Now that the voting period for the Wacom contest has begun and regardless of my deviation not making the top 50 (amazing picks btw), I decided to write a journal entry concerning memes.

Memes are cultural units that are transmitted through different methods of communication. They are essentially like genes, but instead of using molecular reaction chains to replicate, they use our ability to imitate for that purpose. As with biological evolution, natural selection is a major force affecting meme complex spread and evolution. We are bombarded with huge amount of information daily and those bits which stay in our long-term memory, emerge as victors of the meme war. Different kinds of brains favor different memes.

You have probably heard the phrase "monkey see, monkey do". However simple imitating might appear, it is neurologically very complex and energy consuming process. Humans are much better at imitating, and thus adopting memes, than monkeys. One thing that separates us from chimpanzees and other primates is that we have an innate tendency to assign intrinsic value for things we learn instead of just instrumental value. Chimpanzees are more efficient at some tasks involving imitation than 4 year old human children because they are practical enough to notice when they are doing something that is useless to get the job done. The children on the other hand repeat what they have learned like robots. Some researchers think that this trait has directly lead humans to performing rituals.

Well, you might wonder now, what does this intrinsic value have to do with meme wars? I answer that some of the most successful meme complexes, christianity and islam for example, encompass pretty much all the theoreticized strengths a meme complex could have: rituals, correlation with individual experience (metaphors, teachings etc.), added pleasure (joy, love of God), less pain (less fear for death for example), bribery (do this and you will go to heaven, if not...), cencorship ("You shall have no other gods before me"), economics (church), distinction (authorities such as God, priest, bible), and as long as we assign intrinsic value for religions, they spread.

Now consider this: even if the hypothetical Supreme Being of the universe would like all people living in harmony instead of waging war against people who believe differently, that kind of religion/meme complex would not win the meme war. Why? Because it does not encompass all the possible strengths a meme complex could have in an environment consisting of uncritically thinking brains. In an environment consisting of sceptical brains, a meme complex encouraging peace and harmony might be able to thrive, but it would still lose the war against uncritical people who are easily taken over by memes.

Does this mean that peace will always be temporary?

Some amazing semi-finalist works:

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