Nature reviews Robert Aunger's new book, _The Electric Meme_, which I already recommended earlier this month. (Have you read it yet?) The reviewer writes:

The 'm-word' is regarded by many in polite intellectual society as belonging to that other set of four-letter words. It isn't clear whether there is a single fact of life that memes, rather than other mental constructs, have successfully explained so far. ... There are either zillions of memes, or none at all.

Aunger considers neural memes rather than abstract memes.

I agree with many of his ideas, and consider some of them to be truly novel and fascinating.

To my mind, memes are phenotypic replicators, reconstructed in other minds by conversion from pre-existing memes.

Replication at the speed of thought | Memes in _Nature_