The Meme Machine

242 THE MEME MACHINE
choices made will all be a product of my genetic and memetic history in a given
environment, not of some separate self that can ‘have’ a life purpose and
overrule the memes that make it up.
This is the power and beauty of memetics: it allows us to see how human
lives, language, and creativity all come about through the same kind of replicator
power as did design in the biological world. The replicators are different, but
the process is the same. We once thought that biological design needed a
creator, but we now know that natural selection can do all the designing on its
own. Similarly, we once thought that human design required a conscious
designer inside us, but we now know that memetic selection can do it on its own.
We once thought that design required foresight and a plan, but we now know
that natural selection can build creatures that look as though they were built to
plan when in fact there was none. If we take memetics seriously there is no
room for anyone or anything to jump into the evolutionary process and stop it,
direct it, or do anything to it. There is just the evolutionary process of genes and
memes playing itself endlessly out – and no one watching.
What then am I to do? I feel as though I have to make a choice – to decide
how to live my life in the light of my scientific understanding. But how do I do
that if I am nothing but a temporary conglomeration of genes, phenotype,
memes, and memeplexes. If there is no choice, how am I to choose?
Some scientists prefer to keep their scientific ideas and their ordinary lives
separate. Some can be biologists all week and go to church on Sunday, or be
physicists all their life and believe they will go to heaven. But I cannot divorce
my science from the way I live my life. If my understanding of human nature is
that there is no conscious self inside then I must live that way – otherwise this is
a vain and lifeless theory of human nature. But how can ‘I’ live as though I do
not exist, and who would be choosing to do so?
One trick is to concentrate on the present moment – all the time – letting go
of any thoughts that come up. This kind of ‘meme-weeding’ requires a great
concentration but is most interesting in its effect. If you can concentrate for a
few minutes at a time, you will begin to see that in any moment there is no
observing self. Suppose you sit and look out of the window. Ideas will come up
but these are all past- and future-oriented; so let them go, come back to the
present. Just notice what is happening. The mind leaps to label objects with
words, but these words take time and are not really in the present. So let them
go too. With a lot of practice the world looks different; the idea of a series of