Author
|
Topic: The Meme Machine (Read 1166 times) |
|
fishsuit
Initiate
Gender: 
Posts: 35
Reputation: 5.27
Rate fishsuit
Bananaramapajamas
 
|
 |
The Meme Machine
« on: 2005-04-17 12:46:40 » |
 |
This is Susan Blackmore's contribution to memetics.
I found this to be the most important book on memetics, more informative than Aunger's Electric Meme, and better even than the Selfish Gene, maybe this is because it is anthropocentric, and i have a weakness for humanity. Anyway it is a fascinating book and i'd love to see a lively discussion
Suggestions for discussion
The Selfplex, a proper response to the idea:
The brain's enlargement, and imitation's role:
|
|
|
|
|
David Lucifer
Archon
Posts: 2642
Reputation: 8.77
Rate David Lucifer
Enlighten me.
|
|
Re:The Meme Machine
« Reply #1 on: 2005-04-17 14:13:22 » |
|
It has been quite a while since I read it but I would look forward to a discussion. Did you notice that Dawkins mentions the CoV in the forward? 
I remember thinking it was quite good, but it didn't "blow my socks off" as you mention in another thread. I guess I wasn't entirely convinced that memetics provides a scientific foundation for Blackmore's buddhist beliefs, it just seemed a little too convenient. I'm still quite willing to be convinced though.
|
|
|
|
|
fishsuit
Initiate
Gender:
Posts: 35
Reputation: 5.27
Rate fishsuit
Bananaramapajamas
|
|
Re:The Meme Machine
« Reply #2 on: 2005-04-18 12:15:12 » |
|
My goal is not to convince you of anything, but i'd
be interested in exploring the topic.
Blackmore has written a profound book which only incidentally gets at buddhism. She does so in two ways, they are key to my interpretation of the book so i'll go over them.
1. The selfplex is a meme and therefore a lot of what
we think we are has had little to do with this body's
experience, or pretty much anything that i had
imagined my self to be based on. Beyond the concept
of our selves being hijacked by renegade memes
Blackmore confronts us with the idea that our very
selves are memes. Doesn't that give you pause?
2. Meme weeding as a method of transcendance. Now i
don't believe in the buddha, or transcendance so i'll
just put Blackmore's view (as i see it) here. Weeding
your memes is a form of meditation where you achieve nirvana by existing without memes (maybe with all memes at once? (or some such garbage)). Meme weeding is a good behavior, but it is not a ticket to knowing god or achieving oneness (god after all is a nonentity, and oneness isn't realistic).
What struck me as so devastating about the book is the combination of these two concepts. Try this for a day: going without the selfplex entirely. You'll find it impractical. The word I shows up in almost every conversation. And if you accept that memes can replicate internally the concept pops up just as often. This post is an example. I could not have written this sentence without the selfplex. So, why weed every last meme? Some are helpful additions to our genes, why not get along with them? The reason i want to is that after reading this book and thinking about it I have no clear picture of what I am, and with thought contagions plagueing my every step I am at a loss at how to begin carving an identity that wouldn't be memetic. When I read Conscioussness Explained (another Blackmore book) I may reencounter these thoughts. It is disconcerting, no identity shattering, to come to terms with memes dominance over our minds.
|
|
|
|
|
fishsuit
Initiate
Gender:
Posts: 35
Reputation: 5.27
Rate fishsuit
Bananaramapajamas
|
|
Re:The Meme Machine
« Reply #3 on: 2005-04-18 12:15:50 » |
|
Is Dawkin's mention of CoV why he is no longer a saint on the homepage?
|
|
|
|
|
David Lucifer
Archon
Posts: 2642
Reputation: 8.77
Rate David Lucifer
Enlighten me.
|
|
Re:The Meme Machine
« Reply #4 on: 2005-04-18 18:38:31 » |
|
Quote from: fishsuit on 2005-04-18 12:15:50
Is Dawkin's mention of CoV why he is no longer a saint on the homepage?
|
I don't think he was ever a saint on the homepage (or elsewhere). We've had St. Charles (Darwin) since the beginning and just recently illuminated our second saint, Hypatia.
|
|
|
|
|
David Lucifer
Archon
Posts: 2642
Reputation: 8.77
Rate David Lucifer
Enlighten me.
|
|
Re:The Meme Machine
« Reply #5 on: 2005-04-18 18:54:06 » |
|
Quote from: fishsuit on 2005-04-18 12:15:12
1. The selfplex is a meme and therefore a lot of what
we think we are has had little to do with this body's
experience, or pretty much anything that i had
imagined my self to be based on. Beyond the concept
of our selves being hijacked by renegade memes
Blackmore confronts us with the idea that our very
selves are memes. Doesn't that give you pause?
|
I think we'll need to figure out what that means first. Is it claimed that the self is composed of memes? Or that the entire self is itself a single meme? Additionally in this context is a meme any mental program (behaviour generator) or just the subset we acquire through imitation?
|
|
|
|
|
fishsuit
Initiate
Gender:
Posts: 35
Reputation: 5.27
Rate fishsuit
Bananaramapajamas
|
|
Re:The Meme Machine
« Reply #6 on: 2005-04-18 19:19:23 » |
|
I don't know. I don't even know if those are the right questions.
