The Meme Machine

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234 THE MEME MACHINE overstretched physical systems) to work for their propagation. What a clever trick. That is, I suggest, why we all live our lives as a lie, and sometimes a desperately unhappy and confused lie. The memes have made us do it – because a ‘self’ aids their replication.
CHAPTER 18 Out of the meme race Now we have a radically new idea of who we are. Each of us is a massive memeplex running on the physical machinery of a human body and brain – a meme machine. Crick was wrong. We are not ‘nothing but a pack of neurons’; we are a pack of memes too. And without understanding the pack of memes we can never understand ourselves. The sociobiologists have missed a crucial point. Their achievement is to explain much of human behaviour in terms of the past selection of genes; to apply Darwin’s great theory to psychology. But in concentrating on genes alone they miss out on the importance and power of the social world. To stick to their Darwinian framework they have to treat all of culture as part of the environment of genetic selection, and so they fail to see that it has its own evolutionary processes and its own power to effect change. Without the concept of the second replicator sociobiology must always remain impoverished. By contrast, sociologists have long realised the power of social forces. As Karl Marx (1904, p. 11) argued ‘It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.’ Social scientists study the way that people’s lives and selves are constructed by their roles, and by the texts in which they are embedded. But they have no evolutionary theory within which to understand the processes going on. For them the biological world and the social world are explained in entirely different ways and must remain divorced. Only when we see a human being as a product of both natural and memetic selection can we bring all aspects of our lives together within one theoretical framework. What I am saying about human nature is so easy to misunderstand that I want to spell it out very carefully. ‘We humans are simultaneously two kinds of thing: meme machines and selves. First, we are objectively individual creatures of flesh and blood. Our bodies and brains have been designed by natural selection acting on both genes and memes over a long period of evolution. Although each of us is unique, the genes themselves have all come from previous creatures and will, if we reproduce, go on into future creatures. In addition, because of our skill with
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The Meme Machine Susan Blackmore 19
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Foreword by Richard Dawkins As an u
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FOREWORD ix Grinning Idiot Press’
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FOREWORD xi following confident pre
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FOREWORD xiii visiting the school d
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FOREWORD xv about genetic selection
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FOREWORD xvii would see them) of in
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xx THE MEME MACHINE Adam Hart-Davis
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2 THE MEME MACHINE human supremacy
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4 THE MEME MACHINE accidentally lef
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6 THE MEME MACHINE We need a name f
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8 THE MEME MACHINE own creations, a
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CHAPTER 2 Universal Darwinism Darwi
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12 THE MEME MACHINE than can surviv
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14 THE MEME MACHINE questions - wha
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16 THE MEME MACHINE allow some meme
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18 THE MEME MACHINE evolution” wo
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20 THE MEME MACHINE Imagine two mem
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22 THE MEME MACHINE congested commu
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CHAPTER 3 The evolution of culture
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26 THE MEME MACHINE Inventions as m
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28 THE MEME MACHINE human race’ (
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30 THE MEME MACHINE Whose advantage
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32 THE MEME MACHINE He was absolute
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34 THE MEME MACHINE The Stanford ge
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36 THE MEME MACHINE largely takes t
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38 THE MEME MACHINE Written words m
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40 THE MEME MACHINE Mithen 1996; Tu
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42 THE MEME MACHINE it up. Even whe
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44 THE MEME MACHINE a tree - which
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46 THE MEME MACHINE What about emot
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48 THE MEME MACHINE learning that i
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50 THE MEME MACHINE already knew ho
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52 THE MEME MACHINE from your persp
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54 THE MEME MACHINE which is a suff
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56 THE MEME MACHINE specialised rep
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58 THE MEME MACHINE that only digit
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60 THE MEME MACHINE affect the gene
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62 THE MEME MACHINE Emily makes wil
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64 THE MEME MACHINE remembers an ac
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66 THE MEME MACHINE memes around wi
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68 THE MEME MACHINE animals, some d
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70 THE MEME MACHINE There is still
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72 THE MEME MACHINE and ability to
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74 THE MEME MACHINE An influential
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76 THE MEME MACHINE The connection
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78 THE MEME MACHINE will get less o
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80 THE MEME MACHINE tune quickly. O
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CHAPTER 7 The origins of language W
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84 THE MEME MACHINE In other words,
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86 THE MEME MACHINE imbalance is ob
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88 THE MEME MACHINE facial expressi
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90 THE MEME MACHINE Brain lateralis
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92 THE MEME MACHINE increasing the
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94 THE MEME MACHINE Universal Gramm
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96 THE MEME MACHINE Intelligence, p
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98 THE MEME MACHINE So how and why
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100 THE MEME MACHINE They are now d
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102 THE MEME MACHINE copying machin
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104 THE MEME MACHINE competition to
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106 THE MEME MACHINE of the terms t
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CHAPTER 9 The limits of sociobiolog
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110 THE MEME MACHINE thickness of a
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112 THE MEME MACHINE artificial int
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114 THE MEME MACHINE spread in nume
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116 THE MEME MACHINE approximation)
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118 THE MEME MACHINE is killed off
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120 THE MEME MACHINE and humans hav
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122 THE MEME MACHINE number of our
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124 THE MEME MACHINE kind of behavi
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126 THE MEME MACHINE effort in prod
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128 THE MEME MACHINE concealed ovul
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130 THE MEME MACHINE the best users
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CHAPTER 11 Sex in the modern world
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134 THE MEME MACHINE genes, and tho
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136 THE MEME MACHINE arguments depe
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138 THE MEME MACHINE Celibacy We ca
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140 THE MEME MACHINE concerned with
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142 THE MEME MACHINE changing and f
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144 THE MEME MACHINE politician int
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146 THE MEME MACHINE possible and,
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148 THE MEME MACHINE (1991) calls
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150 THE MEME MACHINE times in the h
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152 THE MEME MACHINE altruism. Acts
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154 THE MEME MACHINE for avoiding i
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156 THE MEME MACHINE true we should
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158 THE MEME MACHINE cultural relat
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160 THE MEME MACHINE he-best-imitat
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CHAPTER 13 The altruism trick In to
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164 THE MEME MACHINE behaviour and
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166 THE MEME MACHINE stamps. Many p
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168 THE MEME MACHINE help the anima
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170 THE MEME MACHINE persuades its
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172 THE MEME MACHINE do the task th
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174 THE MEME MACHINE now like Janet
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176 THE MEME MACHINE frightened by
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178 THE MEME MACHINE advanced techn
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180 THE MEME MACHINE 1977). Some pe
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182 THE MEME MACHINE experiences, a
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The Meme Machine

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