5. MEMs as replicators of culture

               Human cultural evolution is an observable fact. It must have mandatory attributes like any evolution of living things. Therefore, it is required to indicate its replicators and inheritance mechanisms, since the corresponding attributes of biological evolution (genes) cannot explain the fact of cultural evolution.
                Sociobiology studies the phenomenon of human cultural evolution from a natural scientific standpoint. It can be presented as an attempt to penetrate the scientific approach into the area where the humanities now dominate. The humanities do not need to justify the very existence of cultural evolution, they only need to postulate it. But science seeks to reduce the number of postulates to a minimum. If you postulate something, then there is no need to prove it and explain it. Naturally, sociobiology encounters powerful resistance from the humanities and those who have joined them, since it deprives them of their daily bread (and not only).
                Sociology, important for practice, developed exclusively on an empirical basis, must follow from sociobiology, as chemistry does from physics. As far as history, biographical and fiction books are concerned, they should be considered as research protocols for sociology.

 
                REPLICATORS  BY R.DAWKINS.

The idea of replicators of culture was expressed by R. Dawkins. Clinton Richard Dawkins (March 26, 1941) - English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, scientist and popularizer of science.
                Dawkins has become widely known since 1976, when his book "The Selfish Gene" was published, in which the term "meme" was introduced into the lexicon, denoting a unit of cultural information that is copied and transmitted from one carrier to another and is subject to mutations, natural selection and artificial selection.
                Dawkins writes: “I think that a new kind of replicator has recently emerged on this very planet. It is staring us in  the face. It is still in its infancy, still drifting clumsily about in its primeval soup, but already it is achieving  evolutionary change at a rate that leaves the old gene panting far behind.
              The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that  conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable  Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive  me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme."
                In Dawkins' replicator-idea, propagated by imitation. There is a lot of unsaid in this definition. We will assume that Dawkins only set the task of finding a certain entity that would satisfy the set task - to be a replicator in cultural evolution.
                If it was possible to find a cultural replicator and the mechanisms of its transmission in generations, then it would be possible to build a theory about human behavior in societies, reminiscent of population genetics.
                It will not be possible to solve it as G. Mendel did, formulating the three laws of heredity. The human brain is much more complex than peas, on which the laws of heredity were first discovered.
                We know how information is transmitted over radio channels. But we do not understand enough how it is transmitted between people. Information from one brain to another is transmitted by a certain code (words, pictures, tactile sensations, etc.).
                Understanding this code by the receiving party allows it to recover the transmitted information to a certain extent. Information is not copied directly from one head to another, but is reproduced by the recipient again in accordance with the code.
                This algorithm is used to compress transmission channels in digital methods of transmitting information - music, video.
                In one head, MEM (information) exists in the form of functional states of a certain group of neurons. To transmit this information to other heads, it must be transformed so that it can be transmitted through one of the communication channels (visual or auditory) to one or several people nearby. After receiving the information, it is again transformed (restored) in other heads into the functional states of another group of neurons (new MEMs).
                And the communication channel and information recovery introduce some errors. Therefore, MEMS are very imprecise replicators. When we read poetry, everyone perceives them differently. He will excite one, recalling something from the experience, the other will leave indifferent. But the information sent to the head is the same.
                But what determines the quality, completeness and speed of information transfer can only be guessed at, since we have only fragmentary data characterizing the work of the brain.
                To construct a theory of cultural microevolution, a more elaborate model of a replicator is needed, reflecting its properties and manifestations, and possessing some predictive power. But in sociobiology, which describes the behavior of large societies, statistical patterns and large time intervals neutralize random errors in the transmission of individual MEMs at each moment of time, which makes it possible to develop the theory of cultural evolution using MEMs as models of cultural replicators.
                Long before R. Dawkins, back in 1898, V. M. Bekhterev in his article "The Role of Suggestion in Public Life" wrote about "mental microbes", which, "like real physical microbes, act everywhere and everywhere and are transmitted through the words and gestures of those around him. , through books, newspapers, etc. " Transmitted to others, "mental germs" can change some aspects of their behavior.

               
                NEW  MEM  REPLICATORS.

