5 ms·

I don't believe (hardly) anyone in academia uses the term meme. Perhaps there's a good reason for that? It's not clear any clarity is added to the world by re

I don't believe (hardly) anyone in academia uses the term meme. Perhaps there's a good reason for that? It's not clear any clarity is added to the world by replacing the term for culture or thoughts with whatever the term meme is trying to accomplish.

turblety 6y ago
You know, meme was originally coined [1] by Richard Dawkins, an academic scientist, in his book The Selfish Gene. 1. https://books.google.com/books?id=WkHO9HI7koEC&pg=PA192 https://books.google.com/books?id=WkHO9HI7koEC&pg=PA192
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  The Selfish Gene is a popular text by an academic articulating a very specific view of evolution, one that's caught on among a certain subculture but which isn't mainstream as far as I can tell. Plenty of terms originally coined by academics lack broad academic or even intellectual credibility. I'd agree with the OP that the use of "Meme" is one. I'd also agree that this is because the term provides no clarity - ideas aren't like genes. Genes reproduce by a set mechanism, ideas can be stretched and modified any way you want. Genes are interpreted and realized by a fairly set mechanism. Ideas can be realized any old way. The "Meme" concept is one person's bad analogy imo.
  - xtiansimon 6y ago
    "The Selfish Gene is a popular text ... among a certain subculture but which isn't mainstream as far as I can tell." "broad academic or even intellectual credibility" I see what you did there. I don't see a problem with memetics being non-mainstream in the way it's described here. Sure. If you want a job doing something called _memetics_. If you want to gain clout and respectability among your peers for illuminating some dark corner of the worlds problems with your writing, memetics is not going to impress anyone. I say, More ideas the better!
- staticman2 6y ago
  That's why I said "hardly" anyone uses it, not nobody uses it.
exo-pla-net 6y ago
The word "meme" was invented by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. He's public facing, but his origins are academic. The word caught on because it's a good word that conveyed a novel idea. One could say that it memed its way into our hearts.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Ensorceled 6y ago
What do you think the word meme means[1]? What academic word or phrase should replace it? [1]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme
- hprotagonist 6y ago
  “semiotics”, which predates it in depth and knowledge by some years.
  - andrewflnr 6y ago
    Memes are arguably topics of semiotics, but the mere existence of the word "semiotics" doesn't mean we don't still need "meme". "Memetics" would properly be identified as semiotics, or at least a not-particularly-distinct subfield thereof.
  - xtiansimon 6y ago
    !!! That's a very unusual application of 'semiotics'. I would be very grateful to ANYONE who could produce a reference to a published paper or text describing both memetics and semiotics in culture.
    - hprotagonist 6y ago
      Meme is just I Can Haz Sign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme Another critique comes from semiotic theorists such as Terrence Deacon[41] and Kalevi Kull.[42] This view regards the concept of "meme" as a primitivized concept of "sign".
      - xtiansimon 6y ago
        > "I Can Haz Sign" ?? I don't know what that refers to. Regarding the references from Wikipedia--I apologize for my enthusiasm in a post about memetics, if I gave you the impression I was just shooting off in the forum. I should have worded it better. I'm sure the reference to Wikipedia was an honest gesture at being informative. "Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952, Tartu) is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevi_Kull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevi_Kull) Yes. Tartu is the holdout for semiotics in academia. My guess is Professor Kull has to have an opinion about memetics teaching at Tartu. > "Terrence William Deacon ... is an American neuroanthropologist ... is currently Professor of Anthropology and member of the Cognitive Science Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Deacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Deacon) Anthropologist would certainly have an opinion about memetics. Blackmore (2000) essentially spends her whole book making the case for memetics in this field. I was excited by the prospect someone in the _semiotic_ community would take memetics seriously (other than the subfield of bio-semiotics). Noth (1995) is not a recent publication, but it is a serious survey of semiotic theories. He devotes only 5 paragraphs of 575 pages to memes. (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Handbook_of_Semiotics/rHA4KQcPeNgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=north%2C%20winfried&pg=PA166 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Handbook_of_Semiotics/r...) (you only get to see the beginning in this link, but I have the book and there is only one more paragraphs on the next page). Quoting the rest of the paragraph from Wikipedia, "Another critique comes from semiotic theorists such as Terrence Deacon[41] and Kalevi Kull.[42] This view regards the concept of "meme" as a primitivized concept of "sign". The meme is thus described in memetics as a sign lacking a triadic nature. Semioticians can regard a meme as a "degenerate" sign, which includes only its ability of being copied. Accordingly, in the broadest sense, the objects of copying are memes, whereas the objects of translation and interpretation are signs.[clarification needed]" It's a radical notion, even for semiotics, there could be anything more primitive than the sign itself. And a sign lacking a triadic nature is incomplete critique, since semiotic community is divided between bipartite and tripartite sign theory. Nevertheless, intellectually I'm very curious about the possible connections. Semiotics is so terribly 'static', and suffers to make sense of change. While memetics is incessantly dynamic, but where's the beef? Alas, the search continues...
coldtea 6y ago
>I don't believe (hardly) anyone in academia uses the term meme. Perhaps there's a good reason for that? First, "What the academy uses" is a pretty low bar for clarity, thinking, relevance, and all that... That said, meme was popularized by Richard Dawkins, an academic. Mimetic theory (conceptually related) was formed by Rene Girard, a Harvard scholar (and has tons of citations). Plus, "meme" gives 717,342 results back on JSTOR, 2 million+ on Google Scholar, and 219,789 on ScienceDirect. So, there's that. >It's not clear any clarity is added to the world by replacing the term for culture or thoughts with whatever the term meme is trying to accomplis It is perfectly clear what is added, if one bothers to read a description of the term "meme". Neither culture nor thoughts mean the same thing. So much so, that your complain isn't even wrong.
- staticman2 6y ago
  I cursory look at the JSTOR front page results shows a lot of those links are writing about internet memes- in other words people posting things about people posting things on Twitter. Journal articles in places like "The Social Internet Reader." Not exactly the stuff of evolutionary biology. I'll concede there would appear to be some academics taking it seriously among that noise. Culture and thoughts may not mean the same thing, but people are not using the word "meme" consistently- hence sometimes it means cultures and sometimes thoughts and sometimes it's a term for cat pictures on twitter.

