5 November 2015

Informational Memes

Objections to Daniel Dennett’s informational meme.

The concept of information seems to agree with the meme idea, and that is why many memeticists equate memes with information. This view is currently championed by Daniel Dennett himself and it is his own arguments that I want to scrutinise here. I myself also assumed that describing memes as information was a fair bet or at least that it would not hurt the meme idea. I came to discover how Dennett insists on describing memes (and genes) as information, to the point where this would be the only right way of describing memes, as opposed to codes for example. This got me thinking. Considering that I define memes as codes myself (link), I was compelled to try and find out whether the concept of information is a better way to describe memes or not. This is my attempt to better understand Dennett’s information and to find out whether information is really fit to serve as a model for memes.

PDF version here
Html version here

27 April 2015

Redefining the meme and the replicator

These are the ideas I have presented during the last memelab.
I tried my best to condense and communicate my vision of memetics. I propose a new definition of both the replicator and the meme in the hope to make memetics a more testable and falsifiable science. I would love to hear your comments.

PDF version here
Html version here
Version en Français ici

26 April 2015

Memelab April 2015

I have had the great pleasure again to join Susan Blackmore's memelab on the 18th and 19th of April 2015. Susan invited us to stay in her beautiful home to have some interesting talks about memetics.

Here are the people who came this time. From left to right:
Steven Smith, Pascal Jouxtel, Sylvain Magne, Susan Blackmore, Paul Marsden and Alan Winfield.



Among the many subjects we talked about there was:

  • leaving religion
  • the "Je suis Charlie" meme #jesuischarlie
  • the Jihadi brides phenomenon
  • the definition of the meme
  • de-darwinising culture and re-darwinising culture

As always, this was a very fruitful, intense and fun time. I also learnt how to play croquet and loved it. I very much look forward to our next memelab.