The only similarity that memes have to genes is that they are both replicators. There are other types of replicators as well. For instance, our immune systems are know to work by selection and replication. By their nature, replicators are competitors. They compete to be successful, not in any deterministic way. Rather, successful replicators survive and thrive. Those that don't fall by the wayside.
Memes are instructions for carrying out behaviours. They are stored in our brains and are passed on by imitation. The competition of and emergence of successful memes can be looked at as the drivers behind the evolution of the human mind. (Blackmore, P.17)
Daniel Dennet, a respected researcher/academic, has stated that the human mind and our concept of self developed by processes connected to the interplay of memes. He claims that human consciousness and many of our thinking processes are products of meme interactions. These existing memes have taken root in varying ways, in different cultures over the centuries. They have been passed down from generation to generation, adapting, changing and building on the successes of their predecessor memes. Their means of transmission are by whatever means works.
As means of communication have progressed, the speed and changeability of successful memes have followed. Ideas are now spread almost instantaneously. Political movements and other components of culture change like the weather. Outlooks on life hardly remain the same year to year, although varying from society to society. Peace movements, green movements, fanatic groups, anti-social types, NGO's, tyrannies, hate spouting groups - these are but a few examples of humans acting based on memes that have successfully taken over them or those of influence within their communities.
Only a few memes are ever copied from brain to brain. The ones we meet are the successful ones, the ones that made it in the "competition for replication". Memes processes include passing on information by using language, reading, instruction and other complex human skills and behaviours. It includes any kind of copying of ideas and behaviours from one person to another. (Blackmore, p.43)
There are of course other forms of learning that don't rely on meme replication. These include classical and operant conditioning. Imitation and the passing on of memes involves learning to do acts from seeing it done by others. (Edward Lee Thorndike (1898) (in Blackmore p.47)
Good quality replicators have Fidelity, Fecundity, and Longevity. (Dawkins 1976 in Blackmore p.58)
Memes are very much involved with "Religion". Memes answer all kinds of questions - such as where do we come from? Where do we go when we die? Memes can explain suffering. That doesn't mean that the explanations that come from memes are necessarily true.
Religion can give people a sense of belonging. Religion is often connected to useful rules for living, such as hygiene, routines, interpersonal relations and so on. These useful memes also will serve to carry and spread themselves among others.
A part of meme propagation is something referred to as "The Altruism Trick". The way this works - most people consider themselves to be good. They do or want to do good. They believe in being good because that is what they have been taught by their religion. Others will imitate these good people, expanding concepts of altruism. The imitating of altruism will connect these new altruistic people to the original religion which encouraged that very behaviour. The imitator functions - the replicators - are mutually dependent on each other for spreading and for their success.
Religions rely on faith, which is untestable. That factor (faith) protects memes from rejection. The various and connected memes of religion are stored in various forms, in oral tradition, rituals - and in sacred books.
The "great religions" evolved gradually, over time, by memetic selection. Historically, societies with priests developed religious memes that were more successful than those without priests. The presence and influence of charismatic leaders played an important part not only in religious development , but in human societies. (p. 196 Blackmore)
Memes can be untruthful. The point is that they be successful. As human beings, we tend to be curious, to look for "truth" in facts. However, at times we can be tricked into believing that something false is the way things are. A ready example is the long held belief that the world was flat. It took centuries, scientific developments and other factual support to change people's way of thinking.
As an important component of human survival and evolution, we have developed complex perceptual systems which provide us with an accurate model of the external world around us.
Our capacity to thin and solve problems aim us to ideas and perception that are "true" rather than "false". In terms of memes, true ones should thrive better than false ones. (p.180 Blackmore) But there exists something called "truth mimicry. False claims can sneak into memplexes (groups of memes) under the protection of truly true ones. Further, these false ideas can spread and become widely held myths. The contra side to disproving or changing these false memes, is application of truth and facts through science and/or other scholarly methods.
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