Roar Loud: January 2012

The Memeing of Life:

A Study in Human Symbolic Immortality

Matan Koplin-Green

From poetry I have raised a castle high

That neither wind nor rain can harm

After I'm gone, I will remain

My words are seeds well sown.

-Tusi Firdousi, 10^th Century Persian Poet

Since the dawn of intelligent thought, humans have searched for ways to live forever. From Ponce de León’s quest for the fountain of youth, to current scientific efforts to radically extend the human life span, the idea of immortality has always pervaded the minds of philosophers and scientists alike. In fact, psychological research has shown that a desire for immortality is at the core of any healthy person. But can a human being really live forever? Ask the biologist, and he or she would say that we are far from achieving bodily immortality. Ask the artist, however, and he might say that immortality is secured in his art, which can survive far beyond the mortal coil of the artist himself. This ability to attain cultural immortality through our art and ideas is a phenomenon unique to the human race, and perhaps the most crucial characteristic that separates us from our primate ancestors. I will argue that the ultimate objective of human life is the inception and propagation of cultural ideas, or “memes,” simultaneously fulfilling the human psychological quest for immortality while involuntarily fueling the emerging epoch of technological evolution.

In order to fully understand the nature of human creation, one must understand the nature of creation itself. What is an idea? Since Charles Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection in the mid-19^th century, evolutionary biologists have attempted to understand all living systems under an evolutionary lens. It is now common knowledge that almost every animal characteristic has evolved to help that animal survive, by providing the tools needed to beat out the competition and find nourishment. This will ensure that the animal can reproduce and pass down its genes, thus increasing the number of those genes in the gene pool. With the evolution of brains, animals gained increasingly clearer knowledge of their surroundings, giving smarter creatures a vital edge over their less smart – though perhaps physically stronger – rivals. The power of the human brain has given rise to the unbelievable emotional capacity of a human being, along with an unprecedented level of intelligence. We are capable of communicating, inventing, imagining, and learning on a scale no other species has ever experienced (Dawkins 1976, 36). This evolution, and the subsequent explosion of human creation, has given rise to the diversity and depth that we see in human culture. In turn, this culture provides the nurture to our nature; learned principals from the surrounding cultural milieu largely govern daily human activity. The mature human mind is arguably more saturated with ideas than with instinct. These ideas are not only capable of spreading both horizontally throughout a society, but also vertically through the generations, with the advent of communication and education. If a good idea is introduced into our culture, it has the potential ability to survive for hundreds, if not thousands, of generations (189).

This description of ideas may seem startling at first; it seems almost as if ideas have a life of their own. That is exactly what Richard Dawkins set out to prove in his landmark 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins introduces an entirely new, revolutionary framework for the study of ideas: meme theory. Dawkins found that ideas propagate and replicate in an extremely analogous manner to our genes. Meme theory defines the fruits of human culture in units of a meme, which is essentially any culturally transmitted idea. A novel, a song, a catchphrase, language, architecture, and religious tradition are all memes, some more powerful than others. A meme, like a gene, is in constant competition against rival memes for a spot in the meme pool. Only the strongest memes, the ones with the highest “survival value,” will secure a place in culture. Rather than being stored in our cells through DNA, memes store themselves in our minds (197). They are like viruses, infesting the innocent human psyche by preying on its curiosities, addictions, and desires. Although this account seems to grant ideas an intentional – and perhaps malevolent – stance, they certainly are not intentional, and not always malevolent. A music meme for a catchy song becomes popular because it was well written, and people enjoy listening to it. The medical community will adopt a new, more effective method of CPR because it saves more lives. While memes and genes can reinforce each other, some memes can directly oppose our genes, often for the worse. Memes for smoking cigarettes are certainly not healthy and only decrease our propensity to procreate, although they are successful in diffusion through many societies. Nevertheless, it is important to note that memes delineate a completely new evolutionary process, separate from genetic evolution (199).

Dawkins is in good company. In his 2005 futurist doctrine The Singularity is Near, inventor extraordinaire Ray Kurzweil takes this new process and fits it in an even larger picture of evolutionary shifts. He calls it “The Six Epochs of Evolution.” Each Epoch marks an increase in complexity in the proliferation of information, which is fundamental to any evolutionary process. Kurzweil traces our origins from Epoch One (information in atomic structure) to Epoch Two (information in DNA), and finally to Epoch Three (information in neural patterns). In this model, evolution works through indirection; in Kurzweil’s words, “each stage or epoch uses the information-processing methods of the previous epoch to create the next” (14). Genes would not be possible without atomic elements, and the evolution of intelligence would not be possible without the genetic evolution that preceded it. Between Epoch Three and Epoch Four lie Dawkins’s memes, and Epoch Four marks the arrival of human-created technologies (Epochs Five and Six are related to Kurzweil’s controversial theory of the Singularity, and will not be discussed here). For thousands of years, Mother Nature has developed and refined our neural system, to the point where our species ushered an even better way to store information: by invention (16). It is clear that technological advance – or, for that matter, any creation of culturally transmitted ideas – is actually activity of the next phase of evolution.

