Memes Are Not Science

In my opinion, memes are one way to model the real world, specifically of ideas and concepts shared among humans.

Another possible model of ideas and concepts is that all of our ideas and concepts are beamed into our heads by Martians who are disguised as toasters.

I cannot objectively prove that either model is true, or that either model is false. In my subjective opinion, both models are flawed, but I find the meme model more useful than the Martian-toaster model. AllModelsAreWrongSomeModelsAreUseful.

Others also seem to find the meme model useful. "Stan's axiom of non-scientific usefulness" says:

If people say a model is useful to them, it is useful to them.
If people say a model is not useful to them, it is not useful to them.

So meme theory is useful to some people. But one of the comments on MemesShmemes seemed to be asking:
  1. What are memes useful for?
  2. What is meme theory useful for?

According to meme theory, by definition, useful ideas are called memes, so memes are useful. But this is a tautology. The interesting question is the latter one. I cannot speak for others. I can only answer for myself:

What is meme theory useful for, to me?

<Stan>

The biggest thing meme theory does for me, is to help me apply Darwin's concept of "survival of the fittest" evolution to cultural evolution, instead of just to biological evolution.

This, in turn, ties in with my personal approach of "collect what works", "best practices", and "lessons learned" for improving software development.

</Stan>

Except that analogies with biological evolution in no way make "memetic evolution" a scientific theory.

I agree. That is what this page is saying. --Stan

Ask yourself; why is biological evolution a scientific theory? What does it explain? Well, see WhatEvolutionExplains. Now compare it with what "memetic evolution" explains.

Does "memetic evolution" explain why 99% of memes are shared across all cultures, even the most primitive ones? No, because that's not true. Does it explain why cultures can be organized in a tree? No, because that's not true. Does it explain anything at all? No, because "memetic evolution" is an unscientific delusion without a shred of supporting evidence. In fact, everything one could reasonably expect to count as evidence based on analogy with biological evolution proves it to be a big fat lie.

I basically agree. But I still find the concept of memetics useful. --Stan

"memetic evolution" is an unscientific delusion without a shred of supporting evidence

Why the name calling? Has "memetic evolution" pissed off someone?

The study of the evolution of memes is nothing new. Historians have been doing it for millennia.

To the extent this is true, "meme" is a hollow concept indistinguishable from "idea" and hence adds nothing to our understanding of the world. If historians have been doing "memetics" then "memetics" is false and useless.

I get pissed off by pseudo-science. The whole field of "memetics" has contributed less to our understanding of the world than PeterMerel's incisive dissection on MemesShmemes. The single fact that thoughts are not digital is a more useful insight than everything memetics (or any genetic/evolution analogy) has or ever will contribute. Memetics isn't merely useless, it's harmful, as witnessed by the oversimplification that ideas are "copied" instead of carefully assimilated. Assimilation can degenerate into copying but not vice versa.

More name calling. Sounds personal.

I still pretty much agree with your points. Memetics doesn't prove anything, and a meme is not really different from an idea. And I hear you: to you, memetics is not just useless, it is harmful. But to me, memetics is useful. And I like 1940's swing music and orange flavored chocolate bars. Each to his own... --Stan

Usefulness is relative, not subjective; something is useful for a purpose and equally useful to everyone who shares that purpose. Memetics is not useful to understanding the world as it is since it ignores 1st and 2nd order effects in culture in favour of nth order effects. First order is the rise over the last three millennia of empathy as a force powerful enough to challenge projection and reversal. Second order is the psychotic periods of mass murder humans engage in like clockwork. Nth order is fashion and fads; what memetics is all about.

Diverting attention away from what Really Matters as determined by Empirical Methods is a standard propaganda technique. Memetics does that. Hence memetics is a propaganda tool. So I ask you, what is it useful for?

If you'll permit this digression, I'll note that the vast majority of people do not care about understanding the world as it is. If they did, it would not be possible to use truth as a weapon to bring someone to tears. Nor would it be possible to ban someone from a wiki for saying only the ugly truth. No, what the vast majority of people care about is the rationalization of their neurotic impulses and beliefs.

As benign as it might appear to you to safeguard your prejudices, they are as sinister to me as, for example, the belief that blacks are genetically inferior to whites. It's just another method by which the Man keeps the brother down.

Memetics is a pseudo-scientific theory that draws no distinction between the conscious and unconscious, between ideas and behaviour, between thoughts and emotions, between adult and child. Even the most elementary and self-evident facts of human nature are summarily rejected by memetics. Memetics oversimplifies to the point where it contradicts common sense. Memetics is to psychology what creationism is to physics; it doesn't build, challenge, or even acknowledge past discoveries and insights in the field, it annihilates them.

Memetics does not merely provide a fundamental abstraction for psychology. At one point, I created my own fundamental abstractions for the mind but I never believed they explained any particular thoughts or feelings. Memetics purports to explain thoughts and feelings, but it only mocks genuine scientific explanations.

