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We humans are strange creatures. Our bodies evolved by natural
selection, just as other animals' did, yet we differ from all the other creatures
in very many ways. We use language to communicate. We wage wars, believe in religions,
bury our dead and get embarrassed about sex. We watch television, drive cars and
eat ice cream. Why are we so different? Uniquely among animals, humans are capable
of imitation and so can copy from one another ideas, habits, skills, behaviours,
inventions, songs and stories. These are all memes, a term first coined by Richard
Dawkins in 1976 at the end of his book, The Selfish Gene. Like genes, memes
are replicators, competing to get into as many brains as possible, and this memetic
competition has fashioned our minds and culture, just as natural selection has
designed our bodies. We are what the memes have made us: we are all of us meme
machines. Can the analogy between memes and genes do
useful work? Can it lead us to powerful new theories that actually explain anything
important? These are questions posed by Richard Dawkins in his Foreword and this,
he continues, is where Susan Blackmore really comes into her own. "She warms
us up with some fascinating vignettes which get us used to the memetic style of
reasoning. Why do we talk so much? Why can't we stop thinking? Why do silly tunes
buzz around our heads, and torment us into insomnia? In every case she begins
her response in the same way: "Imagine a world full of brains, and far more
memes than can possibly find homes. Which memes are more likely to find a safe
home and get passed on again?" The answer comes back readily enough, and
our understanding of ourselves is enriched. She pushes on, with patience and skill
applying the same method to deeper and more exacting problems: What is language
for? What attracts us to our mates? Why are we so good to each other? Did memes
drive the rapid, massive, and peculiar evolutionary expansion of the human brain?'
This extraordinary and engrossing book ends by confronting the
deepest questions of all about ourselves: the nature of the inner self, the part
of us that is the centre of our consciousness, that feels emotions, has memories,
hold beliefs and makes decisions. Susan Blackmore makes a compelling case that
this inner self, the "inner me," is an illusion, a creation of the memes
for the sake of their own replication. Susan Blackmore
is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of the West of England, Bristol,
where she lectures on the psychology of consciousness. Dr. Blackmore's research
interests include near-death experiences, the effects of meditation, why people
believe in the paranormal, evolutionary psychology, and the theory of memetics.
She is the current Perrott-Warrick Researcher, studying psychic phenomena in borderline
states of consciousness, and has received the Distinguished Skeptic's Award from
CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.
Susan Blackmore writes for several magazines, has an occasional column in the
Independent newspaper, and is a frequent contributor and presenter on radio
and television. |
