What exactly does meme mean in English?

Genes & Memes (Genes and Memes)

Gene is the basic genetic unit in chromosome, and it was a (hypothetical) concept that biologists were familiar with long before DNA was discovered. Although "genetic factor" is the most orthodox translation method, the common transliteration of "gene" is not only concise and powerful, but also has the advantage of free translation-base corresponds to "basic unit" and cause corresponds to "factor".

However, apart from the widespread use of "gene", it must be noted that not all nouns beginning with gene should be translated into "gene XX". Geneticengineering, for example, comes from genetics and naturally needs to be translated into "genetic engineering".

In recent years, a certain school of "Sociobiology" thinks that there is also a basic unit of human cultural inheritance, and named it meme to compete with genes. The literal translation of this new word is of course "cultural genetic factor" or "cultural gene", but it also has a wonderful transliteration "Mimu", which is concise, powerful and free translation. The "rice" here echoes the diffusion of memes (spreading and infecting others everywhere is the nature of memes), while the "mother" is similar to the "cause" of genes.

Definition of meme mother

Memes are genetic and evolutionary genes in the ecology of human civilization. And in the process of communication, such as language, ideas, beliefs, behaviors, etc. It produces similar results to the growth, generation, evolution and development of genes in the process of biological evolution.

Memetics Memetics came into being in 1970s and matured in 1990s. The 20th century, 2 1, is a brand-new era of memetics theory perfection, social application and global civilization development practice.

Explanation of the Mother of Memes in Oxford English Dictionary;

The basic unit of culture is transmitted through non-genetic means, especially imitation.

Interpretation of Zhigu Sustainable Development Research Center:

Meme Mimu is a quantum mechanics in the field of spiritual culture, a genetic evolution gene of human civilization ecosystem, and also a stem cell and holographic system in the evolution of civilization. As a result, semantics, language and writing have grown and developed into a whole civilization and become the source of all innovative activities.

In social ecology, "meme" is the basic evolutionary factor of emerging social ecology, economic ecology theory and cultural ecology theory, and it is the gene of historical evolution, social innovation, civilization evolution and culture.

In the computer system, "meme" is "1", but the objective world is "0", and "1" is generated, which forms the binary of numbers and the world, and then forms the original code, which is decomposed into various programs and application platforms through programming deduction.

In deconstruction theory, "meme" is the origin of semantics;

In the philosophical system, "meme" is the basis of rationality and the core of truth, goodness and beauty;

On the level of spiritual consciousness, "meme" is the core of thought and culture;

In brand strategy, "meme" is brand gene;

In marketing communication, "meme" is not only a communication factor, but also a value and spiritual product that enters people's minds and consciousness with positioning strategy, and can spread among consumers at a geometric progression speed;

In the internet age, "meme" is commonly known as "virus" marketing;

In the process of civilization evolution, "meme" is the driving force and matrix of all innovations and evolutionary achievements.

Genes & Memes Genes and Memes

Gene is the basic genetic unit in chromosome, and it was a (hypothetical) concept that biologists were familiar with long before DNA was discovered. Although "genetic factor" is the most orthodox translation name, the general transliteration of "gene" is not only concise and powerful, but also has the advantage of free translation-"base" corresponds to "basic unit" and "cause" corresponds to "factor"

However, apart from the widespread use of "gene", it must be noted that not all nouns beginning with gene should be translated into "gene XX". Geneticengineering, for example, comes from genetics and naturally needs to be translated into "genetic engineering".

In recent years, "social ecology" believes that there is also a basic unit of human cultural inheritance, and named it meme to compete with genes. The literal translation of this new word is of course "cultural genetic factor" or "cultural gene", but it also has a wonderful transliteration "Mimu", which is concise, powerful and free translation. The "rice" here echoes the diffusion characteristics of memes (spreading and infecting others everywhere is the nature of memes), while the "mother" is similar to the "cause" of genes.

The origin of the mother of memes

The word meme originally comes from selfish genes published by Richard Dawkins, a famous British scientist, in 1976, which means "things that are similar to the role of genes in the process of biological evolution, such as language, thoughts, beliefs and behaviors." In order to pronounce the word "gene" similar, Dawkins removed the prefix "mi" from the Greek root "mimeme" and changed it to "meme". This change is easily associated with the word "memory" in English or the word "same" or "meme" in French.

