The Meme Machine

TAKING THE MEME’S EYE VIEW 43
can think of. This tendency is deeply confusing and gets in the way of
understanding what memes can and cannot do. We need to start with a clear and
precise definition of the meme and decide just what does and does not count.
The most important point to remember is that, as in Dawkins’s original
formulation, memes are passed on by imitation. I have described them as
‘instructions for carrying out behaviour, stored in brains (or other objects) and
passed on by imitation’. The new Oxford English Dictionary gives meme
(mi:m), n. Biol. (shortened from mimeme . . . that which is imitated, after GENE
n.) An element of a culture that may be considered to be passed on by nongenetic
means, esp. imitation’. Imitation is a kind of replication, or copying, and
that is what makes the meme a replicator and gives it its replicator power. You
could even say that ‘a meme is whatever it is that is passed on by imitation’ – if
it didn’t sound so awkward.
We may (and will) argue about just what counts as imitation but for now I
shall use the word ‘in the broad sense’, as Dawkins did. When I say ‘imitation’
I mean to include passing on information by using language, reading, and
instruction, as well as other complex skills and behaviours. Imitation includes
any kind of copying of ideas and behaviours from one person to another. So
when you hear a story and pass on the gist to someone else, you have copied a
meme. The important point is that the emphasis on imitation allows us to rule
out all kinds of things which cannot be passed on and therefore cannot be
counted as memes.
Look away from this page for a moment and rest your eyes on the window,
the wall, a piece of furniture or a plant. Anything will do, but just look quietly
at it for – say – five seconds before you come back to reading. I presume you
experienced something. There were sights, sounds, and impressions that made
up your experience in those few seconds. Did they involve memes? Perhaps
you said to yourself ‘That plant needs watering’ or ‘I wish there weren’t so
much traffic outside’. If so, you were using words; you obtained those words
memetically and you could pass them on again – but as for the perceptual
experience itself – that does not necessarily involve memes.
Of course, you could argue that now we have language everything we
experience is coloured by our memes. So let us consider the experiences of
some other animal that does not have language. One of my cats will do as an
example. She is not the brainiest of creatures but she does have a rich and
interesting life and many capabilities despite having acquired next to nothing by
imitation.
First of all she can see and hear. She can run after butterflies and scamper up