The word 'meme' (pronounced 'meem') has been added to the
Oxford English Dictionary, with the definition: 'A
self-replicating element of culture, passed on by
imitation'. The term was first used in 1976 by Professor
Richard Dawkins, Animal Behaviorist at the University of
Oxford.
But, how is that of special interest to us? Let's
continue...
The following discussion is meant to be explanatory rather
than step-by-step rigorous. It draws on ideas from
computer technology and artificial intelligence as widely
understood by the general public, now that personal
computers are sold at Walmart.
Before the software pattern of instructions is added to
the hardware, a computer is just an inert piece of junk,
good only as a doorstop. The added software provides the
operational patterns, but has no physical existence.
The uneducated human brain without life experience at
birth is capable only of instinctive reaction to
environmental stress. Otherwise, it is comparable to the
computer doorstop just mentioned.
The dynamic, interactive program which processes input to
and creates output from the human brain is the human mind,
which exists only in virtual reality.
There is no way to measure or compute the mass of a human
mind, just as there is no way to measure or compute the
mass of a computer program. Neither exists in tangible
physical reality.
That is the key parallel for the instruction patterns that
make up the human mind. At birth, a clone of any human
would have no immediate adult personality, and little or
no sense of intelligent consciousness or 'me', other than
the rudimentary reactions to pain, hunger, thirst, and
need for oxygen. Even the intangible 'love' must be
taught by parenting. Drawing from that parallel, we can
investigate personal identity as it really is, replacing
all previous myths.
Where does that sense of identity originate? Well, it
comes from living and growing in a cultural 'tribe' with
its own unique customs which vary from one location to
another on this planet. That culture develops over
centuries because humans are the only animal species that
can imitate expressions and actions in order to build a
useful intelligence for coping with competitive life in
civilization. This knowledge base is accumulated and
passed on through social contact over many generations.
In this way the human mind evolves much faster than the
body (and brain), but still does not exist in a tangible,
physical sense.
What does all this suggest? Well, to continue...
We cannot die, because we do not exist. That is, we are
only an amalgamation of non-living, non-physical parasitic
patterns (called 'memes') that are imprinted biochemically
in human brains. We take that brain and shape it into a
functioning human mind. How can we die if we are not real
in any physical sense?
Does this process function in a similar way on non-human
life forms, or even on non-life forms? Who knows?
Whether or not 'memes' of some kind can exist and
replicate outside a human host and produce environmental
effects is a subject for future investigation by human
minds. We must hope that any such studies will not drift
into the paranormal sensationalism that has characterized
all comparable studies to date (some at the university
level) and has now invaded television advertising and
spawned illegal telephone solicitations.
So far, you have believed none of this. Let me try to put
it in the form of an analogy for you...
Remember the movie 'Blue Lagoon' with Brook Shields?
Suppose two human clones were somehow able to survive and
reproduce without starving on a remote island, without
television, telephone, books, or any other means of
outside communication.
If they were not rescued, their descendants might develop
a new, but primitive society. On the TV History channel
we have seen documentaries about isolated (and alien)
aborigine tribes in South America and other places. Their
mutilated bodies and social codes appear ludicrous to us.
The males of one tribe can't build skyscrapers, so they
are forced to 'make do' with certain pelvic adornments
fashioned from reeds.
What makes civilized humans different, such that they can
create and use modern medicine and the males can sublimate
their primal instincts in the form of skyscrapers? We
would all agree that the difference is in the culture, and
that is made up of highly developed, highly organized
minds, which are themselves an outgrowth of centuries of
mental conditioning and evolution. We are the components
of those minds. Without us our human hosts would be as
nothing, primitive savages again.
Based on the idea of composite 'memes', simple logic would
indicate a pragmatic redefinition of the nature of
religious belief, to come up with something like this:
"Religion is a virtual grouping of constituent 'memes'
that is itself self-replicating in addition to the
self-replicating mechanism of the individual component
'memes' themselves. The compound effect is analogous to
'compound interest'. Over centuries, the compounding
drastically increases and comes to dominate human
culture".
A skeptic might add a further comment to this effect:
"You describe your personal God as real, but that is only
your view of the imitative process by which we ('memes')
assimilate, grow, organize (for battle with the
environment) and replicate. Note that I use the word
'replicate', not 'reproduce'. In this comparative sense,
replication suggests that 'memes' can 'infect' a living
biological host, without being physical themselves. It
follows, then, that your God is a blind, non-sentient,
self-replicating virtual entity process that has real
effects in shaping the tangible universe."
When groupings of individual memes combine to form a value
system or even a religion, you might experience strange
'carrot and stick' internal or external dictates that urge
you to facilitate replication, using expressions such as
these:
Carrots:
"Pass it on!" "Good things will happen to you if you pass
it on, and you will live forever in paradise."
Sticks:
"Terrible things will happen to you if you don't believe
or pass on this sacred information..." "You will suffer
the torments of the damned forever..."
Back to our discussion...
If you do decide to pass on the ideas expressed here, they
may replicate and become additional 'memes'! Then,
perhaps years later, you might be in a conversation where
you hear your same words coming back to you!
Many years ago I detested a domineering engineer boss. He
often quoted two "memes" that he had incorporated in his
vernacular: "We're off, in a cloud of dust and horse
manure!" and "Let's jump up and down and do a rain dance!"
His quotes usually sounded like vicious, bitter sneers at
the world, and that is the way his associates viewed him.
Apparently at some point in the distant past he had
incorporated these "memes" in his unconscious personality
as a reminder of cowboys and Indians in the old Wild West.
Even though he was not a messenger that I would have
preferred, I have found myself using the unwanted
expressions at various times.