Customer Reviews

Meme

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was surprised at the size of this book when it arrived. I had promised the author a fair review of his work, and am sorry it took so long to review. It took a second read to thoroughly review this rather large volume. However, do not let the sheer size of this book deter you. At 400 plus pages, it may seem at first a daunting task, however, with the numerous graphics, diagrams and every-day real-world examples, most will find this a most enjoyable read.

Packed with information from virtually every scientific and metaphysical viewpoint, Meme is chock full of concepts and ideas that will have the reader repeating to themselves -Yeah...that makes sense. And it does. From his everyday examples to his conclusions about the underlying fabric of the cosmos (many of which were beyond my comprehension), Mr. Sinjin places before us a virtual cornucopia of ideas about who we are as a species, where we come from, and why we are here.

Meme also forces the lazy thinker in each of us to look beyond those easy answers we have been provided by society, myth and religion. We are asked, or perhaps expected, to ponder for ourselves the very big ideas presented for us, and I believe most of us will do just that. Despite the reader's education or level of intelligence, this volume will challenge most in areas that have been largely left unanswered by post modern thinkers. I can recommend this book wholeheartedly to anyone who ever wondered if perhaps religion didn't have the final answers. The style is tight and coherent, lending itself to the lay audience, to which I believe it was written for.

I came across this title while doing an Amazon search on the word "meme". I was looking for books that addressed the concept of memes. The word was first coined by Richard Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene". A Meme, as it is usually explained, is a behavior that an organism has that can be copied to another organism through non genetic means. For example, if you were the first person in your town to have your nose pierced, and then after seeing it, others in the town start doing it, you can say that this idea is replicating itself through non-genetic means. Your kids may have the piercing, too. But not through genetic means. Traits like this are said to be copied through memetic rather than genetic routes.

So, I wanted more thoughts and examples of this by other authors. And I thought that a book called "Meme" would be just that, but I was disappointed. The first mention of the word "meme" occurs half way through the book when the author explains to us what a meme is. He gives a similiar definition as I gave above. So, in a book titled Meme, your first encounter with the meme concept occurs 200 pages into the text. This might be OK if the first 200 pages were related to memes in some other way, maybe about cultural transmission, or brain function or something. But, amazingly, the book starts out by going over the author's theory about basic particle physics.

The book starts out with particle physics, moves on the DNA theory, then cell biology, animal psychology, memes, and at long last philosophy. The book is mistitled. It should have been called "Life, the Universe, and Everything". This would have been the perfect title had Douglas Adams not already used it. This book really isn't about memes in particular, it's an attempt to describe a broad area of scientific principles, one of which happens to be memes.

How do you cover all these topics in 400 pages? You do it with a lot of little sub-chapters on everything under the sun. The sub-chapters are really short and don't go into a lot of detail about anything. The author uses lots of diagrams to explain basic concepts of things (e.g., drawings of photons moving through aether, DNA molecules, diagrams of the human brain) without references to the scientists or studies that produced these ideas. If you're going to use the word meme, shouldn't we know from where it was coined (Dawkins). If you talk about evolution, shouldn't you mention Darwin or what people believed before he came along.

For example, the book starts out by stating that all particle behavior can be explained by "aether" mechanics. Ok, so you want to bring back the belief in the existence of aether, shouldn't you mention the Michelson-Morley experiments about aether in the late 19th century. Maybe your theory is different from traditional aether theories, but if you use the word "aether", I think you need to give the historical context of the word.

If you're going to postulate a new "Unified Field Theory" (sort of what Einstein was working on) to describe all particle behavior, I think you need to show the math. It's a problem for me that there's no mathmatical proof for anything in the book. I know that the author's intention is to describe this world without math (he states the book is for the layman), but it's hard to accept a new theory on gravity without some mathematical proof, or even a comparison to other theories. At least explain why your theory is better than others.

