Monday, March 12, 2007

"Meme" So, NOW I know!

Ok, so call me a blog dummy or completly not with it.. but I have seen these various 'memes' around and could not figure out what that word meant. I mean I get the jist of what they do... but the word?

So what's a girl to do? Google and click on the Wikapedia link, and walah! NOW, I know. :-)

Meme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see
MEME.
The term "meme" (
IPA: /miːm/, rhyming with "theme") was coined in 1976 by the biologist Richard Dawkins to refer to a "unit of cultural information" which can propagate from one mind to another in a manner analogous to genes (i.e., the units of genetic information).
Dawkins said, Examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. A meme, he said, propagates itself as a unit of
cultural evolution and diffusionanalogous in many ways to the behavior of the gene . Often memes propagate as more-or-less integrated cooperative sets or groups, referred to as memeplexes or meme-complexes.
The idea of memes has proved a successful meme in its own right, gaining a degree of penetration into
popular culture which relatively few modern scientific theories achieve.
Proponents of memes suggest that memes
evolve via natural selection — in a way very similar to Charles Darwin's ideas concerning biological evolution — on the premise that variation, mutation, competition, and "inheritance" influence their replicative success. For example, while one idea may become extinct, other ideas will survive, spread and mutate — for better or for worse — through modification.
Meme-theorists contend that memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive; rather, those memes which replicate the most effectively spread best; which allows for the possibility that successful memes might prove detrimental to their hosts


1 comment:

Leonie said...

And consider yourself tagged for the marriage meme. :-0

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Welcome to Our Blog!
Blessings to you and yours

Most of the Kelly Family (dh holding camera)

About Us

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Texas, United States
We are all on a journey, and this blog's reason for existence is to be a place to put mine. From humble suburbian begnnings just north of Dallas to a Catholic unschooler with a passion for faith, lifelong learning, my family and dogs, here I stand before you. Welcome to my world!
Authenticity. That would have to be my theme at present. To enjoy my family, be true to ourselves and our faith and be authentic and enthusiastic about life!
"True happiness lies in giving ourselves in love to our brothers and sisters. "

~ Pope John Paul II

I love Dog Day Afternoons...
"What children need is not new and better curricula but access to more and more of the real world; plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out." [from Teach Your Own by John Holt.]

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