The Meme MachineWhat 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. |
Contents
1 Strange creatures | 1 |
2 Universal Darwinism | 10 |
3 The evolution of culture | 24 |
4 Taking the memes eye view | 37 |
5 Three problems with memes | 53 |
6 The big brain | 67 |
7 The origins of language | 82 |
8 Memegene coevolution | 93 |
12 A memetic theory of altruism | 147 |
13 The altruism trick | 162 |
14 Memes of the New Age | 175 |
15 Religions as memeplexes | 187 |
16 Into the Internet | 204 |
17 The ultimate memeplex | 219 |
18 Out of the meme race | 235 |
247 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
altruism trick analogy animals answer argue Baldwin effect believe benefit better big brain coevolution complex consciousness copied created creatures cultural evolution Darwin Darwinian Dawkins Dennett effect environment evolutionary psychology evolved example experience explain fecundity fidelity high fidelity hominids horizontal transmission human brain idea imagine increase inside instructions invention kind language learning live longevity look mate Matt Ridley meme pool meme's memeplexes memes and genes memetic driving memetic engineering memetic evolution memetic selection mind modern natural selection neurons obvious passed person phenotype predictions primeval soup produce psychologist question reciprocal altruism religions second replicator selection pressure selfish Selfish Gene selfplex sense simple sleep paralysis social society sociobiology someone sounds species spreading memes story successful memes suggest survival Susan Blackmore talk theory things understand women words