The Meme Machine

TAKING THE MEME’S EYE VIEW 51
new behaviours of almost unlimited kinds and copy them on to each other. If
we define memes as transmitted by imitation then whatever is passed on by this
copying process is a meme. Memes fulfil the role of replicator because they
exhibit all three of the necessary conditions, that is, heredity (the form and
details of the behaviour are copied), variation (they are copied with errors,
embellishments or other variations), and selection (only some behaviours are
successfully copied). This is a true evolutionary process.
We have now established that imitation is rare and special, but just what is
entailed in an act of imitation? There is considerable research on imitation in
infants and children (Meltzoff and Moore 1977; Whiten et al. 1996; Yando et al.
1978), and some on sport, on social conformity, and on questions like whether
violent television causes copycat violence (Bandura and Walters 1963) and
whether suicide, vehicle accidents, and even murder can spread by imitation
(Marsden 1998b; Phillips 1980). However, there is little on the mechanisms
underlying imitation, and so I will have to speculate a little.
We might liken the process to ‘reverse engineering’, a common way of
stealing ideas in modern industry. If an unscrupulous manufacturer wants to
make a cheap version of the latest high-tech compact disk player then specially
trained engineers tear the real thing apart bit by bit, trying to work out what all
the parts do and how they can be made. With luck they can then build their own
version to perform the same way – without paying royalties. But it is not easy.
Now imagine you are going to copy a simple action. Suppose I put my hands
to my mouth in a trumpet-like shape, point them upwards and hum ‘de-tum-detum’.
I would bet that, unless you were physically unable, you would have little
trouble in copying me – and that people watching would agree on whether you
managed a good performance or not. What is so difficult about that?
Everything. First, you (or rather some unconscious brain mechanisms) have
to decide which aspects of the action are to be copied – does the angle of your
leg matter? or the position of your feet? Is it more important that your hands
look something like a trumpet or that their exact position is as close as possible
to my version of a trumpet? Must your humming be in the same key, or only
follow the same melody? I am sure you can make up your own questions.
Having decided on the important aspects to be copied, a very difficult set of
transformations has to be effected. You watched me, let’s say, from the side.
Nothing you saw of my actions will correspond to the way the actions will look