Let's suppose that the word "I" is a meme. Or the concept behind it. It is a very successful one! It can hijack any emotion, impulse, appearance, thought, anything really that you've ever had or been. Just tack itself on there. Does this mean that there isn't a real physical body that common sense would dictate is "you" out there? Of course not. But what gets to me is that as Blackmore says "you're just a pack of memes" which itself is a small meme change from Crick's "you're just a pack of neurons". I think I'm just coming to terms with the fact that not only don't i control the external aspects of my life entirely, additionally i don't control what happens in my own head! This book made it harder to do so, that's why it is so powerful.
To illustrate i'll try to answer one of your questions
Quote:| Additionally in this context is a meme any mental program (behaviour generator) or just the subset we acquire through imitation? |
A meme is the subset of behavior we acquire through cultural interaction and imitation. The rest is controlled by your genes! That's all there is.
That i think is her devastating thought.
|
|
|
|
|
fishsuit
Initiate
Gender:
Posts: 35
Reputation: 5.27
Rate fishsuit
Bananaramapajamas
|
|
Re:The Meme Machine
« Reply #7 on: 2005-04-18 20:09:22 » |
|
Quote:| Is it claimed that the self is composed of memes? Or that the entire self is itself a single meme? |
What Blackmore claims is that experiences sensations and feelings are not memes. They are biproducts of genetic evolution.
Blackmore does not call these the self. She talks about the common conception of the self and then she makes a claim for that self not existing. She ends the book with:
Quote:| Memetics thus brings us to a new vision of how we might live our lives. We can carry on our lives as most people do, under the illusion that there is a persistent conscious self inside who is in charge, who is responsible for my actions and who makes me me. Or we can live as human beings, body, brain, and memes, living out our lives as a complex interplay of replicators and environment, in the knowledge that that is all there is. Then we are no longer victims of the selfish selfplex. In this sense we can be truly free - not because we can rebel against the tyrranny of the selfish replicators but because we know that there is no one to rebel. |
So that's her position on the matter. That the self is a selfplex, a collection of memes, and that we don't exist in the sense that we think we do. She's thrown a wrench in my mental machinery with this bit of seemingly rational discourse. I am constantly thinking that there is no "I" or reacting to thoughts i don't want with a strengthening of my selfplex in the hopes that it will rule my brain in some sensible fassion. A trivial product of Blackmore's position is that people change as they grow older. This is of course true, and it does challenge the self, but most people are willing to use short hand, refering to their childhood selves as "I". The less trivial sentencing i conceive her as having given is that the most we can hope for is a part in the evolution of one meme or another, and that we are only hoping for this due to a drive in us akin to memetic programming. I'm not being apathetic here, i am really straining to keep what i conceive of as my originality and vision in view here. I've always been a creative iconoclast, and i hate to understand that as being a memetic trick for faster horizontal transfer, and not a special bright quality that i have and bestow upon myself. Take your most prized and proud moment and apply memetic theory to it. What part is still yours, and hasn't been eaten by meme and tradition?
|
|
|
|
|
David Lucifer
Archon
Posts: 2642
Reputation: 8.77
Rate David Lucifer
Enlighten me.
|
|
Re:The Meme Machine
« Reply #8 on: 2005-04-19 01:23:13 » |
|
Quote from: fishsuit on 2005-04-18 19:19:23
A meme is the subset of behavior we acquire through cultural interaction and imitation. The rest is controlled by your genes! That's all there is.
That i think is her devastating thought.
|
Genes don't control thoughts. Genes build brains (rather indirectly) which enable us to have thoughts (or hosts memes depending on your perspective). We also host a vast number of behaviours that we didn't acquire from others and therefore can't be classified as memes.
I don't find it devastasting in any case. Is it devastating that our thoughts are generated by neurons at some level, or by molecules at a lower level? Is it devastating that we evolved from simpler organisms? I suppose some people might find it terrible, but I'm not one of them.
|
|
|
|
|
fishsuit
Initiate
Gender:
Posts: 35
Reputation: 5.27
Rate fishsuit
Bananaramapajamas
|
|
Re:The Meme Machine
« Reply #9 on: 2005-04-21 09:59:32 » |
|
Is it devastating that our thoughts are generated by neurons at some level, or by molecules at a lower level? Is it devastating that we evolved from simpler organisms?
-When you look at it this way it isn't as big a deal. I don't know what held me up on the thought. Thanks
|
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
