An aid to understanding thought contagion

books:


	• The Meme Machine Susan Blackmore Oxford University Press, USA, 2000 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 87 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

clear and interesting, but...

I just finished the book and think it is a clear and interesting introduction on the subject. On the other hand I felt it was rushing into too many generalizations and the arguments on science vs. religion sounded quite empty.

An Enlightening Book

It should be brought to attention that "The Meme Machine" was one of the earliest works espousing Dr. Dawkins' original theory. Mr. Anastasoff and other critics should bare this in mind. At that point in time, I'd conjecture that Prof. Blackmore's purpose was to EXPLAIN memetic concepts and terms, rather than prove them. She did a wonderful job.

Many scientific concepts lie outside the realm of the scientific method. So what? Does that mean we can't speculate or theorize as to their existence? According to the limitations posed by these critics, there would be no books about religion, psychoanalysis, string theory, or even ideas. How does one define "idea," and more difficult yet, how does one set up experiments to prove ideas exist? These are the restrictions that the critics require and I believe stifle inquiry and the furtherance of knowledge.

I especially enjoyed her supposition that meme complexes shaped human history for the furtherance of their individual agendas. In the 1440s, Johannes Gutenberg invented a machine, not to further human learning in science, literature or art; he was driven by a very strong Bible meme. His aim was to get more Bibles replicated; all human history changed because of it. I see a church or synagogue on practically every few blocks in the country. I see parochial schools, yeshivas and madrassahs all over the world--institutions with one basic purpose: the proselytism of vulnerable youth and the propagation of the selfish memplex. I see symbols and badges of the memplexes everywhere--from crosses around people's necks, to skullcaps, to compasses that point perpetually to Mecca.

What force or motivation can drive a person to enter a hovel on a mountaintop to pass away his life in seclusion with nothing more to occupy his mind and time than a Bible and a prayer stool? The more history I study, the more I'm convinced that memetics is an important science. How would the critics on this board explain the spate of suicide bombings in recent years and throughout history? Strange phenomena indeed. To my mind, it is because some memplexes are endotoxic. They care no more for the host than a tapeworm--only their own replication.

For those who love selfish gene theory and memetics as I do, "Mirror Reversal" is a thriller/suspense novel devoted to the subject. It's a way to learn about memetics and have a lot of fun. But look out, "Mirror Reversal" is also a meta-meme, a meme about memetics. You might get hooked.

Mirror Reversal

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From the Oxford University Press Editor

The following elucidation of her text, copied from the back cover- does much to reveal the content of Dr. Blackmore's insightful and often controversial insights into the perspective of life from the view of memes. What it fails to portray are Dr. Blackmore's total reversal of every aspect of human life, viewed not from the everyday perspective, but from that of the self-replicating selfish "mental" gene, the Meme.

Humans are extraordinary creatures, with the uniques ability to imitate, and so to copy from one another ideas, habitats, skills, behaviours, inventions, songs, and stories. These are all memes, a term first coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene." Memes, like genes, are replicators, competing to find space in our minds and cultures, and this enthralling book investigates the consequences. Confronting the deepest questions, from why humans have such a big brains and language, to altruism, sex and the Internet. Susan Blackmore makes a compelling case for the theory that even our inner conscious self and our sense of free will are illusions created by the memes for the sake of their own replication.

Copied from the text by: Bryan McGilly

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Highly readible and informative

If you're exploring an understanding of Memes, what they actually are with regard to idea communication and culture, I would start here - most readible and grounded explanation written...and the development of the Self-plex helps carry the conversation to its next level.

An aid to understanding thought contagion

Blakemore's book endeavors towards two goals:

1) A recapping of the origins of meme theory...which she does exceedingly well and

2) Humble suggestions on the place of memes in consciousness...where she seems to stumble.

In relation to her first goal, Blakemore admirably retraces the work of the likes of Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennett. For his part, Dawkins coined the term "meme" in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene" wherein he described meme as a process or idea subject to replication. The song "Happy Birthday" for example would be a meme. Dennett built on Dawkins work by saying in his 1991 book "Consciousness Explained" that consciousness is a combination of in built human cognitive systems (like our innate understanding of physics or our ability to acquire language) along with memes.

Blakemore also recapped Dennett's later book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" for his tower of states of consciousness, viz. a first level occupied by Darwinian creatures who have to produce a new generation in order to acquire new abilities, a second and higher level occupied by Skinnerian creatures that can acquire new abilities inter vivos but only through operant conditioning, a third and still higher level occupied by Popperian creatures -- for Karl Popper -- capable of abstract reasoning to acquire new abilities and a final highest level occupied by Gregorian creatures that can pick up additional abilities by means of culture or memes.

Building on these earlier thinkers Blakemore asserts that meme theory in and of itself can explain everything from temporary fads like the tulip craze bemoaned by Charles Mackey in his 1841 book on the Madness of Crowds to religion itself.

