Comic: What is the "meme"?

The story about the "meme" of

Saying a long time ago, an old man named Qigong, he had 10 sons and 10 daughters.

Qigong has so many heirs, individual genes can be widespread, he is not feeling very satisfied?

However, Hong Qigong still have a big regret:

He is a martial arts master, life is most proud of martial arts is beating dragon 18 palms, but his poor children qualified, no one can comprehend this set of martial arts, so the secrets of his life appeared to be lost.

Finally one day, Qigong met a talented young man, the young man named Guo Jing. So the old man very happy, Guo Jing received as a disciple, the beating dragon 18 palms of skills taught to Guo Jing. Since then, Qigong life is finally no longer leave regrets.

This story, Qigong children inherited the genes of Qigong, Qigong and Guo Jing inherited the martial arts, more generally, is inherited Qigong of memes .

Meme, English Meme , first proposed by the author of the book "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, is corresponding with the concept of a gene (gene).

Gene makes a variety of organisms to their physical characteristics to the next generation; memes propagate themselves to make human thought and behavior to others.

Meme features

Hereditary

What is hereditary memes? As gene can be passed on to children by Mom and Dad, memes can also be widely disseminated. For example, many of the classic fairy tale, is by oral presentation or in the form of text, spread hundreds or even thousands of years in human society.

Variability

Just as genes, memes can not only genetic mutation will occur. For example, we use today in modern Chinese and classical thousand years ago is very different; we heard this fairy tale, but also through numerous versions of the adaptation.

Selective

Darwin said that the survival of the fittest, not those out. There is intense competition among different genes, gene only adapt to the environment survives only and flourish.

Meme as well. Among a long history of mankind, many memes spread millennium, there are many die due to the unfortunate demise, these memes are either spread too difficult, or is not suited to the needs of the times, either as a whole with the demise of civilization (such as Mayan civilization).

Memes and genes

Propagation mode

Clearly, genes only by way of having children, the parents spread their own half of the gene to their offspring.

In contrast, memes mode of transmission is simply too much: Mom can spread to the child; teachers can spread to students; can spread among friends; can also be spread among strangers; even the late dead mold can also put due to pass the living alive.

Manifestations

Manifestation of genes, only physiological characteristics of the organism. For example, a person's tall, he is also a high probability of future generations tall; a person's skin is very white, his skin is white descendant high probability.

The manifestations of memes are much more abundant: tangible, can be text, painting, clothing, architecture; invisible, can be a language, music, stories, thoughts, beliefs.

The right to choose

We can choose their own genes do? Obviously not. We want to have Einstein's IQ, Audrey Yen value, but not our genes to our will.

For meme, accepted or rejected, we have a right to choose. We can choose whether or subjective beliefs of Christianity, whether or not believe in Confucianism, whether to support gay, whether to learn Spanish, whether to appreciate the Mona Lisa's smile.