I’m sitting here reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, and I realize that he invented the word “meme”. Right there, at the beginning of chapter 11 (the last chapter in the original edition) — he even tells you how to pronounce it. Memes are not actually those quizzes one finds on blogs nowadays, but rather ideas and fashions that have a habit of catching on.

The gene-centric way of looking at evolution is the primary point Dawkins drives home in his book, an idea I like a lot but was already partly familiar with. For me the coolest part about The Selfish Gene is the existence of replicators of all sorts: “I want to claim almost limitless power for slightly inaccurate self-replicating entities, once they arise anywhere in the universe. This is because they tend to become the basis for Darwinian selection which, given enough generations, cumulatively builds systems of great complexity” (p. 322, 30th Anniversary Edition).

Instead of arguing over vague definitions of ‘life’, it would seem more fruitful to seek out the conditions and environments — digital, cultural, mental, physical — in which replicators and their accompanying complexity are likely to arise. Whether viruses or Avida simulations are ‘alive’ or not is a moot point in this respect, because it’s the selective pressures on the DNA and the computer code that are creating all the emergent behaviors we find so fascinating.

But back to memes for a second. I have a problem with high school seniors everywhere who put that oft-repeated bit of wisdom in their yearbooks, “No matter where you go, there you are”. It’s a good quote, teleological and (therefore) full of profundity. It’s a classic. It’s a meme. But do any of these graduating students know where it comes from? Of course not. It’s from the 80’s sci-fi movie, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension, not a traditional source for yearbooks. Yet there are plenty of other good Buckaroo Bonzai quotes to choose from for original-minded senior: “Laugh-a while you can, monkey-boy!” and “Where are we going?” “Planet Ten!” “When?” “Real soon!” (The book is good too, but has fewer shots of Perfect Tommy.)