memesis: meme-x and memetics short overview on memetics: part I

	cultural evolution can be modelled through principles of variation and selection very similar to darwinism. this implies a shift from genes as units of biological information to a new type of units of cultural information: memes. a meme is defined as a cognitive-behavioral pattern that can be transmitted from one individual to another one through communication. since the individual who transmitted the meme will continue to carry it, the transmission can be interpreted as a replication: a copy of the meme is made in the cognitive system of another individual, making him or her into a carrier of the meme. this process of self-reproduction, leading to spreading over a growing group of individuals, defines the meme as a replicator, similar in that respect to the gene [Dawk76; Mori91]. memetics can then be defined as the discipline that studies memes.
	dawkins listed the following three characteristics for any successful replicator: copying-fidelity: the more faithful the copy, the more will remain of the initial pattern after several rounds of copying. if a painting is reproduced by making photocopies from photocopies, the underlying pattern will quickly become unrecognizable. fecundity: the faster the rate of copying, the more the replicator will spread. an industrial printing press can churn out many more copies of a text than an office copying machine. longevity: the longer any instance of the replicating pattern survives, the more copies can be made of it. a drawing made by etching lines in the sand is likely to be erased before anybody could have photographed or otherwise reproduced it.		richard dawkins
	in these general respects, memes are similar to genes and to other replicators, like computer viruses or crystals. the genetic metaphor for cultural transmission is limited, though. genes can only be transmitted from parent to child. memes can be transmitted between any two individuals ["multiple parenting"]. for genes to be transmitted, you need a generation. memes only take minutes to replicate [see competition between memes and genes]. on the other hand, the copying-fidelity of memes is in general much lower. if a story is spread by being told from person to person, the final version will be very different from the original one. it is this variability or fuzziness that perhaps distinguishes cultural patterns most strikingly from dna structures: every individual's version of an idea or belief will be in some respect different from the others'. that makes it difficult to define or delimit memes.		competition between memes and genes
			define or delimit memes
			short overview part I part II