Learning, Imitation, and Memes

Abstract

In the course of evolution, complex organisms arose as effective survival machines for genes. This is not to say that complex organisms replaced simple ones; rather the building of complex structures turned out to be another successful path of survival. Thus humans and bacteria coexist and are both successful, so far. As brains evolved, memory formed by learning, both trial and error and imitative, became transmittable to other brains as memes. Brains and memes, in and outside of the brain, coevolved in humans.