From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Thu Nov 04 1999 - 16:27:49 MST
> Forgive my ignorance but I've been on this list for a long time and
> I still have no freakin' idea what meme is. Could someone please
> give me a definition...
> Eric
Don't feel bad; most of the people who use the word don't understand
it fully either, using it as a hip substitute for "idea". Pick up a
copy of Richard Dawkins' _Selfish Gene_ without further delay for the
origin and full explanation of the word.
In short, a "meme" is a pattern that replicates by the mechanism of
learning or imitation. Things like the use of clothes; the practice
of marriage; handshaking; religious beliefs; cooking techniques.
Under certain conditions, such patterns can produce phenotypes that
compete and lead to evolution of complex meme pools ("culture") the
same way genetic evolution leads to complex species. One big
difference, though, is that memetic evolution is Lamarckian: you can
pass on memes acquired within your lifetime.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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