genetics vs memetics

I haven’t read Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, so what follows could be laughably obvious, or worse, utter bullshit.

Only about a week ago I fully appreciated for the first time why Dawkins’ concept of memetics is so compelling. The relationship with genetics is more than just its analogous process of procreation and evolution. The really interesting part is arguably their symbiotic relationship.

Genes and memes (in the most comprehensive sense) constitute a humans being’s two profound faculties of identity. We are in a sense nothing more than our genetic makeup and the memetic dynamics of our collection of memes. The parallel coexistence of these two processes is a beautiful concept. Without genes, memes would not exist. Without memes, genes would not be able to evolve as quickly and efficiently as they do.

At first I subconsciously assumed it’s an accidental relationship, the one feeding off the other. Perhaps because of the uneasiness between the two which manifests itself in human terms through conflicts between body (genes) and mind (memes). To me, this conflict continually manifests itself in our ambivalent stance between the needs of the two. Do I flirt with the beautiful model on the left or the interesting nerd on the right?

It’s obvious, however, that memes are the more promising entity when it comes to the continued conservation and development of knowledge. They would eventually not need genes (humans) to exist and procreate. Describing our lifetime as the “The Information Age” will seem more and more ridiculous as time goes by. If humans survive another 100 years without some cataclysmic event destroying all progress, memes will be virtually immortal, in one form or another.

But it’s not just about symmetry; it’s really about continuity. They are not just parallel processes that happen to help each other out. We arguably live in a major transition period in which the biological hands over the bastion of information conservation and development to the infinitely more robust and flexible: ones and zeros. A much purer and less constrained form of information, and all that is needed for memes to exist. Memetics is in a sense the fruits of the labour of genes. Genes gave birth to memetics, which is taking things to the incomprehensible next level.

A cataclysmic event could easily wipe genes out any second, but if this event is delayed another 100 years, genes would in all probability already succeeded in rendering (either by intelligent design or by pure chance) memes an autonomous entity, and taken the conservation and evolution of a seemingly divine experiment in knowledge to places we can only try to imagine.

I think I have always been hesitant to read Dawkins because I am not ready for his level of atheism. I already see things much more mechanically than is strictly healthy (for me anyway). Dawkins has surely conceived the most impenetrable “religion” yet. But I’m sure it will evolve.

I really should read more.