eli5 Can somebody explain memetics as a theory to me in layman’s terms please?
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Basically, ideas can get spread around from person to person, sort of the way a virus is spread. One person can get an idea, and tell that idea to someone else, and that idea will spread.
Like, if back in medieval times, one guy went “Wait, why am I working so hard to enrich a king who doesn’t care about me? What if we all stood up against him?” and if he spread that idea to others, they might also go “Yeah, that first guy was right! Down with the king!” and that idea would eventually infect an entire population.
Soon, there’s a bunch of people all with the same idea, and they have a revolution.
Some theories are that we can isolate and research these specific ideas that get transmitted, and analyze how that works. Figure out the most effective ways to transmit ideas, and see how people change after they are exposed to them.
The passing and evolution of information.
I tell you dogs can’t eat chocolate.
You post a picture if someone yelling at their dog who is trying to eat chocolate on reddit.
A redditor draws a comic strip about a dog who got sick eating chocolate.
An author partners with the comic creator to write a short story about a dog eating chocolate and how sad its owner got.
We’re passing the same information but evolving the method and story of that information.
I think the most simple way that it can be explained is how Richard Dawkins explained it:
All the rules that apply to genetics also apply to memetics. A “Meme” takes the part of a “Gene” and is generally a concept, an idea or a thought. This thought is subject to outside influence and can be carried on across generations. It’s also subject to mutation, natural selection and recombination among other things that also apply to genes.
Mutation: An meme is spread by work or book and is subject to the interpretation of the receiver. If the receiver interprets a part differently that the originator, then that would be some kind of mutation.
Natural selection: A meme has competition with other memes. If a meme is spread too slowly and unsuccessful, it’ll die out. If a meme spreads very fast and lives longer, it will become a prevalent meme that may or may not coexist among other memes of the same subject. This can be easily visualised by scrolling through “new” on any Reddit Meme sub.
Recombination: A meme may have a cross-over with another meme, where parts of the other meme are integrated into the first meme and the other way around.
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