The Meme Machine

OUT OF THE MEME RACE 239
proponents of memetics sometimes make the same distinction, saying for
example that ‘much cultural and social variation is consciously guided in a way
that genetic variation is not’ (Runciman 1998, p. 177). My colleague Nick Rose
(1998) accuses these theorists of ‘self-centred selectionism’, a mistake
equivalent to the idea of directed evolution in biology. The whole point about
evolutionary theory is that you do not need anyone to direct it, least of all
consciously. When human beings act, our actions have effects on memetic
selection, but this is not because we were conscious. Indeed, the most mindless
and least conscious of our actions can be imitated just as easily as our most
conscious ones. Cultural and social variation is guided by the replicators and
their environment, not by something separate from them all called
consciousness.
Creativity
Tamarisk has written a science book. This suggests that she consciously
authored the book, but there is another way of looking at it. Tamarisk is a gifted
writer because the genes have created a brain that handles language well, and a
determined individual who likes solitary work; because she was born into a
society that values books and pays for them; because her education gave her the
opportunity to discover how good she was at science; and because she has spent
years studying and thinking until new ideas came out of the combinations of the
old. When the book was completed it formed a new complex of memes:
variations on old ones and new combinations created by the complicated
processes inside a clever thinking brain. When asked, Tamarisk might say that
she consciously and deliberately invented every word herself (though she is
quite likely to say that she has no idea how she did it). 1 would say that the
book was a combined product of the genes and memes playing out their
competition in Tamarisk’s life.
This view of creativity is alien to many people. In discussions of
consciousness it is common to raise the issue of creativity, as though it somehow
epitomises the power of human consciousness. How could we create great
music, inspiring cathedrals, moving poems, or stunning paintings unless we have
consciousness? – people ask. This view of creativity betrays a commitment to a
false theory of self and consciousness, or to Dennett’s Cartesian Theatre (p.
225.). If you believe that you live inside your head and direct operations, then
creative acts can seem especially good examples of things that ‘you’ have done.