You know, psychology debates can be extremely vicious. Such viciousness has reputedly caused suicide. But even in that case, there's a degree of professional and academic respect, an acknowledgement of the opposition's point of view, which is completely absent on the part of memetics adherents.

Perhaps misapplication of memetics could do those things, but memetics itself doesn't. This is the same problem we've seen with the misapplication of genetic evolution to support eugenics, communism, capitalism, generosity, greed, etc. Memetics doesn't say a meme is good or bad, or right or wrong. It addresses the way memes succeed and fail, the way they spread and evolve. Memetics doesn't annihilate discoveries in the field of psychology. It provides a model for how they propagate.

Memetics in no way addresses why certain brutal tribal practices would find fertile ground in one mind and be rejected as abhorrent in another. Psychology does that, has already done that for decades.

What reason does psychology give that they are accepted by some minds and not by others?

Imitation is as much of an explanation in psychology as "it's made of molecules" is an explanation in chemistry. Compare:

Your insistence that we "not forget imitation as a vector" is about as trivial and risible as someone's insistence that we "not forget things are made of molecules".

I didn't insist that we not forget imitation as a vector. I said it would be foolish to ignore the fact that behaviors replicate by imitation, which is what you're proposing when you say things like:

"Memetics is a pseudo-scientific theory that diverts attention away from scientific theories. As a single example, memetics puts fashion fads and brutal tribal practices on the exact same level."

The only way it puts those two behaviors on the "exact same level" is that they replicate by imitation. That says nothing about their emotional impact. It doesn't invalidate anything in psychology that I know of. It's just an observation about how culture works.

First of all, you claim that "we are not our memes" but that claim is not shared by most adherents of memetics. Second of all, you seem to claim here that imitation is not the only vector by which behaviour propagates, but that claim is not shared by most adherents of memetics. Third of all, you admit that imitation is not the most significant aspect between many behaviours, in contradiction to the whole point of memetics.

The whole idea behind memetics is that "imitation" is the holy grail, the be all and end all of psychology and culture; it answers all questions and solves all problems. I've proved otherwise. Yet, like most pseudo-scientists (or religionists), you continue to cling to your belief no matter the evidence piled before you by merely making exception upon exception until there is nothing of significance left to your beliefs.

The "observation" that fashion and brutality both spread by imitation is Nth order, it is of no significance whatsoever, and drawing any attention whatsoever to that observation distorts from what Really Matters as established by Empirical Methods. (Assuming of course that your purpose is to understand reality as it is, and not merely to rationalize your emotional impulses.) Memetics is always either utterly trivial or utterly false. Its triviality is the worst danger.

ImitationDoesNotMatter?.

Where are you getting your ideas about memetics? I haven't seen anything in the literature that suggests "[t]he whole idea behind memetics is that "imitation" is the holy grail, the be all and end all of psychology and culture; it answers all questions and solves all problems."

If imitation isn't the be all and end all of memetics then what else is there to memetics? And if memetics isn't the be all and end all of psychology then what does memetics limit itself to? And if, as I believe, memetics should be limited to fads and fashions (which it doesn't even successfully explain) then why should it be of interest to anyone?

Memetics provides a model of how culture evolves. Imitation is just how memes propagate. Memetics models how they interact, succeed, fail, change, etc. Memetics limits itself to those behaviors that aren't genetically determined. Termites don't learn how to build mounds by imitation; they know it in their genes. Orcas learn how to beach prey by imitation, so that unit of culture can be modeled as a meme or memeplex. It is of great interest because we are the most meme drenched species on the planet. Memes let us do nifty things like live on Antartica without evolving an extra layer of blubber or fur.

That's the party line, but in fact the memetics "model" is trivial or false. Memetics does not in any way model cultural evolution, as becomes obvious when one compares it with an actual model of cultural evolution (see PsychoHistory or OriginOfConsciousness).

[Is the italicized author sincere? Can he possibly type the previous sentence with a straight face?]

Imitation is not the most important way that ideas propagate, merely the most trivial. Most ideas propagate through conscious assimilation, and childrearing practices propagate through trauma and feelings.

Memetics in no way models how ideas, thoughts, feelings, and behaviours interact. Instead, memetics conflates all of these extremely different animals into the species of "memes". In memetics, memes act only to copy themselves, mutate, suppress or strengthen other memes. This completely ignores the conscious mind's ability to tear apart a concept into constituent pieces; "constituent" pieces which did not exist before they were fabricated by that very mind.

Finally, memetics says absolutely nothing about why memes should succeed or fail except to mutter that it's because of "other memes". As a theory, memetics is incomplete and trivial. As a framework upon which to build other theories, memetics is too deeply flawed to be anything but useless. Its flaws are so great that there is no method of mapping memetics onto any serious theory of mind in either psychology or philosophy. (Perhaps behaviourism might work but behaviourism is self-evidently false.)

PsychologyIsScientific

CategoryOffTopic CategoryMemes

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