The mechanism by which Blakemore posits the transmission of memes is one of virture wherein superiorly altruistic memes will oust those previously occupied by more selfish memes. Her thinking is that the vehicles of meme transmission, us, will be more favorably disposed to ideas disseminated by people who have been nice to us than by those who haven't.

To the extent Blakemore ventures out on her own, I would part company with her.

Understanding any aspect, let alone persuasion of others, of human behavior is tricky business. And while Blakemore would posit a subtle arithematic to human behavior the truth probably lies closer to a delicate calculus.

As she herself indicated in her book, understanding consciousness is probably best begun with an understanding of first principles, namely that that subset of evolution relating to human behavior is but a special case for the general rules bearing on behvaioral evolution generally.

In other words, human consciousness is not different in kind but rather merely in degree from animal consciousness generally.

As shown by evolution, animals with motility will have to have both the ability to differentiate between themselves and their environment as well as discriminate the ingredients of their environment between potential areas of sustance and potential areas of threat. And so, the seemingly nettlesome questions of consciousness kind of answer themselves.

A sense of "I" exists because it evolutionary has to and the likes and dislikes of "I" (the so called "qualia" question) really amount to a running tally of emotionally encoded learned experiences.

To be sure, that sense of "I" is different for a person than a pidgeon but again, the differences of degree (albeit, in some cases a great degree, rather than kind).

So, to take religion as an example:

1) From pidgeons to humans, it's an aspect of cognitive perception to allow for false connections or superstitions to arise. And so, the difference between a pidgeon dancing around a machine to obtain randomly produced pellets is not that different from a person performing an elablorate ritual prior to gambling.

2) In the case of humans, theory of mind works powerfully to over ascribe personality. And so, the gambler makes his petitions not to chance but to Lady Luck personified.

3) Because, as noted by Dennett, we have in built cognitive systems, those systems can be decieved from time to time in remembering certain types of knowledge in preference to others. And so, while most English verbs use "ed" as past tense, the special case, commonly used verbs have irregular endings to promote their specialized recognition and recall. In the same way, we remember novel creatures over others. And so, Lady Luck is just like any woman but if pleased can grant you unlimited fortune.

4) Humans also respect strategic knowledge. From evolution in an environment where an extended knowledge of strategic relationships was helpful, we are capable of understanding metarepresentational interactions up to the sixth level. What I think that you may know about what someone else believes that somone else said is not a meaningless sentence. This quality fires our mythologies just as certainly as our soap operas. If we could experience an alligator religion or soap opera, I think we'd be bored.

5) Again, as noted by Blakemore, game theory gives us a sense of the outer contours of religious belief. In this regard, the recent Jeffrey Moses book "Oneness" which is a verbatim repetition of religious principles from around the world shows that the similarities in the main statements of religions around the world (e.g. all of them have a "golden rule," advice to respect elders, educate children and the like) shows that all human religions have made basically the same types of prescriptions and prohibitions.

6) And powerfully, finally a sense of group membership. Are you or are you not one of us?

As can be seen, though the exchange of ideas operates in each of the six domains (and there are certainly others in some cases) the interplay of those ideas varies in individual cases. In this way, while why humans religiously ideate is certainly a question of history and society it's also a question of individual psychology.

Like choas theory operates to produce no two snowflakes that look alike so again no two personal histories are the same respecting their religious ideation.

In other words, while Blakemore's provides some helpful aid in understanding memes and their place in thought contagion, the ultimate answer is certainly much more complicated than her impressions would suggest not only on religious ideation but as to the other examples of meme transmission she discussed.

Before closing, it's noteworth that there's a definate Daoist feel to her last chapter wherein she renders her advice for taking the "I" out of your consciousness. Though she didn't intend it, it certainly does provide some interesting food for thought as to why attempts at Daoist living have such a...well...Daoist feel to them.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

What is a meme? First coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, a meme is any idea, behavior, or skill that can be transferred from one person to another by imitation: stories, fashions, inventions, recipes, songs, ways of plowing a field or throwing a baseball or making a sculpture. The meme is also one of the most important--and controversial--concepts to emerge since The Origin of the Species appeared nearly 150 years ago.
In The Meme Machine Susan Blackmore boldly asserts: "Just as the design of our bodies can be understood only in terms of natural selection, so the design of our minds can be understood only in terms of memetic selection." Indeed, Blackmore shows that once our distant ancestors acquired the crucial ability to imitate, a second kind of natural selection began, a survival of the fittest amongst competing ideas and behaviors. Ideas and behaviors that proved most adaptive--making tools, for example, or using language--survived and flourished, replicating themselves in as many minds as possible. These memes then passed themselves on from generation to generation by helping to ensure that the genes of those who acquired them also survived and reproduced. Applying this theory to many aspects of human life, Blackmore offers brilliant explanations for why we live in cities, why we talk so much, why we can't stop thinking, why we behave altruistically, how we choose our mates, and much more.
With controversial implications for our religious beliefs, our free will, our very sense of "self," The Meme Machine offers a provocative theory everyone will soon be talking about.

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