From Genes to Memes: the Hidden Forms of Life All Around Us
In its time, the book “The Selfish Gene” (1976), written by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, sparked a genuine revolution in evolutionary biology and in our overall understanding of life. Dawkins dared to re-examine the role of organisms in the evolutionary process, proposing that the primary “units of selection” are not the animals or plants themselves, but rather genes: self-replicating informational fragments that pass through generations. His concept shifted the focus away from the organism as the evolutionary “hero” and toward the genes operating “behind the scenes.” This, in turn, allowed us to view evolution as a process in which the main actor is information itself, not its material carriers.
The Traditional View of Life
We are accustomed to thinking of life as something purely biological: cells, organisms, and DNA. But what if we look at it more broadly? In “The Selfish Gene”, Richard Dawkins suggests examining evolution less from the standpoint of organisms as physical entities and more from the perspective of informational units — genes — that seek pathways to self-replicate and spread. Summarizing what “The Selfish Gene” tells us, we can conclude that the life we know is the result ofinformation striving to survive. This implies that life is essentially a mode of information’s existence.
If information is the basic unit of what we call life, and it seeks ways to replicate, disseminate, and evolve, then we can draw a parallel. We are all familiar with “internet memes.” We share them through various channels, post them on social networks, and mention them in everyday conversations. When a meme trend emerges, the most popular form often becomes quite different from the original. The meme evolves, adapting to find new hosts. Its goal is to persist in as many carriers as possible. The form of the carrier does not matter, whether it’s a record in a social media database, electronic impulses in our brains, or immortalization in the form of a bronze statue. In fact, this behavior is reminiscent of the viruses we know from biology.
A Parallel with Viruses: Memes’ Survival Strategies
The difference between memes and viruses lies only in their form and methods of dissemination. When a virus enters a new host, it attempts to turn that host into a distributor of its copies, simultaneously learning through trial and error how to more effectively infect the next host. The same goes for internet memes: when they penetrate a new individual’s consciousness, they may quickly fade or, on the contrary, convert that individual into a propagator. Possessing intelligence, this propagator may enhance the meme with something that helps it seize the minds of even more people.
As units of information, memes replicate, transmit from one carrier to another, adapt to their environment, and “compete” for attention and survival in the realm of human culture.
The Digital Environment: A New Ecosystem for Information
Information, as a fundamental unit, strives for self-replication and dissemination, regardless of the form it takes: a gene in a DNA strand, memetic content in a culture, or a digital video on TikTok. The essence remains the same: more successful informational structures leave more copies of themselves, adapting to their environment and displacing less successful variations. Consequently, culture, social networks, and modern methods of data transmission form a new ecological space where evolution and selection occur — not only for genes but also for information in the broadest sense. This provides yet another piece of evidence that the fundamental unit of living matter is not the gene, but the information itself.
Conclusion
We are used to considering life primarily as a biological phenomenon. But if we look deeper, the essence boils down to information striving to replicate and spread. Genes, memes, ideas, viruses, and nature itself are all different forms of one fundamental process. Life is information, which never stops in its quest to be perceived and reproduced.