That's the main problem with the book. It's like the author attended a bunch of college classes on physics and biology, and then went on to tell us his understanding of the world without telling us where these ideas come from. I, as a reader, need to see the references (there are none in book). I need to understand who the author is (there's no bio in the book). The author seems to be a university graduate is some field, but what? He seems to have a broad background.

Who published this book? I can't tell; it doesn't say in the book, nor does Amazon seem to know. I can applaud the fact that someone would try to write a book to explain everything using various scientific details, but I think it needs to be done with proper references. Also, it needs to address how we as humans used to think about these things. And, it shouldn't be called "Meme" if it spends so much time on atomic particle and DNA theory.

Note to the reader: If you want a books on memes, read Dawkin's "The Extended Phenotye", Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", or Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine".

If you wish to be unchallenged in your belief system, this book isn't for you. But if you tend to delve deep into life's big questions, and continually build a stronger belief system, then this amalgamation of science is worth two reads. The first third of the book deals with spatial theory that I found unnecessary to appreciate the final two-thirds, but that should not diminish the weight of some interesting theory.

Sinjin's book for me begins at Chapter 3 - Manifestation, which describes the long evolutionary process with "simple and plausible evolutionary steps that fill out the details of how we came to be." It will be obvious that he has long researched and pondered the big issues...and the small ones. I found particularly entertaining the discussions of building blocks (If RNA is the book, DNA is the library), of brain development and function, and of the powerful influences that remain part of us after leading the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for so long.

In addition to the origins of man, I also enjoyed a theory of the origin of religion. This alone is justification to read this book. Of course you have to read the book (and well into it) to learn the true meaning of that rabbit on the cover.

I could not write this without expressing my enjoyment of the enlightening discussion under such headings as Tyranny, Greed, Oppression, Ignorance, Communion, Sexuality, Manipulation, and Inner Strength. The book's extensive table of contents and index are helpful for the many issues covered.

I leave you with what I think is one of the more powerful statements of the book:

Having a macroscopic overview of what life is really all about can show you how to improve your individual life. We have only recently started becoming self-aware (that is, we are learning what we truly are), and it is very intimidating and quite humbling.

Do yourself a favor and BUY THIS BOOK! At over 400 pages it's a long read, but it has quite a few illustrations so the pages often go by quickly. It's a difficult book to summarize because it covers so much ground: what happened before the Big Bang, the origins of elementary particles (protons, neutrons, electrons), gravity & magnetism, the beginnings of life, human evolution (past, present, and future), religions, psychology, instinct, space travel, the fate of the universe, and so much more. This important book challenged many common ideas (or memes) that I've always taken for granted or assumed to be "truth" - it WILL do the same for you. So set aside your preconceived notions, get ready for a reality check, and allow yourself to explore our existence from a fresh, entertaining, optimistic, and factual perspective. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.

i found the chapters on physics with a bether universe is very interesting (why i bought the book). other than that, his history of life is not incredibly accurate, and the last couple chapters are just weird. the end of the book is basically just a big bash on religion and how to cope without a god, since i am already aetheist, and he was just getting weird, i did not read the end. however, the last words were 'i love you my friend.' like i said, weird. i would only read it for the physics

I have just finished reading this book, and it is hard to put into words some of my thoughts. I enjoyed this book very much, but I will have to read it again to grasp some of the ideas a little better. He explains all of the ideas in an easy way, but some of the ideas are amazing. I was new to the ideas of memes, and it has helped me grasp some of the ones I have been thinking of for a long time. It is hard for me to explain what is in this book, but i recommend it for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge. From beginning to the end, it is all there.

This book gives us a view that everyone shuns. The only reason Christians fear not beliving in God is because they think since God has been around for ages we shouldn't alter it. They fear non-belivers because it hasn't been around for long and that's what they fear new ideas. People create Satan so they don't have to feel bad about what mankind has done and instead of blaming themselves they'll blame the work of "Satan". People are just scared of being by themselves since were not used to being indepednt because they think "God" knows what he's doing. This book helps us dig deeper in our subconciousness. How we need to feel comforted.