Shortly after Dawkins put forward the concept of meme, many scholars, such as Susan Blackmore, richard brodie and Aaron Lynch, insisted on Dawkins' point of view, actively wrote articles to clarify the meaning and laws of meme, and tried to establish a memetic theory of cultural evolution. The famous philosopher Daniel Dennett also agrees with the viewpoint of meme. He used memetics theory to explain the mechanism of mental evolution in Interpretation of Consciousness and Darwin's Concept of Danger. Nowadays, the word meme has been widely circulated and included in the Oxford English Dictionary. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, meme is defined as "the basic unit of culture, which is spread by non-genetic means, especially imitation."

Interpretation of the meaning of the mother of memes

The meaning of meme can be understood mainly through three aspects:

1 and meme are cultural gene replication factors and quantum theory;

2. Imitation and infection are the main modes of transmission of memes;

3. Diffusion and evolution are the ecological evolution functions of memes.

Dawkins thinks: "To constitute a replication factor, everything must have three characteristics: heredity, variation and selection." In his view, memes fully possess these three characteristics. Memes are hereditary-the process of meme transmission is the process of meme inheritance. For example, when a certain religious belief spreads, religious belief as a meme is continuously passed down from believers; Memes are variable-the propagation process of memes is not perfect, for example, when people relay an event, they may add some details or delete some content; Memes are selective-memes have different communication abilities, some memes are easier to spread, and some memes will never be spread. For example, when we learn to sing, we often find that some songs are easy to remember and can spread quickly, while others are rarely sung. Meme has three characteristics: heredity, variation and selection, and is a replication factor.

Interpretation of the Evolutionary Function of the Mother of Memes

Wu of Zhigu believes that the matrix of memetics shows that culture is a brand-new ecological civilization. This means that "all cultures have their own ecological characteristics: inheritance, replication, diffusion and evolution. Meme constructs the civilization dimension and ecological evolution system of family, nation, country and even human society in different time and space stages in the form of ecological nodes. Meme is the metaphysics of nature, the rational existence of the objective world, the evolution of evolution and the root of human nature. In the Internet era of 2 1 century, memes have reached the stage of accelerating diffusion and evolution due to virtual and tangible distribution, reconstructing social ecology and cultural ecology, creating new energy from media and hyper-communication, seamlessly infiltrating and changing everything, and becoming the connection point between human intelligence and machines. Almost all realistic achievements are the result of meme evolution. "

Kevin kelly pointed out that evolution is an energy operation mode of an open system, which breeds old DNA units and evolves new ones. Evolution is the free expansion of life system, which enables life to gain new space for its possibility and develop new logic. As a tool for the evolution of civilization, meme is especially suitable for three things:

1. Use meme evolution tools to reach the field where you want to go but can't find the path;

2. Reach new areas you can't imagine through meme evolution;

3. Open up new fields by means of meme evolution.

The evolutionary characteristics of memes and the evolutionary functions of inheritance, replication, reproduction, growth and evolution have the following five evolutionary modes:

1 and the genetic evolution of memes

2. Meme replication evolution

3. Self-directed evolution of meme system.

4. Memetic plasticity and interactive fusion evolution

5. The metabolism of memes in time and space is death and evolution.

Enter the era of ubiquitous meme broad-spectrum application.

Just as quantum mechanics has changed traditional physics and extended it to the theory of the universe, biogenetics has also undergone tremendous changes today, bringing a brand-new thinking on the ecology of human civilization and creating new knowledge of meme theory and its wide application. Life is an organic form of things, not matter. As an organic cultural ecology, the emergence and development of memetics provide a brand-new explanation for the evolution of civilization and the gestation, development, deduction and evolution of culture, and provide a grand theoretical cornerstone of "intangible energy" for cultural genetics. A new definition of cultural life and civilized ecology was born, which endowed the objective world with richer significance.