turblety 6y ago

You know, meme was originally coined [1] by Richard Dawkins, an academic scientist, in his book The Selfish Gene. 1. https://books.google.com/books?id=WkHO9HI7koEC&pg=PA192 https://books.google.com/books?id=WkHO9HI7koEC&pg=PA192

joe_the_user 6y ago
The Selfish Gene is a popular text by an academic articulating a very specific view of evolution, one that's caught on among a certain subculture but which isn't mainstream as far as I can tell. Plenty of terms originally coined by academics lack broad academic or even intellectual credibility. I'd agree with the OP that the use of "Meme" is one. I'd also agree that this is because the term provides no clarity - ideas aren't like genes. Genes reproduce by a set mechanism, ideas can be stretched and modified any way you want. Genes are interpreted and realized by a fairly set mechanism. Ideas can be realized any old way. The "Meme" concept is one person's bad analogy imo.
- xtiansimon 6y ago
  "The Selfish Gene is a popular text ... among a certain subculture but which isn't mainstream as far as I can tell." "broad academic or even intellectual credibility" I see what you did there. I don't see a problem with memetics being non-mainstream in the way it's described here. Sure. If you want a job doing something called _memetics_. If you want to gain clout and respectability among your peers for illuminating some dark corner of the worlds problems with your writing, memetics is not going to impress anyone. I say, More ideas the better!
staticman2 6y ago
That's why I said "hardly" anyone uses it, not nobody uses it.

exo-pla-net 6y ago

The word "meme" was invented by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. He's public facing, but his origins are academic. The word caught on because it's a good word that conveyed a novel idea. One could say that it memed its way into our hearts.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Ensorceled 6y ago

