It is time to explore in more detail the relation between memes and the mind. In the case of genes and the body, the relationship is one between a survival machine and the replicators that are its formative constituents. This is a reciprocal relationship, in which the body is built (and in some ways acts) in accordance with a genetic blueprint, and the genes are selected via their phenotypic effects, which in combination produce an individual organism. To what extent is the relationship between memes and the mind an analogous one? Are memes self-replicators, or are they more like passive pieces of information, wholly dependent on human minds for their activation – much as genes depend on the cellular apparatus to make copies of themselves?

The nature of the memes-mind relationship has been a recurring issue throughout the discussions so far. The Dennett-Blackmore hypothesis is that there is in reality no distinction between the two. An alternative view is that a significant part of our mental architecture is determined by our genotype, with cultural input making only a superficial impact on our mental capacities. My own thesis has been that our innate (i.e., endowed by our genes) mental potential is developed by interacting with our environment – a crucial element of which is memetic. This is not to deny the novelty and autonomy of cultural evolution as a genuinely different process from Darwinian selection in the natural world; it is simply to acknowledge that the mind's evolution is ultimately dependent on its genetic roots.