Allied countries very successfully implanted the meme
in to the minds of the citizens that the Germans and the Japanese were evil
monsters. Later, to a lesser degree, the Russians were made to look evil. Of
course, in each case, when peace is made the memes have to be squashed quickly!
People fight wars better if they hate each other!
"The primary factors for selecting (male) politicians are his sex life (or,
more likely, the lack thereof) and how much hair he has"
Strange but true. To be fair, we did accept Clinton and his sexual escapades,
but he is a goner if we find out that he is wearing a toupee!
Environment
The "Concern for the Environment" meme is a very interesting meme. Since our
genes promote selfishness, without restraint, the genes would likely have us
trash the environment. But let us not be too hard on the genes. Their selfishness
was established in ancient times before we had the power to lay waste thousands
of acres in a day. Again, the genes are not up to handling a modern situation.
So, the solution is to establish memes that tell us that trashing the environment
is wrong. This has been amazingly well done by environmentalists and the government
with the help of the news media.
Memes, like genes, by necessity are simplistic so as not to take up too much
space in our limited brain capacity. We see people making sure their own trash
is picked up at a camp site even though there is a huge pile already there!
We see people using vast quantities of water for bathing and electricity for
air conditioning while religiously making sure that their old newspapers are
carried to the recycle depot.
Compassion
Without compassion, civilization, or at least a decent society, would probably
collapse. On the other hand, we know that humans have the capability and the
tools to be incredibly cruel to each other.
Periodically, we are confronted with the facts that humans will do horrible
things to each other -- especially if they are not held accountable. How can
this be if we are compassionate?
The answer is that compassion is most likely not genetic. No, compassion is
a meme that is grilled into our heads from childhood. Thank goodness for this
one!
Cause and Effect
The "Cause and Effect" meme is an interesting one. This meme, established by
the scientific revolution, says that most situations, such as health, mental
states, relationships, etc., have simple causes. A popular example is, "If you
eat the right foods and avoid the wrong foods, you will not get cancer or heart
disease".
To be fair to the scientists, the statement "established by the scientific revolution"
needs some qualification. Actually the meme is a misunderstanding of scientific
principles. Scientists may publish a report that says -- I'm making this up
-- that there is a correlation between eating a lot of stale hot-dogs and the
loss of sexual desire. The facts may be that people obsessed by sports spend
a lot of time in stadiums (where they eat a lot of hot-dogs) and have little
time or interest in sex. But the news media simply reports that "hot-dogs kills
sexual appetite" and that becomes the meme.
That there is a simple cause and effect relationship for most events in the
world is a concept that is not necessarily obvious. Yet, strangely, even people
who are hostile towards technology and science still believe in this meme ("if
you will just take a handful of Vitamin C pills every day, you will not get
a cold").
Prejudices
The dictionary gives several definitions for "prejudice", the first two in mine
are:
"1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge,
thought, or reason. 2. any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable
or unfavorable."
A common and well established meme in our society would have us believe that
the first definition is the correct one (yes, our prejudice against prejudices
is itself a meme). Yet the second one is probably more practical since it would
allow "prejudices" to refer to both good and bad beliefs.
However, in recent times, due to the tragedies associated with some unfortunate
historical prejudices, a powerful meme has been established that prejudices
are bad. Since the crux of the definition of "prejudice", "opinion or feeling
formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason" sounds almost like
the definition of a meme, we might simply define a "prejudice" as an unfavorable
meme.
So, it appears that prejudices are just a subclass of memes that are believed
to be bad. Therein lies a "can of worms" for we are all in possession of thousands
of memes and whether they are good or bad is a judgment call (made with the
help of another meme!).
Let us look at an example or two. Almost everyone agrees that racial prejudice
is bad. How about prejudice against people that seem stupid? speak with a Southern
accent? wear unstylish clothes, are economically disadvantaged (poor), are fat,
and so on?
The fact is prejudices have the same advantages and failings that other memes
do. They allow the brain to make a quick judgment which is generally necessary
for survival. If the prejudice is based on logic and/or facts (definition number
2), then it is useful. If it based on faith or "opinions without knowledge",
like memes in general, then it can be bad.
