The Meme Machine

De: Susan Blackmore, Richard Dawkins - foreword

Narrado por: Esther Wane

First coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, a meme is any idea, behavior, or skill that can be transferred from one person to another by imitation: stories, fashions, inventions, recipes, songs, ways of plowing a field or throwing a baseball or making a sculpture.

Susan Blackmore shows that once our distant ancestors acquired the crucial ability to imitate, a second kind of natural selection began, a survival of the fittest amongst competing ideas and behaviors. Ideas and behaviors that proved most adaptive-making tools, for example, or using language - survived and flourished, replicating themselves in as many minds as possible. These memes then passed themselves on from generation to generation by helping to ensure that the genes of those who acquired them also survived and reproduced.

Applying this theory to many aspects of human life, Blackmore offers brilliant explanations for why we live in cities, why we talk so much, why we can't stop thinking, why we behave altruistically, how we choose our mates, and much more. With controversial implications for our religious beliefs, our free will, our very sense of "self", The Meme Machine offers a provocative theory everyone will soon be talking about.

©1999 Susan Blackmore; foreword copyright 1999 by Richard Dawkins (P)2019 Tantor

Essential reading on Evolution

An essential read for anyone interested in evolution. My question to Susan would be - "Was it necessary to inject your destroy-the-self-meme meme at the end?"

Rigorously thought out and argued

Her conclusions really seem unarguable, and the implications could not be more profound. Presented with kindness and sympathy for the resistance one might feel towards her ideas. Ends up being quite comforting really.

simultaneously illuminating as well as confusing

close to Richard Dawkins style of thinking and writing.
takes some of his ideas further.
loved it.

Not sure how much I agree with. But it does make I think about what really goes on inside.

British accent of narrator may not appeal

I normally like listening to books where narrators have British accents.

This book is an exception.

It reached a point that I shuddered every time I heard the word EEEEE-volution.

Deep and well argued

This is a deep and well argued conceptualization of memes. It is a great starting point for further thought.