Ontology, Epistemology and Axiology-Memetics and Cultural Evolution

Memetics, a disciplinary study concerned with cultural transmission and its evolutionary processes from the perspective of natural science, has been criticized for conceptual confusion, vague statements and lack of empirical research, etc.Based on reflections of ontology, epistemology and axiology,this paper probes into the concept of meme, the driving force, condition, form and result of transmission, as well as its explanatory power for cultural motivation, cultural transmission and cultural stereotype, arguing that meme, as a genetic code of cultural evolution, exists in the human brain, and its essence is a kind of powerful and socially expansionary cognitive schema.Driven by the "egoism" of human beings, meme transmission is a choice-making process of human subjectivity, which, to a great extent, is decided by the compatibility between meme, its host and the environment.Although variation occurs in meme transmission, similarity mostly outweighs variation.Some successful memes eventually evolve into social representation and norm, and consequently cultural stereotype is essentially the necessary tendency of meme evolution, which has great implications for the implementation of Chinese culture "going global"strategy in present-day China.