                The behavior of the entire multicellular organism is regulated by the supercellular control system, created on the basis of the nervous system, brain and sense organs. This is the highest (outer) circuit of the subordinate control system.
                It cannot be imagined that he acts independently and according to a permanently established algorithm. The adaptive regulation of this external loop depends on the results of the work of the internal control loops, on the state of the external environment.
                Individual brain cells (neurons) are connected in neural networks that have many nodes that process and store information. It looks like a multi-core processor, but with an incredible number of cores. There are about 80 billion neurons in the brain, which is 4 orders of magnitude more than all genes in the human genome. It is possible that in the brain, some neurons will turn out to be "junk", non-coding, like most of the genes in the genome.
                The structures of this network are local associations of neurons - the "words" of the neural code of the MEM. These associations are not physical, but functional. The functional states of neurons are encoded by information received by the brain from the sense organs about the external environment, about the state of the organism itself from its nerve cells. The system of numerous MEMs can be considered as a set of regulators that determine the activity of various brain structures that affect the behavior of the whole organism.
                If you feel hungry, cold, irritated, joyful, or any other need of the body, then this appropriately directs thoughts and changes behavior. Regulators that control processes in accordance with the established regulation law are still themselves capable of changing (adaptive regulators) by internal needs. This changes the vector of our thinking and behavior. The entire control system resembles a slave control system, when the external control loop takes into account the state of the internal one. Only in the body, the parameters of the regulators are set not by the developers, but by the totality of the surrounding factors. In other words, regulators are adaptive.
                The brain acts in accordance with the many signals that enter it. Most of them come from the environment external to a person, and the other part from the internal environment.
                The state of the internal environment is regulated by a second, local regulatory system with genes, proteins, hormones, and chemicals that they produce that affect the internal environment of the body.
                It is wrong to say that genes determine the processes of ontogenesis, because genes in regulatory systems play the role of mediators, not stubborn commanders. The activity of genes related to the regulation of body systems is motivated by the external environment of the body.
                The expression (activity) of genes is determined by promoters that receive information from signaling molecules, and those from the external environment around the cell. There are no stubborn commanders in this complex distributed system. All systems work together to maintain the parameters of homeostasis, ensuring the preservation of life.

 
               MEMS  ARE  FUNCTIONAL  STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BRAIN.

                The functional state of a local network, which includes several neurons, is understood by us as one MEM, as one “word” from a long description of the mental characteristics of a person.
                Hence, it is clear why MEMs, as some localized structures, are not found in the brain. These are functional associations of neurons that exchange signals, these are interactive subroutines of the brain, and not morphological outgrowths available for observation with optical devices.
                To give MEM some resemblance to a gene, we will understand MEM as a minimal, indivisible amount of information, one “word” in the interactive subroutines of the brain that regulate thinking and behavior in rapidly changing environmental conditions, both internal and external.
                When we try to analyze the mentality of a person, decomposing properties that are significant for us into shelves, then each mental property that is interesting for us is formed not by one, but by many cores of the neural network. In a similar way, genes jointly create certain properties of the organism manifested in phenotypes.
                The proposed MEM model allows us to judge the work of the brain from a certain, but important point of view for us.
                The given definition differs significantly from the widespread one. This is no longer a meme - an idea, as it is now accepted to interpret Dawkins. Therefore, it was necessary to slightly change the spelling of the word, while maintaining the generality of sound.


                ON  MODELS  IN  SCIENCE.

              Many models have been invented to explain something, to help understand the world around us. Any so-called "Law of Nature" is not a guide to action for a material substance, but just a kind of virtual construction in the brain, which allows us, based on an analogy with reality, to judge it and even make predictions. Therefore, no "law of nature" can be final. It is always inaccurate by nature.
               As Karl Pearson wrote back in 1892 (K. Pearson's "The Grammar of Science"), we understand the laws of nature as descriptions, not prescriptions.
                So quantum mechanics cannot be viewed as a law for the electron. He does not know her, and he cannot, therefore, obey. Quantum mechanics is a model in our head that allows us to understand something and draw conclusions - for example, an atomic bomb. A sad conclusion.
                Realizing this, physicists, realizing A. Einstein's dream of creating a unified field theory, created a theory that combines information about elementary particles and fields, developed over 50 years by the efforts of many outstanding scientists and simply called it - the standard model.
                "The laws of nature" are currently understood as descriptions of fragments of reality in the sense of K. Pearson, because we are dealing only with models in the brain.



                MEMS  AS  MODELS.

                If the MEM model allows us to understand something, then it has the right to coexist until something better is proposed.
                In the human sciences, a vast desert stretches between sociology and sociobiology. And these sciences are united by the idea of evolution. The desert obviously needs to be filled. Therefore, the developed ideas about MEMs, their aggregates and their phenotypic manifestation in the form of mentality can help fill this territory. Sociology, which today is a purely experimental science, must be based on sociobiology, not philosophy.
                MEMs are useful models that reveal themselves by their phenotype. By shaping behavior in response to challenges presented by the environment (environment), MEMs participate in developing situational behavior, responses to challenges that are required "here and now."
                MEMs can be activated under the influence of external information, interact with others, forming some associations, causing changes in behavior, which resembles the expression of genes in cells.