Lets look at a couple of well known examples:
Racial prejudices
Racial prejudices have caused much grief, cruelty and suffering in the world.
Genes may be the culprit here -- in an indirect way. Genes would have us to
only look after the best interests of those folks that are closely related to
us. [DAWK1] People with a different color or from a foreign land certainly don't
meet that requirement.
There appears to be some success in diminishing racial prejudice in much of
the world. This success is the result of diminishing the control of the "racial
prejudice" meme and by establishing another meme that says you are a bad person
to have racial prejudices.
Sexual prejudices
Obviously the sexes have some differences. However, it is not conducive to peace
and harmony to believe that one sex is inferior to the other. Yet, creating
a meme that says there is no difference in the sexes, as some are promoting,
seems to be a bad approach. A better meme would be simply "neither sex is inferior
to the other".
Cool Sayings and actions
Expressions that are considered "cool" come and go and woe to those who use
an out of date one!
An interesting aside here is the survivability of the word "cool" itself. It
has been around for a couple of generations.
How about wearing your shoes untied and your baseball cap on backwards?
Advertising
Companies know that getting the right memes established can result is profits
of millions of dollars! Trademark and trade name recognition along with the
associated belief in superior value is a common and profitable type of meme.
A few months ago, while at a party, a friend of mine was induced to take a blind
folded taste test of various bourbon whiskies -- including her favorite that
is very pricy (another meme!: "quality equates to price"). To her embarrassment,
she flunked the test, picking "Jim Beam" as the best. Did that change her buying
habits? Of course not!
Brand name acceptance is a powerful meme that the majority of the people unhesitatingly
follow. However, there are recent trends that indicate that people are beginning
to drift away from that bias and to try products that have generic labels. Maybe
there's hope.
Clothing
An amusing but serious application of memes is our attitudes towards clothing
styles. Without any particular reason, clothing styles change with time: skirts
get short and skirts get long, ties get fat and then they get slim, and so on.
The "clothing styles" meme allows us to clearly see the power of memes. We genuinely
feel negative toward a person dressed in clothes that are "out of style" but
were in style some years ago. Now, rationally, we know this is ridiculous. How
can there be anything wrong with a style that once was a popular style?
Here we have evidence that memes can make us feel badly towards something that
is not supported by rational reasoning -- in other words, prejudice. With this
recognition in mind, we might want to reflect on the many other memes we so
blindly accept.
Many of our young people truly believe that if they will only buy and wear the
right brand of athletic shoes, they will be able to do athletic feats that defy
the laws of physics. It is a sad reflection on our society that advertisers
have been so successful in planting this meme that really exploits the young,
especially the very poorest young.
Food
In some parts of the world people would no more consider eating a cow or a pig
than you would a dog.
Music
A real tragedy here. Essentially all varieties of music have at least some examples
that are enjoyable and some that are quite outstanding. Yet memes dictate, particularly
to the young, what "brand" of music they should "enjoy". And they seem to only
enjoy that designated music! Amazing, the power of memes!
Family
Our attitudes towards members of our family are greatly affected by memes. These
attitudes vary greatly over time and in different societies. In the 60's, the
meme got established, with some justification, I suppose, that parents could
not be trusted and were generally out of touch with the activities and interests
of the current society. This meme has caused a lot of grief and suffering for
everyone and is one that needs to be replaced by something more realistic. How
about, "Parents are (reasonably) out of date, a little sluggish with the thinking
and may have some interests of their own, but they are all I have and it would
be in my best interests to stay on their good side".
Political Correctness
This good intended but rather hopeless meme has had amazing success, particular
on the college campuses. The driving force seems to be to eliminate any possibility
of unfairness or hurting anyone's feelings. To accomplish this, we are told
that one word is better to use than another word, even if they have the same
meaning, because the words themselves can hurt. So we are told that "intellectually
impaired" is better than "stupid", for example.
In view of the rather outlandish requirements that this series of memes puts
on our belief systems, it is doubtful that they will survive. There is a limit
to what you can make reasonably intelligent people believe!
