The Meme Machine (9 page)

Cavalli–Sforza and Feldman listed different mechanisms of cultural transmission and provided mathematical models of particular cases, including maladaptive ones. A seriously maladaptive example is the practice of cannibalism in the funeral rites of a New Guinea highland tribe called the Fore. As part of complex rituals honouring their dead the Fore ate parts of the human bodies. In fact, they preferred eating pork to human flesh and so the men tended to get more of this prized food, leaving the women and children to more cannibalism (Durham 1991). This practice led directly to an epidemic of the degenerative disease kuru, which killed about 2500 Foré people, mostly women and children. Cavalli–Sforza and Feldman demonstrated mathematically that a maladaptive trait like this could eliminate up to 50 per cent of its carriers and still spread through a population.

However, despite contributing so much to our understanding of cultural transmission and the spread of maladaptive practices. Cavalli–Sforza and Feldman still see ‘cultural activity as an extension of Darwinian fitness’ (1981, p. 362), and this is what distinguishes their theory from memetics. As Dennett (1997) puts it, they do not ask the all–important
Cui bono?
question. Or, if they do, they simply assume that the answer must be the genes, and do not consider the possibility that ‘it is the cultural items
themselves
that benefit from the adaptations they exhibit’ (Dennett 1997, p. 7). For Cavalli–Sforza and Feldman, cultural adaptation means the use of skills, beliefs, and so on, to the ultimate benefit of the genes – and the term ‘maladaptive’ means maladaptive to the genes. Even if only in the long run, they say, ‘The mechanism of natural selection retains ultimate control’ (Cavalli–Sforza and Feldman 1981, p. 364). In other words they too believe in the leash.

The only anthropologists who seem to have let go of the leash are Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson from the University of California at Los Angeles. Like sociobiologists, they accept that culture arises from ‘natural origins’ but claim that models that take cultural evolution into account –like their ‘Dual Inheritance Model’ – can do better than sociobiology. They refer to Campbell’s rule and are convinced, as I am, that cultural variants must be subject to their own form of natural selection. They analyse in great detail the structural differences between cultural transmission and genetic transmission and conclude ‘… the behaviour that enables an individual to maximize his chance to enculturate cultural offspring may not be the behavior that will maximize the transmission of genes to the next generation’ (Boyd and Richerson 1985, p. 11). In their version of coevolution the genes can keep culture on a leash, culture can keep the genes on a leash, or the two may evolve in competition or mutuality (Richerson and Boyd 1989). They seem to be truly treating their cultural unit as a separate replicator. Boyd and Richerson are anthropologists, concerned far more than I shall be with cultural variation. However, many of their ideas will prove useful in understanding the selection of memes.

The anthropologist William Durham uses the term ‘meme’ for his unit of cultural evolution, and at first sight may appear to take a memetic view, but a closer look shows that for him the meme is not truly a selfish replicator. He claims that organic and cultural selection work on the
same
criterion – that is, inclusive fitness – and are complementary. He argues that Boyd and Richerson take ‘the abstract genetic analogy a bit too far’ and are ‘strongly anti–Darwinian’, and he does not agree with them that human evolution is
fundamentally different
from that of other organisms (Durham 1991, p. 183).

This comes to the heart of the issue. For me, as for Dawkins and Dennett, memetic evolution means that people
are
different. Their ability to imitate creates a second replicator that acts in its own interests and can produce behaviour that is memetically adaptive but biologically maladaptive. This is not just a temporary aberration to be ultimately reined in by the powerful genes, but is permanent, because memes are powerful in just the same way that genes are; they have replicator power. Cloak, and Boyd and Richerson, seem to agree but the others do not accept the independent replicator power of their units of cultural transmission. In that important sense they are much closer to traditional sociobiology -their motto might be ‘the genes will always win’. The leash may sometimes get very long but the dog can never get away.

That brings us full circle to the modern successor to sociobiology,
which largely takes the same standpoint. Evolutionary psychology is based on the idea that the human mind evolved to solve the problems of a hunter–gatherer way of life in the Pleistocene age (Barkow
et al
. 1992; Pinker 1997). In other words, all our behaviours, beliefs, tendencies and customs are adaptations. For example, sexual jealousy and love for our children, the way we acquire grammar or adjust our food intake to deal with nutritional deficits, our avoidance of snakes and our ability to maintain friendships are all seen as adaptations to a lifestyle of hunting and gathering. Evolutionary psychologists therefore argue that all behaviour ultimately comes back to biological advantage.

Evolutionary psychology can take us a long way, but is it far enough? I say not. From the perspective of memetics, evolutionary psychology provides a crucial underpinning. In order to understand why certain memes are positively selected and others rejected we need to understand the way natural selection has moulded our brains for the benefit of the genes. We like sweet cakes and caffeine–filled drinks, we look twice at a magazine with a naked woman on the front and not at the one with trains on it. We buy bright bunches of flowers and avoid the smell of rotting cabbages, and all this is essential to understanding memetic selection. But it is not the whole story. To fully understand human behaviour we must consider both genetic
and memetic
selection. Most evolutionary psychologists reject outright the idea that a second replicator is needed. My task in this book must be to show why it is.

•••••

I have explored various approaches to cultural evolution to see whether any use the same ideas as memetics but under another name. The answer, with the limited exceptions I have discussed, is no. It seems that there is no ready–made science of memetics waiting to be taken over. If we need a science of memetics, as I am convinced we do, then we shall have to build one up from scratch.

The main tools available are the basic principles of evolutionary theory, the founding ideas of Dawkins, Dennett and other early memeticists, and the relevant ideas from a cultural anthropology discussed above. Of course, we can also draw on more than a century of research in psychology and several decades of cognitive science and neuroscience.

