The Ontological Study Of Memes

Memetics interprets culture and its mechanisms of transmission and evolution from a biological perspective,that is,through non-genetic means,especially imitation.It is a theory about how meme spreads and influences social behaviors in the social system.As a substantive unit of information transmission,meme has become a instructional factor for our thoughts,behaviors and norms,and played an important role in cultural evolution.This idea exerts impact on the traditional view of cultural evolution,but also suffers from many problems.By analyzing the conceptual cores of memetics and its main theoretical problems,this paper analyzes the positions of realism,eliminativism and instrumentalism concerning memetics.Then,this paper provides a defense to the conceptual value of meme from a weak realistposition.The first chapter mainly discusses the origin of meme.Since Darwin's theory of evolution was put forward,the theory of evolution has been confined to the framework of biology for a time.Thus,there has been a debate about cultural factors in history.Until 1976,Dawkins officially proposed the meme.On his basis,Blackmore,Destin and others developed the meme theory to varying degrees.For a long time,this easy-to-understand and “scientific” argument has made it a focal concept,which has led to academic doubts about its legitimacy.The second chapter discusses the transmission mechanism of memes.Memes "jump" from one brain to another,and we introduce the concept of signals about how jumps are made.Memes are transmitted through signals,which are the only things that can be transmitted from one brain to another.Regarding signals as instigators can act as catalysts to accelerate the occurrence of events.In addition,the memes interact with the artifacts to promote the propagation of the memes.The third chapter sorts out the main questions in the field of memes,which can be briefly summarized as realism,eliminativism and instrumentalism.Realism emphasizes the equivalence between meme and gene,which is also a kind of replicon and contains "extended phenotype".eliminativism holds that the concept of meme should be cancelled as it does not have realistic meaning,theoretical value or even misunderstanding.Instrumentalism argues that although memes cannot be completely equivalent to genes,they have the value of enlightening and understanding as a theoretical entity.These three views are intertwined to form the main content of this chapter.The fourth chapter respectively justifies the rationality of meme from the theoretical level and the substantive level.In conclusion,on the basis of summarizing the whole paper,it is unnecessary to put forward the abolitionist attitude towards memes.Memetics has the advantage of combining biological and human creativity,and provides a new way to understand human nature,self and consciousness.It is worth exploring its deep theoretical connotation.