Religion
Religion has had a great deal of success with memes. In fact, for anyone wanting
to do research on the impact of memes, this is probably your best laboratory.
There are many memes associated with religion, of which only a few are listed
here. The memes listed here are associated with the Christian religion but in
most cases are applicable to all religions.
Infallibility of the Bible
If you don't rely totally on blind faith, you are a creep!
The power of prayer
Heaven will be your home after this life
Converting others will help you get to heaven
Sending your money to God's representatives is what God wants you to do
All of these memes have proven to be very successful in promoting Christianity.
Academia
Much of the discussion above on "Political Correctness" applies to academia.
However, there are a few more peculiar memes that thrive in that environment.
Academic Freedom
This well entrenched meme holds that academic freedom is more important than
the welfare of the students -- or maybe, even the university. During my personal
experience as a professor in a public university, no administrator ever sat
in my class room to evaluate my capabilities! Instead of Computer Science, I
could have been teaching flatulence control (and doing a bad job of it, possibly)
for all they cared.
"We need more research to understand the world better"
Poppycock! We need research to promote the selfish interests of the universities
and the professors. This meme costs the taxpayers a few bucks!
"Doctoral Dissertations make major contributions to our understanding of the
world"
Ha! Go read some of them!
Social Relationships
"We should cooperate"
Social scientists say that the genes would have us look only after our own selfish
interests even when cooperating would be better. But, thanks to some powerful
memes, most people seem to want to cooperate even when it may not be in their
best interests to do so. This behavior is apparently caused by a good meme,
the idea that we should cooperate.
"We are all created equal"
Of course, we are not. We do have -- somewhat -- equal protection under the
law, but we have vastly different capabilities, most of which result from birth
and the circumstances we were born into.
Is this a good meme? Consider this your homework assignment. :-)
TAKING CONTROL
The quite incomplete list of memes presented above constantly and continuously
try to control our lives. It is obvious that a few are good but, in my judgment,
many are bad. One thing is for certain: it is not in your best interests to
totally resign to the control of memes.
But can you do anything about it? Certainly.
If we accept that many of our actions are meme based and therefore can be changed,
we have the potential to improve our lives by evaluating the memes and overriding
those that we believe have the potential to do us harm.
But how do we override memes? They are just as powerful as genes and they color
our thinking, right? True, but they can be overridden by applying the rules
of logic.
For example, after a person has accepted that certain memes are enhancing or
interfering with their love life, that person should examine these memes under
the microscope of rigid logic. Up until recently, there was a meme that said
it is bad to masturbate. OK, let's take a look at it. What exactly is bad about
it? Is there really any correlation between masturbation and our visual difficulties?
Not that anyone can prove. Is it sinful? You will have to decide that. What
else? Not much. Another meme for the trash!
One useful tool in examining sexual mores is to ask, "What do animals do?".
After all, we are part of the animal kingdom and most of our sexual genes are
common. But, as far as we know, the rest of the animals are not burdened (or
blessed) with sexual memes. Based on this approach, you might ask, for example,
is it OK for a female to have several lovers? Looks fairly common amongst the
higher mammals. You take it from there. :-)
But be careful. Some rules are not universal in the animal kingdom. For example,
monogamy or polygamy; which is normal? No universal agreement here.
By selecting the good memes and chunking the bad ones, you should be able to
greatly enhance your life and to avoid dropping a pile of your hard earned cash
at the local shrink. Your friends will appreciate it too.
REFERENCES
[HENS]
"Memes Meta-Memes and Politics"
By H. Keith Henson, (on the Internet)
[HALE]
Memetics: A Systems Metabiology, Version 950220, by Ron Hale-Evans, rwhe@netcom.com
(on the Internet)
[DENN]
Dennett, Daniel C. (1991). Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown and
Co.
[DAWK1]
Dawkins, Richard. (1989). The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press.
Second edition
[DAWK2]
Dawkins, R. (1993b) "Viruses of the Mind" in: Free Inquiry, summer 1993, vol
13 nr 3 (on the Internet at: )
by Leon Felkins