meme

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

A meme is a cultural unit that replicates or spreads, introduced in the corpus through Dawkins as an analogy with genes. RB1 uses ideas, theories and practices to discuss variation and differential retention without developing a complete memetic theory. The analogy preserves important differences: cultural transmission can be intentional, horizontally borrowed and rapidly revised, while popularity does not by itself establish truth, ethical value or genetic inheritance.

Explanation

The initial discussion explicitly declines to venture deeply into memetics. It uses the idea of transmissible cultural units to connect novelty, combination and historical retention at faster human timescales. The proposed entry preserves the named Dawkins genealogy rather than treating every present-day online image as the entire scope of the term.

RB1 later extends meme language to ideas in scientific and social environments, where institutional rewards and adoption affect replication. RB3’s popularity-feedback example shows how early advantage can compound. These passages do not guarantee that a widely copied item is accurate or good; the relevant local selection conditions must still be specified.

AB explicitly says ideas are not genes, while RB1 notes that cultural borrowing can spread an innovation without waiting for reproductive success. RB3 likewise distinguishes formal population resemblance from substance. The proposed definition therefore keeps cultural transmission and biological inheritance related by comparison rather than identified as one mechanism.

Scope and attribution

Retain the qualified cultural-replicator use, its genealogy and different transmission mechanisms.

RB1 — The Real Book, Volume I: The Possible Is Real

The Dawkins analogy is used without wholesale adoption of a detailed memetic theory.

Occurrence locators: 178, 193, 195, 217, 231, 232, 233, 234, 238, 247.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

Population formalism and popularity feedback do not make a meme literally a virus or allele.

Occurrence locators: 86, 108, 109.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.