Using these tools, I shall try to lay the foundations for a science of memetics. I can then use this to provide new answers to old questions from the apparently trivial, such as ‘Why is my head so full of thoughts?’ to the weighty question of why human beings have such big brains. The first step in this endeavour is to start looking at the world from a meme’s eye view.

CHAPTER 4

Taking the meme’s eye view

We can now start to look at the world in a new way. I shall call this the meme’s eye view, though, of course, memes do not really have eyes or points of view. They cannot see anything and they cannot predict anything. However, the point of this perspective is the same as the ‘gene’s eye view’ in biology. Memes are replicators and tend to increase in number whenever they have the chance. So the meme’s eye view is the view that looks at the world in terms of opportunities for replication – what will help a meme to make more copies of itself and what will prevent it?

I like to ask a simple question – indeed I shall use this question again in several different contexts. Imagine a world full of hosts for memes (e.g. brains) and far more memes than can possibly find homes. Now ask, which memes are more likely to find a safe home and get passed on again?

This is a reasonable way to characterise the real world we live in. Each of us creates or comes cross countless memes every day. Most of our thoughts are potentially memes but if they do not get spoken they die out straight away. We produce memes every time we speak, but most of these are quickly snuffed out in their travels. Other memes are carried on radio and television, in written words, in other people’s actions, or the products of technology, films and pictures.

Think for a moment about all the thoughts you have had in the past ten minutes – let alone all day. Even while reading you have probably thought about other people, remembered things you meant to do, made plans for later in the day, or (I hope) pursued ideas sparked off by the book. Most of these thoughts will never be thought again. You will not pass them on and they will perish.

Think of the number of things you are likely to say to someone else today – or the number of words you will hear other people speak. You might listen to the radio, watch television, have dinner with other people, help your children with the homework, answer the phone to people far away. Most of what is said in these conversations will never be passed on again. Most of it will
not
reappear as ‘Then he said to her …’ or ‘And did you know …’. Most will die at birth.

Written words may not fare much better. The words on this page have at least got as far as being read by you, but may well get no further. Even if you do pass them on, you may scramble them for easier recall or because I have not made myself clear, so the copying fidelity will not always be high. Millions of newspapers are printed each day but by a week later most of the copies have gone and most people have forgotten what was in them. Books may do a little better – though in the United States alone something like one hundred thousand new books are published every year. Not all of them can be influential or memorable. And while some scientific papers are widely read and quoted, it is rumoured that the majority are not read by anyone at all!

We could not (even in principle) calculate the proportion of potential memes that actually do get passed on but the idea is clear enough. There is enormous selection pressure, and therefore very few survivors from among the very many starters. Only a few memes are successfully copied from brain to brain, from brain to print, from print to print or from voice to compact disk. The ones we regularly meet are the successful ones – the ones that made it in the competition for replication. My question is simply – which memes are those?

I am going to take the meme’s eye view as a way of tackling several controversial questions. I shall start with a simple one. The question itself may not be profound but it does turn out to be rather intriguing – and it will give us practise in thinking from the meme’s point of view.

Why can’t we stop thinking?

Can you stop thinking?

Perhaps you have practised meditation or some other method of calming the mind. If so you will know that the task is not trivial. If you have not, I suggest you try now to empty your mind for a minute or so (or if you cannot face it now, try it sometime when you have nothing ‘better’ to do, waiting for the kettle to boil, or the computer to boot up, for example). When any thought comes along, as it certainly will, just acknowledge it and let it go. Do not get tangled up in the thoughts or follow them up. See whether you can find any space between them. The simplest forms of meditation are no more than this kind of practice. It is fiendishly difficult.

Why? You will doubtless notice that thoughts just seem to pop up out of nowhere and grab your attention. You may also notice what kinds of thought they are. Typically, they are imagined conversations or arguments,
reruns of events with new endings, self–justifications, complicated plans for the future, or difficult decisions that have to be made. They are rarely simple images, perceptions or feelings (which can come and go without causing trouble); rather, they use words, arguments, and ideas you have acquired from other people. In other words, these incessant thoughts are memes. ‘You’ cannot command them to cease. You cannot even command them to go slower nor tell yourself not to get sucked into them. They seem to have a life and power of their own. Why?

From the biological point of view this constant thinking does not appear to be justified. I say this cautiously, in the recognition that many things that at first did not appear to be in the interests of the genes subsequently have turned out to be. Nevertheless it may be helpful to think this through.

Thinking requires energy. One of the many benefits of techniques like PET scanning (positron emission tomography) is that we can observe graphically what goes on in a brain when someone is thinking. Scans, although still severely limited in resolution, can show the relative amounts of blood flowing in different areas of the brain. For example, when someone is doing a visual task there is more activity in the visual cortex, when listening to music more in the auditory cortex, and so on. As had long been suspected, imagining something uses similar parts of the brain as actually seeing or hearing the same thing. So imagining conversations activates speech areas, and so on. Experiments comparing simple visual tasks with more difficult ones show higher levels of activity with the more difficult task.

The amounts of energy used are small compared with, say, running up a hill, but they are not entirely negligible. Blood flow means that oxygen and stored energy are being burned up, and these have to be worked for. If an organism could get by without thinking all the time it would use less energy and hence ought to have a survival advantage.

Presumably, then, all this thinking has some function. But what? Perhaps we are practising useful skills, or solving problems, or thinking through social exchanges so as to make better deals, or planning future activities. I have to say this does not seem to be plausible for the sorts of daft and pointless thoughts I tend to think about. However, applying evolutionary thinking to today’s situation may not be appropriate. We did not evolve along with books, telephones and cities.