Thread:User talk:Nebuchadnezzar/Memes/reply (36)

Been meaning to ask something for a while, kinda forgot. Concerning the fidelity of transmission problem, would it not be this that forms the basis of the selection effect rather than memes dying off a la natural selection?

Consider the "memeplex" of driving a car; it's composed of smaller units like "this is the peddle to make it go", "this is the gear stick", "this is what you do when you see this traffic sign" and so on. Obviously if fidelity of transmission of the entire memeplex was high, we'd only ever need one driving lesson. Obviously this isn't the case. But some of the sub-units do transfer quickly and effectively, and are learned in the first lesson. These individual pieces that do transfer over quickly are obviously either "easy" or somehow what someone is most receptive to. So, in fact, is it this lack of fidelity of memeplexes (or whatever you wish to call them) that actually causes a selection, rather than something like natural selection?