The Real Replicator Is the Knowledge Itself

Unlike jeans, many means take different physical forms every time they are replicated. People rarely express ideas in exactly the same words in which they heard them. Yet we rightly call what is transmitted the same idea, the same meam throughout. In the case of most meams, the real replicator is abstract. It is the knowledge itself. This is, in principle, true of jeans as well. By a technology, routinely transcribes gens into the memories of computers where they are stored in a different physical form. Those records could be translated back into d and a strands and implanted in differet animals. But one day, the genes of a rare species could survive its extinction by causing themselves