Frozen Evolution. Or, that’s not the way it is, Mr. Darwin. A Farewell to Selfish Gene.

There is a fundamental dividing line between a replicator and an interactor for traits transmitted genetically.These dividing lines also exist to a certain degree for memes, to be more exact for traits transmitted by learning.The fact that learning frequently occurs, not through copying the behavior of the imitated individual, but rather as transmission of information on the usefulness of certain behavior (“tasty cream is available for tits under the caps of milk bottles”), the information can be transmitted in unaltered form even if the imitated individual substantially changed its behavior during its lifetime for some reason (for example, if it learns to always do a backwards summersault before pecking through the milk-bottle cap). As there is no analogy to the Weissmann barrier here, there is also no fundamental obstacle to feedback of information from the phenotype to the genotype or from the trait to the meme.For example, if a good backwards summersault causes a housewife to offer the skilled bird artist another bottle of milk, this meme could be transmitted to other individuals in a new, usefully modified form.

The difference between replicators and interactors substantially increased with the emergence of symbolic speech and especially writing.It could even be stated that the indicator and replicator begin to exist separately to a substantial degree.A great many memes circulate in human society and are successfully copied, for example in the form of cooking recipes.Simultaneously, a recipe for the preparation of a meal is mostly not a successful meme, i.e. is not primarily copied because people would like to read it or would like to copy it, but because the food prepared according to it, i.e. the interactor, seems tastier than food prepared according to some other recipe, i.e. replicator.On the other hand, a well-written and well put-together cook book can be published repeatedly even if the meals prepared according to the recipes it contains are not especially tasty.