In the form of cultural life, meme is precisely the "living" gene, the core "material" of cultural innovation and evolution, and constitutes the "evolution zone" of human civilization. From the evolution of lifestyle to constantly updated new products, from the integration of cultural exchanges to the myriad changes of art, from the evolution of enterprise cycle to the prosperity and sustainability of economy, from the organic growth of cities to the marketing mechanism of brand communication, memes have been widely used in all aspects of human economy, society and life, creating fashion and new surprises, and also bringing a brand-new pattern of traditional changes, allowing people to see a brand-new civilized life.

If memes have their natural attributes and are passed down through words, languages and customs, then, with the help of humanities and science, memes have more intelligent attributes of deduction, evolution and creation, thus developing great achievements in the human intelligence industry and becoming the source of "intelligence" that keeps pace with "capital". Typical meme industries include mass creative class, computer genius, game and animation designers, fashion designers, fashion network experts and artists, pop musicians and all those who are dependent on dream innovation. The core problem behind them is to create a brand-new meme and show their "unique" self-value and life position. Bringing this phenomenon into a more magnificent economic society, political and ideological fields, brand ideas and corporate culture, social circles and social networks is undoubtedly the amplification and extension of this meme mother ecology.

The difference between the mother theory of meme and biological evolution

About the similarities and differences between memetics of cultural evolution and biological evolution, as well as the possibility and applicability of more explanations of memetics, friends who want to know can consult relevant books and materials themselves, so I won't say much here. There is no doubt that the emergence of memetics theory has a unique explanation for the development of human culture. Although there are still many imperfections, immaturity and great limitations in memetics, we should be soberly aware that this theory only plays an explanatory role in our real life after all, and it is a theory around life.

Transmission mechanism

Dawkins, after explaining the necessary characteristics of meme as a replication factor, further explained the mechanism of meme transmission. He believed that imitation was the main way of meme transmission. Take "Meme of Thought" as an example. When a person hears or reads a good idea, he will pass it on to his friends, and then his friends will pass it on to others. This process is imitation. Through imitation, ideas are transmitted from one person's brain to another's brain, and are constantly copied and transmitted. Not only "thought memes", but also other types of memes convey themselves through imitation.

Dawkins' student Susan? Dr Susan Blackmore has gone further than her teacher. "In her view, just as genes compete with each other, selfishness and desperation enter the body of the next generation, which ultimately determines the pattern and structure of the biological world; Similarly, memes compete with each other and selfishly enter another person's brain, another book and another object, which ultimately determines our culture and our psychological structure. According to this idea, the concept of meme has actually developed into an independent brand-new theory about human culture. " (via) In the book Memetics Machine, she wrote, "The whole viewpoint of memetics on cultural evolution is to regard memes as an independent replication factor. This means that the choice of memes promotes the evolution of ideas, and the evolution of ideas must be conducive to the self-replication of memes, not the self-replication of genes. This is a huge difference between memetics and previous theories about cultural evolution. "

Life, not life, revolves around theory. With the development of various related disciplines, memetics will continue to mature. However, whether it can mature and become an authoritative cultural interpretation theory, as long as it can reasonably explain human cultural life to some extent, it can be said that the basic purpose of this theory has been achieved.

value

Nowadays, in the foreign internet market, Mihm has evolved into a powerful driving force for business-Icanhacheezburger, a website with the theme of cute shapes of cats and various animals, which has made huge profits through derivative products and advertisements; Stuff White People Like, a blog book jointly published by the famous blogger Christian Lander and Random House, reached the best-seller list in The New York Times and won 35 copies.

Lolcats is a website with the title of cats and other animals.

Ten thousand dollars in advance.

Matthonan is a contributing editor of Wired magazine. He set up his own website BarackObamaIsYourNewBicycle to amuse his wife. This was originally a joke, but it soon became a hot spot on the Internet. A few days later, two publishers in new york called Nan Huo and offered him a book publishing contract. He said, "I just went out to find an agent that afternoon and finally got a' good five-figure advance payment'."

