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A meme ( ) is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture".〔(Meme ). ''Merriam-Webster Dictionary''.〕 A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures. The word ''meme'' is a shortening (modeled on ''gene'') of ''mimeme'' (from Ancient Greek ''mīmēma'', "imitated thing", from ''mimeisthai'', "to imitate", from ''mimos'', "mime")〔''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'': Fourth Edition, 2000〕 coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in ''The Selfish Gene'' (1976)〔〔; (Varieties of meaning ). "Richard Dawkins invented the term 'memes' to stand for items that are reproduced by imitation rather than reproduced genetically."〕 as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catchphrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches. Proponents theorize that memes are a viral phenomenon that may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution. Memes do this through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, each of which influences a meme's reproductive success. Memes spread through the behavior that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.〔 ''But if we consider culture as its own self-organizing system — a system with its own agenda and pressure to survive — then the history of humanity gets even more interesting. As Richard Dawkins has shown, systems of self-replicating ideas or memes can quickly accumulate their own agenda and behaviours. I assign no higher motive to a cultural entity than the primitive drive to reproduce itself and modify its environment to aid its spread. One way the self organizing system can do this is by consuming human biological resources."〕 A field of study called memetics arose in the 1990s to explore the concepts and transmission of memes in terms of an evolutionary model. Criticism from a variety of fronts has challenged the notion that academic study can examine memes empirically. However, developments in neuroimaging may make empirical study possible. Some commentators in the social sciences question the idea that one can meaningfully categorize culture in terms of discrete units, and are especially critical of the biological nature of the theory's underpinnings.〔Gill, Jameson (2011). Memes and narrative analysis: A potential direction for the development of neo-Darwinian orientated research in organisations. In: Euram 11 : proceedings of the European Academy of Management. European Academy of Management.〕 Others have argued that this use of the term is the result of a misunderstanding of the original proposal.〔 (This is an open access article, made freely available courtesy of MIT Press.)〕 Dawkins's own position is somewhat ambiguous: he obviously welcomed N. K. Humphrey's suggestion that "memes should be considered as living structures, not just metaphorically" and wanted to regard memes as "physically residing in the brain". Later, he argued that his original intentions, presumably before his approval of Humphrey's opinion, had been simpler.〔Dawkins' foreword to , p. xvi〕 At the New Directors' Showcase 2013 in Cannes, Dawkins' opinion on memetics was deliberately ambiguous.〔(Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase 2013 )〕 == Origins == The word ''meme'' originated with Richard Dawkins' 1976 book ''The Selfish Gene''. Dawkins cites as inspiration the work of geneticist L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, anthropologist F. T. Cloak 〔Cultural microevolution, 1966. Research Previews 13: (2) p. 7-10. Also presented at the November, 1966 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association.〕 and ethologist J. M. Cullen.〔Is a cultural ethology possible? Hum. Ecol. 3, 161-182. Cullen, J. M. (1972).〕 Dawkins wrote that evolution depended not on the particular chemical basis of genetics, but only on the existence of a self-replicating unit of transmission — in the case of biological evolution, the gene. For Dawkins, the meme exemplified another self-replicating unit with potential significance in explaining human behavior and cultural evolution. Dawkins used the term to refer to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator. He hypothesised that one could view many cultural entities as replicators, and pointed to melodies, fashions and learned skills as examples. Memes generally replicate through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient copiers of information and behaviour. Because humans do not always copy memes perfectly, and because they may refine, combine or otherwise modify them with other memes to create new memes, they can change over time. Dawkins likened the process by which memes survive and change through the evolution of culture to the natural selection of genes in biological evolution.〔 Dawkins defined the ''meme'' as a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation and replication, but later definitions would vary. The lack of a consistent, rigorous, and precise understanding of what typically makes up one unit of cultural transmission remains a problem in debates about memetics. In contrast, the concept of genetics gained concrete evidence with the discovery of the biological functions of DNA. Meme transmission requires a physical medium, such as photons, sound waves, touch, taste or smell because memes can be transmitted only through the senses. Dawkins noted that in a society with culture a person need not have descendants to remain influential in the actions of individuals thousands of years after their death: But if you contribute to the world's culture, if you have a good idea...it may live on, intact, long after your genes have dissolved in the common pool. Socrates may or may not have a gene or two alive in the world today, as G.C. Williams has remarked, but who cares? The meme-complexes of Socrates, Leonardo, Copernicus and Marconi are still going strong. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Meme」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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