The Meme Machine 1st Edition

As a Christian, and an avid consumer of "debates" between atheists and Christians, let me tell you at the outset that I can't stand to listen to Richard Dawkins. I tried to read his "The God Delusion" in both print and audiobook, and even though I am a very tough reader, I just couldn't bear it. It is so condescending, so angry, and really such a stupid book. It should be retitled "Richard Dawkins Does Battle with Strawmen." Well, I heard Susan Blackmore in a debate with Jordan Peterson and she was really fantastic despite Peterson's MANSPLAINING to her over and over. So I found this book, downloaded it and really loved it. It's a fascinating discussion of "memes" and the growth of culture. She, like Dawkins, is an Atheist and she really made me realize how brilliant he was in his The Selfish Gene and how brilliant she is in the field of memetics. I only with that these fine minds would be a bit more self-critical and see how Atheism is just another meme, and like Christianity and other religions, it too does its share of deception as does "science" (whatever that really means). But you can take the tools she gives you and really dig into culture. I don't buy it all (I suppose that my own memes defending themselves) but this is just truly one of those life-changing books about ideas. Loved this book! Highly, highly recommended.

I was captivated when, years ago, I read Richard Dawkins's incantation of the concept of a meme. In his seminal book, The Selfish Gene, he introduced the concept of a meme late in the piece to offer a distinction between the human option to propagate one's genes, albeit only as the vessel of these genes propelled by the blind hand of natural selection, by murder, plunder, rapine and theft, and the option to propagate one's ideas across the generations, ostensibly a stronger personification of the individual that a strand of digitally coded DNA. I remember Isaac Newton's genes, now considerably diluted (two to the power of however many generations), and the success of his theories, offered as an example.

Blackmore uses the definition that a meme is a unit of imitation, a replicator. Her book is a surprisingly warm, given the abstract nature of the topic, and eclectic survey of the literature to toss around many views and arguments, with ambitious and cogent conclusions offered. While this is the review in a nutshell, I think it embodies a sufficiently important theory that I have included a closer account for any who are interested.

The chapter on universal Darwinism strengthens the definition by examining how memes and genes evolve, making the case for a theory of memetics. Blackwell then reviews the evolution of culture. In considering human behaviour, she teases apart genetic and memetic selection and commences the main thesis of the book to show that both replicators are needed to explain the evolution of culture. There has been excellent work around this work before and since, notably by EO Wilson, but Blackwell's arguments are incisive.

"Taking a meme's eye view" takes the fuzziness out of our perception of a meme. It explains classical and operant learning and shows how these are not memetic. It shows that imitation is in fact "rare and special", driving home the point that a meme or any evolutionary process is subject to three conditions: heredity, variation and selection.

Blackmore's discussion inevitably leads to fundamental challenges to the meme concept. In "Three problems with memes", she first addresses the fundamental unit of a meme. Her analogies such as the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and the whole symphony, and the codon and the gene complex in genetic coding, quickly negate this as a problem. Identification of the mechanism for copying and storing memes is relegated to being less a problem to being less a problem for which a solution may be better refined with study. The charge that memetic evolution is 'Lamarkian' is dealt with by challenging too close an analogy between memes and genes, and suggesting that the distinction between 'copying the instructions' and 'copying the product' is helpful basis to identifying memes. This rebuttal by Blackmore prompts a discussion of terminology and a presentation of the confusing views by experts on issues such as genotype and phenotype, vehicles and memeplexes. This is an example of the strength of Blackmore's analysis. Her extensive reading and deliberation prepares her to make summary judgements in these matters, in this case arguing for simplicity. Her plea that this will provide a basis for study and useful work in an emerging science is consistent with her acknowledgement that refinements and definitions may follow this study.

The advantages of imitation are framed as a selective driver for "The big brain", offering a memetic evolutionary model that remains in step with more recent thinking, as do Blackmore's arguments for imitation driving language. She considers many perspectives - some oddly subjective, such as the putative benefits to society of gossip - to argue that human language is meme-driven, and language in turn spreads memes. There is a sound purpose in making this assertion because we can then use memetic models with their fidelity, fecundity and longevity to analyse the merits of languages.

Blackmore then measures up "The limits of sociobiology" and meme theory. Her arguments are boosted by the elegance of Dennett's Tower and show the strong selective powers of imitation. "An orgasm saved my life" drives home many of the points and I am keen to find a review, even a rebuttal, of her points by, for example, E O Wilson. There is no doubt that Blackmore's easy style may encourage credulity. Her arguments for the divergence of sexual lifestyles beyond those favoured by the selfish gene ring true.

"The memetic theory of altruism" puts the pieces of the argument together well. The tit-for-tat strategy is convincing, although I feel that Blackmore could have moved beyond genetic and memetic drivers to also consider the basic philanthropic logic of charitable acts that motivates many practitioners. Nevertheless, the use of memetics to explain and, as a science, predict behaviour is convincing, none less that in considering "Memes of the new age" where Blackmore touches on areas in which she is expert such as the psychology of alien abduction, near-death experiences and fortune telling. A lot of thinking on "Religion as memeplexes" has occurred since this publication, most of it in step with Blackmore's. Similarly, the role of communication in meme replication has been justified as the internet has rolled out and become all but omnipotent in our lives.

In the final two chapters, "The ultimate memeplex" and "Out of the Meme race", Blackmore rambles around a few ambitious arguments, debating Dennett and searching for greater meaning. Whether thanks to her arguments or just the ideas she brought to the table, it is intriguing and feels right to consider the self and consciousness as evolving memeplexes.

A great overview of memes and what drives our thoughts and actions everyday. Read this book if you want to understand the biological term meme and how it is both similar and dissimilar to a gene. Excellent ideas for what motivates us in life. Some of the arguments could be questioned, but overall this book makes you think about the world critically.

There's very little here when it comes to understanding memes that's new, revolutionary, or very exciting. This author spends most of her time talking about numerous other theories of genes, consciousness, evolution, socio-biology etc. etc. to show that they're not theories of memes. If you cut all of that out of the book, drastic cutting is what this book needs, you'd have maybe only a very slim book explaining what she thinks about memes, and even that wouldn't be much of a revelation. I can't imagine writing a book like this, (You mean Oxford Univ. Press doesn't have a science editor with sense enough to reject this book?) a compendium of this and that, and an awful lot of scholarship, you wonder to what end, when what you actually learn from the book, other than a major rehashing of lots of scientists, scholars, theorists, etc. is very little except what all the references have said about this and that. I think it's an awful plan for a book but maybe that's because she really has so little to say. Also some of it is embarrassing for someone so smart to write. Especially when someone like me, who doesn't have half her credentials, and hasn't done any of the research she has, can see flaws in her reasoning and the general plan of the book all over the place. I read it seriously for a while, then started getting bored with all the rehash, then started skipping pages, then parts of chapters, then whole chapters. This is not a worthwhile book for the amount of effort she put in to it and not worth the effort to read for so little effect.

Blackmore is a serious scholar who researched consciousness-related themes and memetics. This book made me reflect about my learning processes, memory, and how the masses' behaviour and tastes influence my own.

Blackmore's "theory of memetic evolution" changed my outlook on some basic philosophical issues - namely agency and self-identity. The following quote summarizes it:

"We once thought that biological design needed a creator, but we now know that natural selection can do all the designing on its own. Similarly, we once thought that human design required a conscious designer inside us, but we now know that memetic selection can do it on its own." (source: pg. 242, "The Meme Machine" by Susan Blackmore)