"We depend on all kinds of nonexistent things for our ability to thrive as a creature . ."

In case you haven't heard, we have been living in the midst of memes since the day the first copycat stole somebody else's idea and put it to work, only to have somebody else copy it. Memes are copyable ideas that become, in effect, self-replicating.

Memes are simple, so why complicate matters? Scientists' efforts to 'prove' whether memes exist seem fruitless to me. It doesn't matter whether they exist. We depend on all kinds of nonexistent things for our ability to thrive as a creature, and as a creature in the midst of others both likened to and different from ourselves. Some examples?—ideas, time, God, the future, the present, the past, numbers and words, knowledge, nature, on and on. Prove they exist, and you have done the same thing for memes.

Learning to understand memes is a key to gaining a comprehension of lots of other things, and seeing the importance of some things that we may not have previously given much of our attention. On the other hand, some things we thought to be important may turn out to be just ho-hum ideas.

We may have gotten a glimmer, in the first paragraph, of what a self-replicating idea might be, but still not realize why it's important to know about. To be sure we understand, let's create an example of a meme idea, and one that represents a non-meme.

Any idea can be copyable, but just the act of copying for the sake of doing so does not make something a meme. A one-of-a-kind building could be copied, but the key is in whether others perceive benefits—real or imagined—for doing so (Other than saying, "We told you so."). The ideas behind the architecture for our building will not be memes if someone doesn't take a look at them, see how they work, and answer to an urge to copy. If people look at it, declare, "I hate it," and leave without a second glance, they have not been exposed to a set of memes.

One idea in that design could catch on, however, and live to become a meme. One doorway in our imaginary building was copied from the way a special tailgate functioned on a certain model 1978 station wagon, and then enhanced to make it even more useful. This particular kitchen door had been mounted into its frame in such a way that it could open from either edge, swing in either direction, or be laid down so it forms a ramp for meal carts to be rolled down what would otherwise be a set of steps. Even though it cost only a few dollars extra to build and install, nobody paid it much attention except for one fellow who, when he began checking on it, discovered nobody had bothered to apply for a patent.

Now, this idea is a meme whether somebody copied an actual door, or built it from the description of it you have just read. The meme is the replicatable idea, not the vehicle containing it. The vehicle (the actual door, a set of blueprints, a picturesque description) only represents the idea. It is important to understand that part of Memetics to get a handle on how they work: An idea resides in the mind, on a piece of paper or data recording, or in an artifact made to put it into practice. When you read or see the idea at work and learn to understand it and feel an urge to pass it on to someone else (from your mind into theirs) it has become a meme.

Please be sure you understand why a meme is a copyable idea and why that makes it unique before you go on, even if you have to get somebody knowledgeable to explain it to you. Also, please, don't feel bad if you don't understand something that is giving big-name scientists brain farts. Just realize that once you grasp it, you will see how utterly simple it actually is until you try to pass it on to someone else.

Memes don't have to be useful or serve a necessary purpose. Fads are memes which gain prominence and then die away after people lose interest. The licks and sounds of music are memes composed into what Susan Blackmore calls a 'memeplex', a group of memes that work together. Fashions represent short-lived memes, but some apparently useless memes live longer, like the wearing of clothing to go swimming, or men wear hair short and women long, or men wear trousers and women wear dresses.

Memes evolve. Look around and see representations of memes in the walls, doors, windows, furniture, the artificial music you may now be listening to (can you tell whether it all was "live" or generated by a computer?) and all the contents that make up the equipment with which you are working. Think how they have changed over the years of your own life, and how different each is from the same items your parents and grandparents may have used.

Memes compete for dominance. Memeplexes have come and gone all during mankind's history. Islam is a fast-rising memeplex looking for dominance in today's world, whereas animism-based religions have all but died out. VHS competed with Beta and brought about Beta's demise as a video recording method. Republicans and Democrats present us with an ongoing circus of competing memeplexes. The preacher in Wisconsin who rouses his congregation into harassing naked people wanting only to swim in the river is an example closer to the concerns for this message.

Awareness of meme competition will let you watch their interplay on your TV set while political figures of all sorts vie to outdo each other, religious factions seek dominance in some area, and legislators argue to pass new laws to regulate your life. You'll find yourself attracted to some of that daily dose of ideas and wanting to convince people about why they are right. Others will get you upset and make you wonder why other people can be so stupid and still survive. There are always those that make you ask yourself, "What's so important about that?"

That question may have popped into your mind while you've been reading this. "What does all of this have to do with Naturism?"

We don't look at other animals—even earthworms—and think of them as being nude. Nudism derives from what I call 'nonideas', which have been contrived in response to cultural norms requiring the covering of our bodies. Remove the clothing requirements and the practices that result from them, and nudism disappears, it being the natural condition of our dress. In that natural condition, unprodded by artificial requirements, no one would think of nudity as being anything special.

There likely are hundreds of conditions that could stand in its place, that have not been thought about because we have accepted things the way they are. What if the laws of the land began requiring us all to hang upside down from ceilings, and made walking upside-right illegal? There would be an uprising.

What if it, or something like it, happened slowly, over several generations? A few 'oddballs' would dissent and form groups to meet in secret out of the way places to practice walking on the ground as being the 'natural' way to live, and wish they could do it in public, all the time. Politicians wanting to make a name for themselves would begin claiming children were being allowed to walk upside right by themselves at youth camps without parental supervision, and retired Uprightist officials were taking pictures of them to sell on the Internet. "To perverts, of course. There would have to be sexual things going on. Nobody walks upright unless sex is involved." The memes of counter-uprightness, useless as any, would prevail in such conditions.

To make all this applicable to Naturism, nudists ought to arrive at some kind of agreement within our specific culture, as to exactly what we expect—or would wish for—the future to be like. Do we really wish for the freedom to walk about naked whenever and wherever we wish (barring safety concerns—the arc welder thing)? Do we really wish to develop Naturism into a full-fledged philosophy, or a religion, complete with a variety of denominations and churches and preachers, deacons, elders, and pulpits where we could preach to the masses and try to get our beliefs formulated into law? Do we simply wish to be left alone, and to go on somewhat as we are with as little interference as possible from outsiders?

The answers to these questions, and plenty more like them, contain Naturism's memes. Maybe the circumstances are such that we should work them out and set them down to where they can be made copyable, and then send them out into the world to evolve and compete, and see what might happen from there.

A full-fledged discussion of Memetics from which the above presentation was derived. Click on the picture to read more about this unique book, and discover why you might want to own a copy now.

"Memes compete for dominance."

"We don't look at other animals—even earthworms—and think of them as being nude."