But why should we humans succumb to the stronghold of the memetic evolution, allow our minds to assemble the next generation of warrior ideas? The answer is simple: because we love doing it. Not only are we hardwired for procreation, but for innovation as well. Since the early hominids invented the first stone tools, humans have had an undying craving to create. Nevertheless, what drives this desire?

A human being – in fact, any living organism – strives for a prolonged existence. Even in the primeval soup of early molecules, only those compounds with longevity would survive and replicate (Dawkins 1976, 17). Before the evolution of consciousness, preservation of genetic material was all that mattered, as not much could be done about increasing individual lifespan. Humans, however, are a very different story.

Social psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton proposes that human creation is strongly correlated with our desire to live forever. Lifton found that people without a sense of everlasting continuity, such as those who survived the first atomic bomb, experience extreme emotional trauma and a general sense of meaninglessness (Lifton 1974, 683). Although a solution for true, individual immortality– that is, the perpetual existence of an individual consciousness – may be far out of reach, immortality may present itself in various symbolic ways. According to Lifton (1979), humans understand immortality in a hierarchy of different modes: biological, creative, transcendental, natural, and experientially transcendental (for the sake of clarity, I will limit myself to discussing the first two modes). Biological immortality simply refers to reproduction and continuation of family lineage; or, living through your offspring. This mode of immortality is both the most ubiquitous yet ineffective means to eternal life. According to Dawkins,

“We were built as gene machines, created to pass our own genes. But that aspect of us will be forgotten in three generations. Your child, even your grandchild, may bear a resemblance to you, perhaps in facial features or color of hair, or in a talent for music. But as each generation passes, the contribution of your genes is halved. It does not take long to reach negligible proportions… We should not seek immortality in reproduction (Dawkins 1976, 199).

Sexual reproduction may eternalize an individual gene, but certainly not an entire person. Pre-conscious creatures, however, had no reason to care; reproduction was the sole objective.

With the rise of consciousness, and thoughtful comprehension of the inevitability of death, a new option emerged. Lifton’s second mode of symbolic immortality, by creative means, displays the human side of meme theory. Aristotle and Socrates can live forever through their writing, even if not one of their genes still exists today. Picasso’s artwork has assured him a potentially everlasting existence in society. This highlights a major difference between genes and memes: memes bear a signature, genes do not. On the cover of every book is an author, on the bottom of every painting, an autograph, and in the title of every viral video, a username. A combination of Lifton’s theory of symbolic immortality and Dawkins’s meme theory illustrates a beautiful prospect for our ideas: that a great invention will not die with its inventor. Memes will forever replicate and diffuse according to evolutionary laws; all we have to do is create them.

This is not to imply that our basic drive to reproduce should be completely neglected. True, as biological creatures, as animals, it is our imperative to reproduce. But what is our ultimate responsibility as human beings? Given the state of this planet’s evolution, along with an understanding of our psychology, I would say that our true destiny lies in driving forward the memetic evolution. We are here to create, not just procreate. As Dawkins puts it, people are “built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines” (201). Anthropocentric as it may sound, we humans have used our spark of creativity to irreversibly transcend biology. Kurzweil has shown that biological evolution is only one epoch in a chain of possibly infinite epochs of evolution. The best part is that our biological identity does not resist this new evolution; quite the contrary, they work in parallel. Riding the wake of the emerging memetic evolution allows us to fulfill our biological desire for immortality. Like every other living organism, we seek eternal life, but we hold a unique, cherished method of actually succeeding in that goal.

We, as living organisms, have approached a new era of our own significance. No longer are we bound by the chains of our genes, destined to survive just long enough to pass them on. Rather, we are the pioneers of a blossoming landscape of new ideas, whose growth shows no signs of slowing. The memetic evolution and human psychology are codependent: technological advance requires human input, and humans need ideas to quench their thirst for eternal life. This glorious reciprocity has profoundly changed the answer of what it means to be alive. He who understands his natural mortality, and contributes positively to society in response, has arrived at a noble purpose in life. And those who create should have no fear of death. From the songs we sing to the tools we use, every cultural activity is also a precious act of immortalization for whoever had the idea. In fact, the very writing of this paper is a small reassurance that I, in some way, may live forever.

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