Even so, compared with ICanHasCheezburger's "empire", Honan's success is still dwarfed. CEO Ben Ha, the CEO of this website, did so well that he didn't even want to talk about it himself. He said shyly, "I don't want to show off my wealth when others are in trouble." At the beginning of 2007, this shabby website only had some photos about cats, but now Huh's online operation has expanded to nine popular websites, requiring 10 full-time employees to take care of it. According to Hu, this does not include the extra "pet story plan" launched by the company. Now, instead of trying to create a new Mihm, he focuses on what will be popular and then transforms or buys it.

Heh said, "ICanHasCheezburger was born for business." He bought this website in June 5438+February 2007. He said: "I didn't know what Mimi was at that time, but on the surface, LOLcats was of great significance. This is a low-cost and high-loyalty business. You can run it anywhere without much infrastructure. " "T-shirt and book sales are only a small part of the company's profits, while advertising revenue is quite rich," said Hu

In April 2009, a group of unusual Mihm founders gathered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and held the first ROFLcon annual meeting to celebrate the older generation of accident celebrities who were famous for their embarrassing videos and straightforward photos. 900 nostalgic fans attended and reviewed iconic figures such as Tron Guy and Gem Sweater Lady. As for ICanHasCheezburger, Tim Hwang, the organizer of the conference, said that many participants obviously felt that the website was "betrayed" by Mihm.

Nan Huo said that from a business point of view, it is very wise to recruit new members. "Many editors will browse the Internet to find new authors, especially when they come across humorous books, because you can find this huge treasure house of genius on the Internet, and these people may not want to try to write a book," he explained. In addition, publishers may sign contracts with these authors and pay much lower fees than famous authors, and their books may still become bestsellers. Although it is generally believed that the Internet will exclude old media from commerce, online memes seem to be injecting vitality into printing and publishing.

Definition of meme mother

Memes are genetic and evolutionary genes in the ecology of human civilization. And in the process of communication, such as language, ideas, beliefs, behaviors, etc. It produces similar results to the growth, generation, evolution and development of genes in the process of biological evolution.

Memetics Memetics came into being in 1970s and matured in 1990s. The 20th century, 2 1, is a brand-new era of memetics theory perfection, social application and global civilization development practice.

Explanation of the Mother of Memes in Oxford English Dictionary;

The basic unit of culture is transmitted through non-genetic means, especially imitation.

Interpretation of Zhigu Sustainable Development Research Center:

Meme Mimu is a quantum mechanics in the field of spiritual culture, a genetic evolution gene of human civilization ecosystem, and also a stem cell and holographic system in the evolution of civilization. As a result, semantics, language and writing have grown and developed into a whole civilization and become the source of all innovative activities.

In social ecology, "meme" is the basic evolutionary factor of emerging social ecology, economic ecology theory and cultural ecology theory, and it is the gene of historical evolution, social innovation, civilization evolution and culture.

In the computer system, "meme" is "1", but the objective world is "0", and "1" is generated, which forms the binary of numbers and the world, and then forms the original code, which is decomposed into various programs and application platforms through programming deduction.

In deconstruction theory, "meme" is the origin of semantics;

In the philosophical system, "meme" is the basis of rationality and the core of truth, goodness and beauty;

On the level of spiritual consciousness, "meme" is the core of thought and culture;

In brand strategy, "meme" is brand gene;

In marketing communication, "meme" is not only a communication factor, but also a value and spiritual product that enters people's minds and consciousness with positioning strategy, and can spread among consumers at a geometric progression speed;

In the internet age, "meme" is commonly known as "virus" marketing;

In the process of civilization evolution, "meme" is the driving force and matrix of all innovations and evolutionary achievements.

Genes & Memes Genes and Memes

Gene is the basic genetic unit in chromosome, and it was a (hypothetical) concept that biologists were familiar with long before DNA was discovered. Although "genetic factor" is the most orthodox translation name, the general transliteration of "gene" is not only concise and powerful, but also has the advantage of free translation-"base" corresponds to "basic unit" and "cause" corresponds to "factor"

However, apart from the widespread use of "gene", it must be noted that not all nouns beginning with gene should be translated into "gene XX". Geneticengineering, for example, comes from genetics and naturally needs to be translated into "genetic engineering".

