Philosophy: Memetics - just who am I?
Just who am I? And who or what is the next person? When you see something, or someone, is that thing or person really there? What is reality? I'm not quite ready to see myself , as the film "The Matrix" postulates, as a "duracell" for machines who have created my reality for me. However, the subject of 'Memetics' is an interesting theory I came across dealing with these questions.
What are memes? Memes are the basic building blocks of our minds and culture, in the same way that genes are the basic building blocks of biological life. Just like we evolve physically, according to memetics, we also evolve culturally. Ideas are now no longer "good" or "bad" because these ideas, or "memes" spread according to our most basic instinctual needs i.e. danger, food, sex etc. They push our "evolutionary buttons" and force us to pay attention to them. So what then about free will? What constitutes life?
If "memes" control our thoughts and therefore our actions, are ideas or "memes" just "mind viruses"? Well, the truth is that we continually understand more and more about how our bodies and minds work. We now know that trillions of organic nanomachines in the cells of our bodies work together to give us life. Neither that understanding nor the new understanding of our minds that memetics will give us should affect the philosophical question of free will. Yet, is the "self" something we have any control over? I have to ask myself: "Have I ever had a truly original idea, or do my thoughts merely become mutations of ideas I've been "programmed" with?" So what does this say about my personality?
The United States Congress designated the 1990s as the Decade of the Brain, but some suggest that the twenty-first century will be the century of the brain, when the last great frontier in biology—an understanding of the most complex biological system, the human brain—will be breached. The question of "nature vs nurture" is one of paramount importance when trying to understand what makes up my personality. Am I merely a carbon based lifeform responding to chemical fluctuations within the grey matter I call my brain, or am I (my personality) the result of the sum of all the memes I have been bombarded with since my inception (birth)? One thing is certain - we all gravitate toward different "meme groupings", that is to say, we have affinities for memes that reinforce memes that have come before. It is this predisposition that cause humans to have various cultural differences. Does this mean that we, as a specie, will become more "memetically polarised" over time?
As a rule, the case can be made that we do cling to those memes we feel we identify with, and we will defend them against other opposing memes. Religion, language, racial identity... all of these can be said to be memetically reinforced paradigms in which we find ourselves. Fortunately, things are never as "black or white" as we would suppose them to be. One thing is certain - the more things change, the more they stay the same. Life is resilient, and so are memes. If one is to accept that memes exist independently of us, then it is also fair to say that like us, memes will seek their own self-preservation. Ask yourself: "How am I reading this? Is this someone's discourse with me, or is this a meme in itself just replicating itself through a new medium - this blog?"
So where does all this leave me, the individual? Well, as I see it, I am a combination of matter and meme, and if I'm lucky, a little of the Divine. Will I endure? No. Will the memes I spread? Yes. In our quest for immortality we are the perfect hosts for memes. Who knows, perhaps someday our memetic children will traverse the stars and find new hosts.
What are memes? Memes are the basic building blocks of our minds and culture, in the same way that genes are the basic building blocks of biological life. Just like we evolve physically, according to memetics, we also evolve culturally. Ideas are now no longer "good" or "bad" because these ideas, or "memes" spread according to our most basic instinctual needs i.e. danger, food, sex etc. They push our "evolutionary buttons" and force us to pay attention to them. So what then about free will? What constitutes life?
If "memes" control our thoughts and therefore our actions, are ideas or "memes" just "mind viruses"? Well, the truth is that we continually understand more and more about how our bodies and minds work. We now know that trillions of organic nanomachines in the cells of our bodies work together to give us life. Neither that understanding nor the new understanding of our minds that memetics will give us should affect the philosophical question of free will. Yet, is the "self" something we have any control over? I have to ask myself: "Have I ever had a truly original idea, or do my thoughts merely become mutations of ideas I've been "programmed" with?" So what does this say about my personality?
The United States Congress designated the 1990s as the Decade of the Brain, but some suggest that the twenty-first century will be the century of the brain, when the last great frontier in biology—an understanding of the most complex biological system, the human brain—will be breached. The question of "nature vs nurture" is one of paramount importance when trying to understand what makes up my personality. Am I merely a carbon based lifeform responding to chemical fluctuations within the grey matter I call my brain, or am I (my personality) the result of the sum of all the memes I have been bombarded with since my inception (birth)? One thing is certain - we all gravitate toward different "meme groupings", that is to say, we have affinities for memes that reinforce memes that have come before. It is this predisposition that cause humans to have various cultural differences. Does this mean that we, as a specie, will become more "memetically polarised" over time?
As a rule, the case can be made that we do cling to those memes we feel we identify with, and we will defend them against other opposing memes. Religion, language, racial identity... all of these can be said to be memetically reinforced paradigms in which we find ourselves. Fortunately, things are never as "black or white" as we would suppose them to be. One thing is certain - the more things change, the more they stay the same. Life is resilient, and so are memes. If one is to accept that memes exist independently of us, then it is also fair to say that like us, memes will seek their own self-preservation. Ask yourself: "How am I reading this? Is this someone's discourse with me, or is this a meme in itself just replicating itself through a new medium - this blog?"
So where does all this leave me, the individual? Well, as I see it, I am a combination of matter and meme, and if I'm lucky, a little of the Divine. Will I endure? No. Will the memes I spread? Yes. In our quest for immortality we are the perfect hosts for memes. Who knows, perhaps someday our memetic children will traverse the stars and find new hosts.
posted by Icarus at 11:53:00 AM
2 Comments:
Very interest post. As a non-philosophiser I had never considered memes. It really made me think when you referenced them as mind viruses! I'll end with a classic :)
hi im really busy at the moment, but just tryed to read your stuff. In my alevel re course we learned about memes, about a group of ideas, we create. How much of what society creates are we, I find it hard just thinking of myself as just cells working together. Have you read the work of Richard Dawkins ?.I will read it all again when i have some more time, thanks for making my brain think.
maria davies-from lynn circles philosophy group:)
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