What do you think the word meme means[1]? What academic word or phrase should replace it? [1]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme

hprotagonist 6y ago
“semiotics”, which predates it in depth and knowledge by some years.
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  Memes are arguably topics of semiotics, but the mere existence of the word "semiotics" doesn't mean we don't still need "meme". "Memetics" would properly be identified as semiotics, or at least a not-particularly-distinct subfield thereof.
- xtiansimon 6y ago
  !!! That's a very unusual application of 'semiotics'. I would be very grateful to ANYONE who could produce a reference to a published paper or text describing both memetics and semiotics in culture.
  - hprotagonist 6y ago
    Meme is just I Can Haz Sign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme Another critique comes from semiotic theorists such as Terrence Deacon[41] and Kalevi Kull.[42] This view regards the concept of "meme" as a primitivized concept of "sign".
    - xtiansimon 6y ago
      > "I Can Haz Sign" ?? I don't know what that refers to. Regarding the references from Wikipedia--I apologize for my enthusiasm in a post about memetics, if I gave you the impression I was just shooting off in the forum. I should have worded it better. I'm sure the reference to Wikipedia was an honest gesture at being informative. "Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952, Tartu) is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevi_Kull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevi_Kull) Yes. Tartu is the holdout for semiotics in academia. My guess is Professor Kull has to have an opinion about memetics teaching at Tartu. > "Terrence William Deacon ... is an American neuroanthropologist ... is currently Professor of Anthropology and member of the Cognitive Science Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Deacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Deacon) Anthropologist would certainly have an opinion about memetics. Blackmore (2000) essentially spends her whole book making the case for memetics in this field. I was excited by the prospect someone in the _semiotic_ community would take memetics seriously (other than the subfield of bio-semiotics). Noth (1995) is not a recent publication, but it is a serious survey of semiotic theories. He devotes only 5 paragraphs of 575 pages to memes. (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Handbook_of_Semiotics/rHA4KQcPeNgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=north%2C%20winfried&pg=PA166 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Handbook_of_Semiotics/r...) (you only get to see the beginning in this link, but I have the book and there is only one more paragraphs on the next page). Quoting the rest of the paragraph from Wikipedia, "Another critique comes from semiotic theorists such as Terrence Deacon[41] and Kalevi Kull.[42] This view regards the concept of "meme" as a primitivized concept of "sign". The meme is thus described in memetics as a sign lacking a triadic nature. Semioticians can regard a meme as a "degenerate" sign, which includes only its ability of being copied. Accordingly, in the broadest sense, the objects of copying are memes, whereas the objects of translation and interpretation are signs.[clarification needed]" It's a radical notion, even for semiotics, there could be anything more primitive than the sign itself. And a sign lacking a triadic nature is incomplete critique, since semiotic community is divided between bipartite and tripartite sign theory. Nevertheless, intellectually I'm very curious about the possible connections. Semiotics is so terribly 'static', and suffers to make sense of change. While memetics is incessantly dynamic, but where's the beef? Alas, the search continues...

coldtea 6y ago

>I don't believe (hardly) anyone in academia uses the term meme. Perhaps there's a good reason for that? First, "What the academy uses" is a pretty low bar for clarity, thinking, relevance, and all that... That said, meme was popularized by Richard Dawkins, an academic. Mimetic theory (conceptually related) was formed by Rene Girard, a Harvard scholar (and has tons of citations). Plus, "meme" gives 717,342 results back on JSTOR, 2 million+ on Google Scholar, and 219,789 on ScienceDirect. So, there's that. >It's not clear any clarity is added to the world by replacing the term for culture or thoughts with whatever the term meme is trying to accomplis It is perfectly clear what is added, if one bothers to read a description of the term "meme". Neither culture nor thoughts mean the same thing. So much so, that your complain isn't even wrong.

staticman2 6y ago
I cursory look at the JSTOR front page results shows a lot of those links are writing about internet memes- in other words people posting things about people posting things on Twitter. Journal articles in places like "The Social Internet Reader." Not exactly the stuff of evolutionary biology. I'll concede there would appear to be some academics taking it seriously among that noise. Culture and thoughts may not mean the same thing, but people are not using the word "meme" consistently- hence sometimes it means cultures and sometimes thoughts and sometimes it's a term for cat pictures on twitter.