In recent years, "social ecology" believes that there is also a basic unit of human cultural inheritance, and named it meme to compete with genes. The literal translation of this new word is of course "cultural genetic factor" or "cultural gene", but it also has a wonderful transliteration "Mimu", which is concise, powerful and free translation. The "rice" here echoes the diffusion characteristics of memes (spreading and infecting others everywhere is the nature of memes), while the "mother" is similar to the "cause" of genes.

The origin of the mother of memes

The word meme originally comes from selfish genes published by Richard Dawkins, a famous British scientist, in 1976, which means "things that are similar to the role of genes in the process of biological evolution, such as language, thoughts, beliefs and behaviors." In order to pronounce the word "gene" similar, Dawkins removed the prefix "mi" from the Greek root "mimeme" and changed it to "meme". This change is easily associated with the word "memory" in English or the word "same" or "meme" in French.

Shortly after Dawkins put forward the concept of meme, many scholars, such as Susan Blackmore, richard brodie and Aaron Lynch, insisted on Dawkins' point of view, actively wrote articles to clarify the meaning and laws of meme, and tried to establish a memetic theory of cultural evolution. The famous philosopher Daniel Dennett also agrees with the viewpoint of meme. He used memetics theory to explain the mechanism of mental evolution in Interpretation of Consciousness and Darwin's Concept of Danger. Nowadays, the word meme has been widely circulated and included in the Oxford English Dictionary. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, meme is defined as "the basic unit of culture, which is spread by non-genetic means, especially imitation."

Interpretation of the meaning of the mother of memes

The meaning of meme can be understood mainly through three aspects:

1 and meme are cultural gene replication factors and quantum theory;

2. Imitation and infection are the main modes of transmission of memes;

3. Diffusion and evolution are the ecological evolution functions of memes.

Dawkins thinks: "To constitute a replication factor, everything must have three characteristics: heredity, variation and selection." In his view, memes fully possess these three characteristics. Memes are hereditary-the process of meme transmission is the process of meme inheritance. For example, when a religious belief spreads, religious belief, as a meme, is constantly passed down from believers; Memes are variable-the propagation process of memes is not perfect, for example, when people relay an event, they may add some details or delete some content; Memes are selective-memes have different communication abilities, some memes are easier to spread, and some memes will never be spread. For example, when we learn to sing, we often find that some songs are easy to remember and can spread quickly, while others are rarely sung. Meme has three characteristics: heredity, variation and selection, and is a replication factor.

Interpretation of the Evolutionary Function of the Mother of Memes

Wu of Zhigu believes that the matrix of memetics shows that culture is a brand-new ecological civilization. This means that "all cultures have their own ecological characteristics: inheritance, replication, diffusion and evolution. Meme constructs the civilization dimension and ecological evolution system of family, nation, country and even human society in different time and space stages in the form of ecological nodes. Meme is the metaphysics of nature, the rational existence of the objective world, the evolution of evolution and the root of human nature. In the Internet era of 2 1 century, memes have reached the stage of accelerating diffusion and evolution due to virtual and tangible distribution, reconstructing social ecology and cultural ecology, creating new energy from media and hyper-communication, seamlessly infiltrating and changing everything, and becoming the connection point between human intelligence and machines. Almost all realistic achievements are the result of meme evolution. "

Kevin kelly pointed out that evolution is an energy operation mode of an open system, which breeds old DNA units and evolves new ones. Evolution is the free expansion of life system, which enables life to gain new space for its possibility and develop new logic. As a tool for the evolution of civilization, meme is especially suitable for three things:

1. Use meme evolution tools to reach the field where you want to go but can't find the path;

2. Reach new areas you can't imagine through meme evolution;

3. Open up new fields by means of meme evolution.

The evolutionary characteristics of memes and the evolutionary functions of inheritance, replication, reproduction, growth and evolution have the following five evolutionary modes:

1 and the genetic evolution of memes

2. Meme replication evolution

3. Self-directed evolution of meme system.

4. Memetic plasticity and interactive fusion evolution

5. The metabolism of memes in time and space is death and evolution.

Enter the era of ubiquitous meme broad-spectrum application.

