The I Believe Meme

Memes emerged from Richard Dawkins’ work on understanding our selfish genes. Memes are analogous to genes but rather than being self-replicating pieces of genetic code, they are self-replicating ideas. Nursery rhymes are memes, the story of Cinderalla, belief in God. All memes, passed on not through sexual reproduction, but from mind to mind via words and symbols.

The phrase “I believe” is the archetype of the memetic principle and can represent an individual’s most precious memes. Dinoj Surendran an intern at Microsoft Research lists his I Believe Memes on his homepage here. Among them are the beliefs that “Documentation is important”, “Cats are superior to dogs, and often to humans too”, and “My god is an atheist”. So touching, and touching on the metaphysical.

If you’re looking for some new I believe memes for your own collection check out the random belief generator. First up when I visited was: ” Cows would live a lot longer if they weren’t made of steaks and leather,” which cuts to the quick especially for an ex-vegetarian, but is not quite as sharp as “Happiness is a choice”, nor as incisive as “You can still drink the milk if it’s only been a few hours since it expired”, which could become a metaphor for the Western attitude to waste in general.

So, what are my I believe memes, here’s a random five:

• I believe… There is no junk DNA
• I believe… Beer should be drunk strong
• I believe… Burger bars are evil
• I believe… Music was my first love
• I believe… The universe is too wonderful to have been made by a god

What are your I believe memes?