Don,

You assure me that we agree.

> On Jul 20, 2018, at 6:16 PM, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Gunnar
> 
> We agree.

But I don’t understand what we agree on because I don’t know what you’re saying.

> Yes, Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme." The term has been debated and
> the definition expanded by others in the scientific and academic community.

Will you point me toward sources and explanations of the expansion? What was the purpose of expanding the definition? Does this expansion completely negate Dawkins’ definition?

> I do consider those discussions authoritative for our purpose.

Which discussions? What is "our purpose"?

> I also find the term "meme" useful.

Can you point me toward an example of its usefulness?

> ​You ask:
> 
> ​
> On Fri, Jul 20, 2018 at 12:39 PM, Gunnar Swanson <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Quick: Name three "elements of a culture or system of behavior" that may
>> *not* "be considered to be passed from one individual to another by
>> nongenetic means, especially imitation."
>> 
> 
> ​Ah, but you said​ "elements of a culture or system of behavior."  I would
> argue that this does not cover all the possible stuff we know.

To be more clear, I said it quoting you (or, more precisely, quoting you quoting a definition from the internet that you offered without attribution but seemed to approve of. 

I don’t get why anyone thought it might "cover all the possible stuff we know" nor do I understand what your assertion is asserting.

> Culure, by
> definition, is a meme (or to be recursive, is a meme that is comprised of
> multiple memes).

What does this mean? What is the "meme" you are referring to? The word "culture"? The concept of a culture? Any given culture as a whole? Or are they all memes?

> Some behyavioral routines are memes, if others copy them
> or they are taught. When a tennis player bounces the ball several times on
> the ground before serving, that behavioral routine is a meme, copied by
> aspiring young players all over the world, forno apparent reason other than
> the fact that they have seen other plasyers do it. The behavior has gone
> viral.

Is tennis as a whole a meme? Is each rule of the game a meme? 

> But my understanding that my friend John loves peanut butter is not a meme.
> Why not? Ah, to answer that question is to explain what it is that makes a
> meme. A meme is a unit of knowledge that also has sharing, transmititive,
> viral properties is why it is useful to have a name for that sort of thing:
> Not everything is a meme.

So a meme is a unit of knowledge composed of units of knowledge which are, I assume, composed of more units of knowledge? What does all of this unitizing do for us?

Have we disposed of Dawkins’ gene analogy? (If so, why?) 

Dawkins noted the problem himself: “I have talked of memes as though it was obvious what a single unit-meme consisted of. But of course it is far from obvious. I have said a tune is one meme, but what about a symphony : how many memes is that? Is each movement one meme, each recognizable phrase of a melody, each bar, each chord, or what?” At a later time Dawkins asked “how large a unit deserves the name ‘meme’. Is the whole Roman Catholic Church one meme, or should we use the word for one constituent unit such as the idea of incense or transubstantiation? Or for something in between?”

> Moreover, memes change as they are spread, and studying these changes is a
> valuable contribution to the social use of knowledge. (It is related to
> studies of the spread of rumours -- a rumor is a form of meme.)


Studying the way rumors spread and change is obviously valuable. Comparing that to the way other stuff spreads and changes is obviously valuable. But what value is calling all of it "memes"? 

Dawkins and his acolytes started with a provocative possibility—that cultural evolution might function similarly to biological evolution. After forty years in the oven, that idea isn’t even half baked. (Decades before that, Adolph Loos would have had us think that cultural evolution was like a different theory of biological evolution. I’m sure Dawkins knows of Ernst Haeckel but if he had never heard of Loos, was his "meme" the same meme?)  

The dried batter of their hope for a cake still sticks to the term "meme." If we are going to bother to chip it off, there should be a damned fine cake pan in there and we should think about whether we want to bake a cake that size anyway.


Gunnar

Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University 
graphic design program

http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA

http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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+1 252 258-7006


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