SÃO MEMES REPLICADORES? A CRÍTICA DE SPERBER À MEMÉTICA

Abstract

Dawkins, Dennett, and Blackmore's theory of memes traditionally depends on understanding cultural transmission as a process of replication similar to what happens in biological evolution. Many criticisms were raised against this theory, one of the best known being by the anthropologist Dan Sperber. For him, different brains can create the same behavior using different rules, so we cannot say that this similarity between behaviors happens because an individual passed a meme to another individual. In this way, memes would not be replicators. However, some answers can be presented. First, empirically we do not yet know how information is stored in brains and passed on to other brains. But more relevant, it is not necessary to understand the micro-processes to use the Memetics models, since its models does not depend on a complete understanding of them