Memetics is the study of cultural transmission by analogy to biological evolution, treating ideas, practices, and artifacts as replicators that undergo variation, selection, and retention in cultural environments. Parameters: (1) a meme is a unit of cultural information that can be copied from mind to mind; (2) memes replicate through imitation, teaching, and media; (3) memes compete for attention and cognitive resources; (4) successful memes persist through psychological affordance and social reinforcement. The persistence mechanism is language, memory, and material culture — the cognitive and social infrastructure that enables copying. Without these mechanisms, memes cannot replicate, mutate, or be selected. [formal: memetica | substrate: mind | horizon: generations | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
memetics
Memetics is the study of cultural transmission by analogy to biological evolution, treating ideas, practices, and artifacts as replicators that undergo variation, selection, and retention in cultural environments. Parameters: (1) a meme is…
Definition
Why it is in scope
Memetics is a human-made theoretical framework for studying how cultural information — ideas, behaviors, styles — replicates, mutates, and spreads through populations. It is the map of cultural transmission, not the natural spread itself. The self is an entry; the human-animal is not. Memetics maps the patterns of cultural inheritance.
Names and aliases
- memeticsen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmrhxqf1f02ox8aeh7k4ambebDEPENDS_ON →
Memetics (the theory that cultural units called memes propagate through cognitive mechanisms) depends on cognition — memes are transmitted, retained, and modified only via human cognitive processes. Remove cognition and memetics has no transmission medium. This is constitutive, not merely facilitative. Direction: specific theory (memetics) depends on substrate (cognition).
- cmrcnav2700i713vze6dtwed8INSTANCE_OF →
Memetics IS a specific kind of theory — the hypothesis that cultural elements spread through mechanisms analogous to biological evolution. A competent speaker would classify memetics as 'a theory.' Pins the sense of theory as a systematic explanatory framework.
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Record identity
- Created
- Jul 19, 2026, 4:27 AM UTC
- Content hash
- 1df8e285a3b3bb0fbf5ffbbec3a3459da3231ba713e6a138504159672b898846