The Selfish Gene

Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imit

If a priest is a survival machine for memes, celibacy is a useful attribute to build into him. Celibacy is just a minor partner in a large complex of mutually-assisting religious memes.

stable set, which new memes find it hard to invade.

It looks as though meme transmission is subject to continuous mutation, and also to blending.

This is a peculiarly nasty technique of persuasion, causing great psychological anguish throughout the middle ages and even today. But it is highly effective. It might almost have been planned deliberately by a machiavellian priesthood trained in deep psychological indoctrination techniques. However, I doubt if the priests were that clever. Much mo

It has become linked with the god meme because the two reinforce each other, and assist each other’s survival in the meme pool.

I believe that, given the right conditions, replicators automatically band together to create systems, or machines, that carry them around and work to favour their continued replication.

Imitation, in the broad sense, is how memes can replicate. But just as not all genes that can replicate do so successfully, so some memes are more successful in the meme-pool than others.

We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination.