11. The Magic of Mimesis and Memes
I've been thinking about the relationship between mimesis and memetics. Let's start with some simple definitions to get us up to speed. Then let’s uncover the magic of how memes drive mimesis.
Definitions
Memetics: the idea put forward by Richard Dawkins that ideas (memes) are transmitted between minds via culture, language, actions and more.
Mimesis: the idea put forward by René Girard that human desire is a process of imitation, as more people endow (sometimes arbitrary) objects with "value" by copying what others appear to desire.
1, The Pledge: Meme replication.
Replicating memes requires you to creatively uncover the hidden ideas behind transmitted words or behaviours. Every time we speak, or act, or dance, we are doing a million things. We blink. We breathe. We move our hands. We look in different places.
Somehow, the receiving human being knows what's signal and what's noise. They extract the idea they need based on the words you say, for example, through all the hesitation and mumbling.
This process fundamentally requires creativity. And this is what David Deustch suggests creativity evolved for, in Chapter 16 of his book "The Beginning of Infinity". Over hundreds of thousands of years, human beings were selected for the ability to creatively replicate memes. Therefore, humans became superstars at transmitting ideas with high fidelity. And once that happened, evolution moved from "biological" to "cultural".
2, The Turn: Errors in meme replication are not what we think.
In the same way that genetic mutations arise due to errors during genetic replication, replicating memes is not a clean process. Like a game of Chinese Whispers, ideas can be deformed, distorted and even transformed as they get transmitted from mind to mind.
Luke Burgis acknowledges this risk of error in his book, "Wanting" (a book all about mimesis and the nature of human desire), but he goes as far as saying that memes are replicated independently of the source person.
I disagree.
I think that when a meme is replicated, a part of the source person is replicated along with it. A bit like like that old tupperware which takes on the scent and mild red hue of your pasta from 3 weeks ago, despite it being washed over and over again. The essence of the source is somehow baked into the meme once it's replicated.
I think the fact that there are "errors" in meme replication is partly explained by the fact that it's never purely the meme that gets transmitted, but also parts of the person (think about how an idea would sit in your mind depending on how the person delivered it to you - via text, via shouting at the top of their lungs, or via a messenger. How would that affect the way you pass on that idea?).
3, The Prestige: Memetics drives mimesis.
The meme and the person are intertwined. Compelling ideas (memes) don't just float around in our head. We embody them. They change who we are. They change how we act.
They shape our desires.
So memetic transmission must also to some extent include the imitation of the desires that these memes create. The idea that ice cream is desirable can't really be divorced from the subsequent desire for ice cream. When a venture capitalist memetically transmits the idea to an unsuspecting youth that being an entrepreneur is a high calling with potential for massive upside, the transmission of the desire to become a founder is baked into the idea. Whether that is the “correct” desire for the person or not.
And the imitation of this desire is in fact Girard’s mimesis.
Final thoughts
Memetics conducts mimesis. When you parrot an idea given to you by someone, you're also parroting a part of them. And we have evolved to do that unbelievably well.
Or, as Sam Altman put it succinctly:
“i am a stochastic parrot, and so r u”.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments or notes.