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The Meme Machine

Oxford University Press, USA

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A thought-provoking look at social evolution

With the Meme Machine, Susan Blackmore has elaborated on the fascinating idea of the meme started by Richard Dawkins. This combined with the theory of culural and biological co-evolution between memes and genes opens up a new way of thinking about the world we live in.

This book details meme-centric explanations for everything from religion to alien abudctions. If it does not convince the reader of the existence of the 'second replicator', the meme, working together with the gene, it will at least sufficiently explain Blackmore's view. At times, it was impossible for me to put the book down.

Highly readible and informative

If you're exploring an understanding of Memes, what they actually are with regard to idea communication and culture, I would start here - most readible and grounded explanation written...and the development of the Self-plex helps carry the conversation to its next level.

An Enlightening Book

It should be brought to attention that "The Meme Machine" was one of the earliest works espousing Dr. Dawkins' original theory. Mr. Anastasoff and other critics should bare this in mind. At that point in time, I'd conjecture that Prof. Blackmore's purpose was to EXPLAIN memetic concepts and terms, rather than prove them. She did a wonderful job.

Many scientific concepts lie outside the realm of the scientific method. So what? Does that mean we can't speculate or theorize as to their existence? According to the limitations posed by these critics, there would be no books about religion, psychoanalysis, string theory, or even ideas. How does one define "idea," and more difficult yet, how does one set up experiments to prove ideas exist? These are the restrictions that the critics require and I believe stifle inquiry and the furtherance of knowledge.

I especially enjoyed her supposition that meme complexes shaped human history for the furtherance of their individual agendas. In the 1440s, Johannes Gutenberg invented a machine, not to further human learning in science, literature or art; he was driven by a very strong Bible meme. His aim was to get more Bibles replicated; all human history changed because of it. I see a church or synagogue on practically every few blocks in the country. I see parochial schools, yeshivas and madrassahs all over the world--institutions with one basic purpose: the proselytism of vulnerable youth and the propagation of the selfish memplex. I see symbols and badges of the memplexes everywhere--from crosses around people's necks, to skullcaps, to compasses that point perpetually to Mecca.

What force or motivation can drive a person to enter a hovel on a mountaintop to pass away his life in seclusion with nothing more to occupy his mind and time than a Bible and a prayer stool? The more history I study, the more I'm convinced that memetics is an important science. How would the critics on this board explain the spate of suicide bombings in recent years and throughout history? Strange phenomena indeed. To my mind, it is because some memplexes are endotoxic. They care no more for the host than a tapeworm--only their own replication.

For those who love selfish gene theory and memetics as I do, "Mirror Reversal" is a thriller/suspense novel devoted to the subject. It's a way to learn about memetics and have a lot of fun. But look out, "Mirror Reversal" is also a meta-meme, a meme about memetics. You might get hooked.

Mirror Reversal

From the Oxford University Press Editor

The following elucidation of her text, copied from the back cover- does much to reveal the content of Dr. Blackmore's insightful and often controversial insights into the perspective of life from the view of memes. What it fails to portray are Dr. Blackmore's total reversal of every aspect of human life, viewed not from the everyday perspective, but from that of the self-replicating selfish "mental" gene, the Meme.

Humans are extraordinary creatures, with the uniques ability to imitate, and so to copy from one another ideas, habitats, skills, behaviours, inventions, songs, and stories. These are all memes, a term first coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene." Memes, like genes, are replicators, competing to find space in our minds and cultures, and this enthralling book investigates the consequences. Confronting the deepest questions, from why humans have such a big brains and language, to altruism, sex and the Internet. Susan Blackmore makes a compelling case for the theory that even our inner conscious self and our sense of free will are illusions created by the memes for the sake of their own replication.

Copied from the text by: Bryan McGilly

clear and interesting, but...

I just finished the book and think it is a clear and interesting introduction on the subject. On the other hand I felt it was rushing into too many generalizations and the arguments on science vs. religion sounded quite empty.