Just as quantum mechanics has changed traditional physics and extended it to the theory of the universe, biogenetics has also undergone tremendous changes today, bringing a brand-new thinking on the ecology of human civilization and creating new knowledge of meme theory and its wide application. Life is an organic form of things, not matter. As an organic cultural ecology, the emergence and development of memetics provide a brand-new explanation for the evolution of civilization and the gestation, development, deduction and evolution of culture, and provide a grand theoretical cornerstone of "intangible energy" for cultural genetics. A new definition of cultural life and civilized ecology was born, which endowed the objective world with richer significance.

In the form of cultural life, meme is precisely the "living" gene, the core "material" of cultural innovation and evolution, and constitutes the "evolution zone" of human civilization. From the evolution of lifestyle to constantly updated new products, from the integration of cultural exchanges to the myriad changes of art, from the evolution of enterprise cycle to the prosperity and sustainability of economy, from the organic growth of cities to the marketing mechanism of brand communication, memes have been widely used in all aspects of human economy, society and life, creating fashion and new surprises, and also bringing a brand-new pattern of traditional changes, allowing people to see a brand-new civilized life.

If memes have their natural attributes and are passed down through words, languages and customs, then, with the help of humanities and science, memes have more intelligent attributes of deduction, evolution and creation, thus developing great achievements in the human intelligence industry and becoming the source of "intelligence" that keeps pace with "capital". Typical meme industries include mass creative class, computer genius, game and animation designers, fashion designers, fashion network experts and artists, pop musicians and all those who are dependent on dream innovation. The core problem behind them is to create a brand-new meme and show their "unique" self-value and life position. Bringing this phenomenon into a more magnificent economic society, political and ideological fields, brand ideas and corporate culture, social circles and social networks is undoubtedly the amplification and extension of this meme mother ecology.

The difference between the mother theory of meme and biological evolution

About the similarities and differences between memetics of cultural evolution and biological evolution, as well as the possibility and applicability of more explanations of memetics, friends who want to know can consult relevant books and materials themselves, so I won't say much here. There is no doubt that the emergence of memetics theory has a unique explanation for the development of human culture. Although there are still many imperfections, immaturity and great limitations in memetics, we should be soberly aware that this theory only plays an explanatory role in our real life after all, and it is a theory around life.

Transmission mechanism

Dawkins, after explaining the necessary characteristics of meme as a replication factor, further explained the mechanism of meme transmission. He believed that imitation was the main way of meme transmission. Take "Meme of Thought" as an example. When a person hears or reads a good idea, he will pass it on to his friends, and then his friends will pass it on to others. This process is imitation. Through imitation, ideas are transmitted from one person's brain to another's brain, and are constantly copied and transmitted. Not only "thought memes", but also other types of memes convey themselves through imitation.

Dawkins' student Susan? Dr Susan Blackmore has gone further than her teacher. "In her view, just as genes compete with each other, selfishness and desperation enter the body of the next generation, which ultimately determines the pattern and structure of the biological world; Similarly, memes compete with each other and selfishly enter another person's brain, another book and another object, which ultimately determines our culture and our psychological structure. According to this idea, the concept of meme has actually developed into an independent brand-new theory about human culture. " (via) In the book Memetics Machine, she wrote, "The whole viewpoint of memetics on cultural evolution is to regard memes as an independent replication factor. This means that the choice of memes promotes the evolution of ideas, and the evolution of ideas must be conducive to the self-replication of memes, not the self-replication of genes. This is a huge difference between memetics and previous theories about cultural evolution. "

Life, not life, revolves around theory. With the development of various related disciplines, memetics will continue to mature. However, whether it can mature and become an authoritative cultural interpretation theory, as long as it can reasonably explain human cultural life to some extent, it can be said that the basic purpose of this theory has been achieved.

value

Nowadays, in the foreign internet market, Mihm has evolved into a powerful driving force for business-Icanhacheezburger, a website with the theme of cute shapes of cats and various animals, which has made huge profits through derivative products and advertisements; Stuff White People Like, a blog book jointly published by the famous blogger Christian Lander and Random House, reached the best-seller list in The New York Times and won 35 copies.

Lolcats is a website with the title of cats and other animals.