The Jim Rutt Show cover image

EP10 David Krakauer: Complexity Science

The Jim Rutt Show

00:00

Is the Idea of a Meme Really Real?

We were interested in whether or not the idea of Dawkins and Dennett of a meme is real. The only reason you'd ever invent the concept of a meme was to explain phenomena that you could not explain without it. And I think what we discovered there was that there are units of meaning that are propagated in time, but they're much more fluid than even genetic sequences which themselves are quite fluid. So the idea of a memes is probably not as useful as some people think because it's too mercurial. It would have to have a cohesion on the timescale of many generations. There might be something on it that in fact do, actually. But many do not.

Play episode from 53:09
Transcript

The AI-powered Podcast Player

Save insights by tapping your headphones, chat with episodes, discover the best highlights - and more!
App store bannerPlay store banner
Get the app