Summary of Richard Brodie's Virus of the Mind

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 A meme is like a Beethoven symphony.

It's a good example of how the word can be used. A library is just a book's way of making another book. memes have to do with human beings. If you make a bunch of photocopies of a document, that doesn't give it good memes.

But if people start memorizing and reciting them, it's a good meme.#2 A meme is an information unit that is imitated.

It is the basic unit of imitation. The question of what are the interesting memes is the right one to ask.#3 The meme is the secret code of human behavior, and it has a central place in the new paradigm of life and culture.

It explains how cultural evolution takes place from the point of view of the meme, rather than the point of view of an individual or society.#4 The biological definition of a meme is the basic unit of cultural transmission.

Everything we call culture is made up of atomlike memes that compete with one another to spread from mind to mind.