Susan Blackmore on Memes

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bruce Everett on January 10, 2010 at 7:45pm

I just ordered Meme Machine in at Dymocks. :D

Permalink Reply by Richard Goscicki on January 10, 2010 at 8:03pm

I have a review of this important book on Amazon. It's the one at the bottom of the page.

Good post. I read the book twice and would be glad to discuss it with other fledgling memeticists. Mirror Reversal is the first book since 1984 to have a glossary of terms. In this case, memetic terms.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on March 30, 2011 at 5:41pm

Scary! :(

Permalink Reply by Kevin Benbow on October 1, 2011 at 11:44pm

That is a really cool link.  Thanks!

 

Permalink Reply by George on October 2, 2011 at 11:13pm

Glad you liked it.  I need to get back to reading her book.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on June 14, 2012 at 7:18pm

In  Program Or Be Programmed: Ten Commands For A Digital Age, Douglas Ruskoff appears to agree with Blackmore. Here are excerpts from the introduction, not in original order:

...computers and networks... not only copy our intellectual processes - our repeatable programs - but they also discourage our more complex processes - our higher order cognition... and meaning making ...

...instead of optimizing our machines for humanity – or even the benefit of some particular group – we are optimizing humans for machinery.

We are replicating the very function of cognition through external, extra-human mechanisms. These tools are not mere extensions of the will of some individual or group, but tools that have the ability to think and operate other components in the neural network - namely, us.

In a digital age, failure could mean relinquishing our nascent collective agency to the machines themselves. The process appears to have already begun.

..., we need to rely on a purpose and on values as real and powerful as the science and logic our machines are using in their own evolutionary ascent.[emphasis mine]