The Meme Machine (Popular Science)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Habits, skills, songs, stories, ideas: humans are marvellously equipped to keep themselves and each other ceaselessly busy and it's as well, for no matter how hard we try, we humans just can't stop thinking. So, says Susan Blackmore, what if consciousness is not some esoteric genetic freebie but is itself the product of an altogether different evolutionary process?
Once humans learned to imitate each other--that is, receive, copy and retransmit "memes"--the rest, Blackmore argues, is a foregone and somewhat chilling conclusion: we are the product of our memes just as we are the products of our genes, the trouble being that memes, like genes, care only for their own propagation. The ability to imitate each other laid us open to ideas good and bad in equal measure. These proliferated in such numbers that individuals, competing to imitate the best imitators, needed bigger and bigger brains to contain the flood. Now our heads are so big, they are barely birthable.
Blackmore's brilliantly argued version of how humans became conscious--not to say downright troubled--demolishes some of the most intractable problems of human evolution and social biology, with flair. Hers is a book full of careful arguments and thrilling conjectures: riddled, in other words, with promising memes. --Simon Ings
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Anyone who hopes or fears that memetics will become a science of culture will find this surefooted exploration of the prospects a major eye-opener. (Daniel Dennett )
Any theory deserves to be given its best shot, and that is what Susan Blackmore has given the theory of the meme I am delighted to recommend her book. (Richard Dawkins )
Any theory deserves to be given its best shot, and that is what Susan Blackmore has given the theory of the meme I am delighted to recommend her book. (Richard Dawkins )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Human bodies evolved by natural selection, just as other animals. But still we are different. According to Susan Blackmore thats because we are capable of imitation. We can thereby copy ideas, habits, inventions, songs and stories. I.e. memes. And now memes are as powerful, if not more powerful, than the good old genes, in directing human evolution. I find the idea intriguing, and certainly Susan Blackmore argue well for the idea. The (evolutionary) pressure for imitation skills requires big brains. So we evolve big brains, as people mate with the ones with the most memes. Language is invented in order to spread memes. Film stars, journalists, writers, singers, politicians and artists become the most attractive, as they are the ones who spread the most memes. Things that are hard to explain in a genetic context (such as adoption, birth control, celibacy) are easy to explain in a meme context (the memes are happy with it, as it help spread more memes). Science becomes a process to distinguish true memes from false memes. Fax-machines, telephones, etc. are created (by the memes) in order to spread more memes. Writing is a battleground in the head between memes wanting to be spread etc.
It all rings true to me. Except Susan Blackmores claim that the self is a complex meme. Certainly it is puzzling that blind people are reported thinking that Their "I" is located at their fingertips, when they read Braille. Still there are other explanations to what a human "I" is than memes. Personally, I prefer Antonio Damasios, as he explain edit in the book "the feeling of what happens". Nevertheless, Susan Blackmores book is a very exciting read, with lots of clever thoughts. Or should I say memes?
-Simon
19 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Ever since Dawkins wrote his chapter on memes in The Selfish Gene, people have become captivated by the meme meme. Several people have attempted to wrap their minds around the concept, and present it in a useful and comprehensive way. While Blackmore's attempt is, I think, the best yet, it tries to do too much, and ends up collapsing under its own weight. Some of the assertions, such as the development of large brains in humans being a function of memes' imperative, while possibly correct in part, lose the force of their argument by their overstatement. Humans are thinking machines, not copying machines, and brains evolved to think. Memes ride along, for better or worse, on the waves created by the constant motion of our thoughts. Not the other way around. I believe memetics will someday prove to be a valuable tool for understanding some cultural and behavioural aspects of humans. But right now, they still more resemble Gould's "meaningless metaphor" description.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book both thought provoking and slightly disturbing. The arguments are well constructed and make perfect sense. The implications of the meme 'mind virus' are far reaching, I guess intuitively we all know this happens but now have a theory about the mechanism (like natural selection for genes) that illuminates the process. I am now wondering how this might help in my work in the area of organisational change...? I have a lot of thinking to do, perhaps create a meme or two.
Great Book.
Great Book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A very intriguing look at how ideas shape us.
Dawkins briefly introduced the term 'meme' in "The Selfish Gene" in 1976, principally to show that the process of natural selection was not dependent on a particular underlying... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jason Mills
A Call to Action (or maybe not)?
Susan Blackmore's book can be a little frustrating at times. What seems at first to be a relatively straightforward premise - that we are perhaps not as in control as we think we... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Gardenque
Dawkins' Meme Infects Blackmore
Ever since Dawkins introduced the meme, almost tangentially, in "The Selfish Gene", it had lain waiting for someone to pick it up and run with it. Read more
Published 9 months ago by RR Waller
The Evolution of Knowledge
At the start of the book Blackmore quotes Richard Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene", saying, "All life evolves from the differential survival of replicating entities. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Baraniecki Mark Stuart
Compelling and Convincing
A great read, and extremely convincing. Leave all your pre-conceptions of what makes "you" who and what you think you are, and begin. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mark Ware
yada yada yada
Reading this book confirms my suspicion that Susan Blackmore is an intellectual light weight catching a ride on the coat tails of Dawkins and Dennett. Read more
Published 16 months ago by graham_525
Very disappointing
Generally, I avoid reviewing books which I haven't read all the way through, as I want to give the authors as much benefit of doubt as possible. Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2010 by Printul Noptilor
Fantastic and I'm only a quarter of the way through!
A brilliantly written and well researched piece of literature. Since I'm currently beginning a study on the meme this book has helped me understand and come up with new methods to... Read more
Published on 16 Dec 2009 by Mr. Adam D. Grant
Very valuable ideas in parts too much speculation in others
I feel quite ambivalent about the book. In parts I was introduced or reminded of some great concepts and ideas. In other it felt like there was too much speculation. Read more
Published on 2 July 2009 by Roberto
a metaphor run mad
The whole of meme theory just needs deleting from human discourse and this book proves it. It is the ultimate example of a metaphor run mad, of fetishism in the Marxist sense. Read more
Published on 8 Jun 2009 by F. Roberts
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