http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes.html

I was having trouble getting the embedded video in my post above to play, so here's the URL to the video on the TED website.

 I love the way you can get so many different points of view from those TED talks. The selfish gene idea is fantastic, as is the meme. I'm not sure I'm with her on the "teme", though. I'd have to say that it's a subset of the meme, not a fully distinct phase. The industrial revolution would have been the beginning of that "teme machine" era, and I'd say that's more of a "we can conquer nature with tools" meme instead of a distinct form of replicator.

However, from the standpoint of the medium, the pattern fits. Genetics has its medium in organisms in general, memes in human minds, and technology in the form of tools created by people. Pottery could then be considered a technological meme. But then, any physical creation could be considered a technological meme. Ties, for instance, or shirts.

Anyway, there has to be a better way to put that.

Holy shit - talk about just desserts.

If memes are really so analogous to genes, then how can there be a best idea (best "meme" ) anyone ever had? Would Darwin have agreed that it's possible for there to be a best gene any organism ever had? If the meme and the gene are truly similar in that they are both replicators driven by an evolutionary process, then this statement---not even two minutes into her talk---raises a suspicious eyebrow. There are no "best" genes. There are only genes that work. And so there should be no "best"  ideas, no "best" memes, no "best" bits of information that get copied and passed on. There should be only memes that work.

Darwin's might have been a really unique and brilliant idea that changed the way we think about everything, but there was also a really unique and brilliant gene (which gave us our brains) that changed the way we think about everything. Was that the best gene anyone ever had? Or was it just a really good gene because it worked? (For us. Maybe to a frog, that crazy awesome tongue is the best gene anyone ever had.)

Another important question:

The "meme" idea is a meme itself. So the function of the "meme" meme is to point to itself.

Is there a gene that specifies its own existence? The questioning eyebrow rises again.

And, to critique Blackmore specifically, doesn't she strike anyone else as unwaveringly anthropocentric? WE are the hosts of memes. WE are the earth's Pandoran species. WE. WE. WE. HUMANS. US. US. US. All over the place.

Come on. Animals have memes, too. Is a chimpanzee born knowing how to fish for ants using a twig? Are sea otters born knowing how to smash oysters on rocks? You may have heard about the amazing meme passed on among crows where they've learned to drop nuts into traffic, letting cars crack them open, leaving the contents on the pavement for the crow to collect at the next red light. This is not a crow meme? The questioning eyebrow detects anthropocentrism and again rises.

How analogous are genes and memes really? The "meme" was a brilliant thought experiment by Dawkins, but if memetics is going to be advanced as a science that plays off evolution and the gene, it should be more clear how genes and memes differ, because it appears that they do, and in some vital ways.

I'm not sure how I feel about her new "temes" idea. I've thought about it, and I've got myself to a point where it now seems to make sense to me why she would want to use a new term, but I don't feel like she did a very good job of explaining what she meant by "temes".

The problem I'm currently having is that I can very well conceive of a gene and a meme, but I cannot think of what a "teme" actually is. I mean, I assume it must be some form of program or software (with or without accommodating hardware), but I really don't know. I can't think of any examples along those lines that I feel like meet the "teme" description.

It also struck me that you could continue positing new words in an endless chain of self-replicators, one rung higher in Blackmore's ladder of "universal darwinism". I'll explain:

1. Genes comes into existence and only give a shit about themselves.

2. Memes come into existence and only continue to exist because they benefit genes, and genes tend to keep around anything that benefits them. (Notice this raises the question of how memes came about. We're still working on gene-abiogenesis. Maybe meme-abiogenesis next?) We might say that the earliest memes tended to only be those that benefited genes. Once there were a large number of such gene-benefiting memes, there were some junk meme byproducts. Now we have a large mixture of both gene-benefiting and junk memes.

3. Temes (whatever they are?) come into existence and only continue to exist because they benefit memes which benefit genes. However, temes really only care about memes regardless of whether or not those memes benefit genes. So if all the gene-benefiting memes disappeared and only the junk memes remained, it likely would not be of any consequence to the temes (whatever they are). Then, once a large number of meme-benefiting temes were in place, there should, at some point, arise a large number of "junk temes". And what the fuck are THOSE?!?!

4. The process continues. Let's say with "wemes". Wemes come into existence and only continue to exist because they benefit temes which benefit memes. However, wemes really only care about temes regardless of whether or not those temes benefit memes. So if all the meme-benefiting temes disappeared and only the "junk temes" (whatever the fuck they are) remained, it likely would not be of any consequence to the wemes. Then, once a large number of teme-benefiting wemes were in place, there should, at some point, arise a large number of "junk wemes". And what the fuck is JUNK WEME?!?!

5. Invent your own! Fill in the blank! [_emes] come into existence and only continue to exist because they benefit wemes which benefit temes. However, [_emes] really only care about wemes regardless of whetheror not those wemes benefit temes. So if all the teme-benefiting wemes disappeared and only the "junk wemes" (whatever the fuck they are) remained, it likely would not be of any consequence to the [_emes]. Then, once a large number of weme-benefiting [_emes] were in place, there should, at some point, arise a large number of "junk [_emes]". And what the fuck is JUNK [_EME]?!?!

6. Etc?

This raises the question: How much is true and how much is just a deeply fascinating thought experiment/mind fuck?

Brain: Do me harder, wemes!

I think that genetic replication is analogous to hardware replication (i.e. building a PC), and the meme replication is software/idea copying analogous to installing an operating system and applications.

Temes, it seems, refers to the techonology we create such as computers, automobiles, refridgerators, washing machines.  I guess she believes that one day we'll build a computer plant that designs and manufacturers PC's for humans and for other corporations.  And then the computer plant will design and commission the manufacture of its successor and put Dell out of business or something like that.

It sounds like science fiction to me, but I do really dig the first part of her talk about memes.  It's the teme concept that needs a little work.

Now that I think about it, I kind of want to know what Susan Blackmore does with her day.

Because, really, what does a "memeticist" DO? Is she just making objective observations about how information is transmitted and then coming up with fancy terminology?

What would a "memetics experiment" involve? What does her "research" involve?

Where is the meat and potatoes to this memetics business?

I can think of a memetic experiment.

You can plant memes into an unknowing population of research participants, and observe what they say or do over a period of time, paying close attention to how the meme changes over time and spreads.

You could also do this in a computer simulation.

Using this method, you could make hypotheses about memetic evolution and test them in experiments or simulations.