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.This leavesopen the possibility that there might be some external memetic realiza-tions, as well as some internal copies.Memes, as representations, maybe found both within human minds and outside them, in informationstores like books and blueprints.If this is the case, then what is the re-lationship between such external representations and our internal brainstructures: are the external realizations merely passive effects of what 90 The Selfish Memegoes on in our minds, or do they play a more active role in memeticreplication?On the one hand it is clear that if there were only external memestores, then memes could no longer be disseminated.Even if, for exam-ple, there are hundreds of copies of a particular theory, stored in librariesall over the world, that theory will have no effect if nobody ever reads it.Similarly, though, the information retained in a human memory may re-main inactive for long periods of time.On the other hand, if there wereonly minds and no external RSs in which information could more perma-nently be stored, then memetic replication would lose much of its presentstability.The most helpful picture of memetic location may, then, be roughly de-scribed as follows: there is no significant distinction to be drawn betweenthe human mind and external information stores such as libraries andthe Internet, but in order for a meme to be available to selection, activecopies of it must exist.If the human mind is not universal, but is devel-oped via interaction with existing culture, then external representationsplay an essential role in memetic replication.The internal brain struc-tures are, though, the ultimate source of the external representations.Thus a combination of both sorts of meme store has led to a massive ca-pacity for information dissemination and copying stability, which wouldhave been impossible via only one of the storage methods.What mattersfor both is that the realizations should be of an appropriate kind.This picture ties in with the view of the capacity to gain and retainattention as the best measure of memetic fitness.If a meme is to bereplicated, then it must be able to grab our attention: at times whenonly passive copies of it persist, it is not able to do this and is thereforenot at all fecund.On the other hand, if a meme is to persist then itmust be able to retain our attention, and passive copies of it are themost efficient way of ensuring its prolonged existence.This extensionof memes phenotype is also reminiscent of Clark s view that much ofwhat we commonly identify as our mental capacities may.turn out tobe properties of the wider extended systems of which human brains arejust one (important) part. 31What, then, can we conclude about memes location? Both memes andtheir effects are to be found inside the human mind as well as outsideit, but this is not to say that the two phenomena are indistinguishable:memes are realized in systems of representation, and their effects arenot.Cultural evolution depends on the distinction between the two, just The Human Mind: Meme Complex with a Virus? 91as natural selection is ultimately dependent on the existence of discretebiological replicators.In both culture and biology this leads us to askfrom where the replicators could have emerged how evolution couldhave started in the first place and I turn to this question in Chapter 10.Before that, however, I want to continue with the task of setting my ownviews within their cultural context, by examining the work of some otherwell-known memeticists. 9The Meme s Eye ViewOne of the most celebrated commentaries on the meme hypothesis hasbeen provided by the psychologist Susan Blackmore in her 1999 bookThe Meme Machine.Blackmore, like Dawkins and Dennett, accepts thatthe distinction between virus and replicator is as valid in culture as inbiology.Like Dennett, too, she believes that the mind is a meme com-plex.It is impossible to untangle this mistake from various other strands ofBlackmore s thesis just as it remains inextricably linked with Dennett sconfused perception of vehicles and phenotypes, and with Dawkins s er-roneous overextension of the virus-replicator distinction and thus Ishall challenge the elements of Blackmore s thought which lead her toshare Dennett s view.In particular she focuses on the issue of imitation, towhich she assigns enormous significance.Other commentators like DanSperber, Robert Boyd and Peter J.Richerson have vehemently disagreedwith her analysis, and this chapter also considers their views in the lightof what Blackmore has to say.Copy-the-Product Versus Copy-the-InstructionsI return first to the thorny issue of memes and their effects, whichBlackmore acknowledges as an area of confusion when applied to culture.The confusion arises, she says, because of the desire to make an inappro-priately close analogy between genes and memes.In the case of memes,she believes that it may be better to abandon altogether the attempt todistinguish sharply between replicators and their effects.Rather, she in-troduces the concepts of copy-the-instructions and copy-the-product ,as a more useful distinction to draw between types of memetic process.92 The Meme s Eye View 93Sometimes, she says, we acquire new information by working back-wards from what someone else has produced: for instance, we mightwatch someone making soup, and later do the same ourselves.In thiscase we have copied-the-product.At other times, though, we acquire ourinformation more directly, as when we follow a written recipe for makingsoup.Here we have copied-the-instructions.In cases of copy-the-product,variations will persist if introduced by the individual who is being copied:I shall copy any mistakes made by the soup maker, just as I shall copy heractions when she follows the recipe faithfully
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