The Meme Machine (Popular Science)
by Susan Blackmore
List Price:
Our Price: $8.01
You Save: $11.94 (60%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.47 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Susan BlackmoreForeword: Richard Dawkins
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-05-16
ISBN: 019286212X
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of The Meme Machine (Popular Science)
Book Review: An aid to understanding thought contagion
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Summary of The Meme Machine (Popular Science)
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.
In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins proposed the concept of the meme as a unit of culture, spread by imitation. Now Dawkins himself says of Susan Blackmore:
Showing greater courage and intellectual chutzpah than I have ever aspired to, she deploys her memetic forces in a brave--do not think foolhardy until you have read it--assault on the deepest questions of all: What is a self? What am I? Where am I? ... Any theory deserves to be given its best shot, and that is what Susan Blackmore has given the theory of the meme.
Blackmore is a parapsychologist who rejects the paranormal, a skeptical investigator of near-death experiences, and a practitioner of Zen. Her explanation of the science of the meme (memetics) is rigorously Darwinian. Because she is a careful thinker (though by no means dull or conventional), the reader ends up with a good idea of what memetics explains well and what it doesn't, and with many ideas about how it can be tested--the very hallmark of an excellent science book. Blackmore's discussion of the "memeplexes" of religion and of the self are sure to be controversial, but she is (as Dawkins says) enormously honest and brave to make a connection between scientific ideas and how one should live one's life. --Mary Ellen Curtin
Psychology & Counseling Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Psychology & Counseling Books
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Valuesby Robert M. Pirsig
Harper Perennial; Published: 2000-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.25
Price in other shops:
Surviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Consumers, and Providers (4th Edition)by E. Fuller Torrey
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2001-05-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Surviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Consumers and Providersby E. Fuller Torrey
Perennial; Published: 1995-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.68
Price in other shops:
The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millenniumby Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Harper Perennial; Published: 1994-06-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.70
Price in other shops:
How People Changeby Allen Wheelis
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 1975-07-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.48
Price in other shops:
Sleeping Through the Night, Revised Edition: How Infants, Toddlers, and Their Parents Can Get a Good Night's Sleepby Jodi A. Mindell
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2005-03-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.39
Price in other shops:
Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate Youby Susan Forward, Donna Frazier, Susan Frazier
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops:
Obedience to Authority: An Experimental Viewby Stanley Milgram
Harpercollins; Published: 1974-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $532.97
My Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderersby Helen Morrison, Harold Goldberg
William Morrow; Published: 2004-05-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.97
Price in other shops:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Stressby Jeffrey P.; Davidson, Jeff Davidson
Macmillan Distribution; Published: 1996; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.33
Similar Books and other products
On SignsThe Johns Hopkins University Press; Published: 1985-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.72
Price in other shops:
Thought Contagionby Aaron Lynch
Basic Books; Published: 1998-11-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.76
Price in other shops:
The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science)by Richard Dawkins
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1999-08-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.22
Price in other shops:
The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Thinkby Robert Aunger
Free Press; Published: 2002-07-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.35
Price in other shops:
Consciousness Explainedby Daniel C. Dennett
Back Bay Books; Published: 1992-10-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.29
Price in other shops:
The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Thinkby Robert Aunger
Free Press; Published: 2010-07-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.87
Price in other shops:
The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessmentby Kate Distin
Cambridge University Press; Published: 2004-12-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.99
Price in other shops:
DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA: EVOLUTION AND THE MEANINGS OF LIFEby Daniel C. Dennett
Simon & Schuster; Published: 1996-06-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.45
Price in other shops:
The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Authorby Richard Dawkins
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2006-05-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.21
Price in other shops:
Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Memeby Richard Brodie
Hay House; Published: 2011-02-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.32
Price in other shops: