Memes, Minds and Selves

by

Susan Blackmore

{ Department of Psychology

University of the West of England }

« Memes » ---when you hear that word, or worse still find yourself
saying it, do you get an irresistible urge to raise your hands in scare
quotes or giggle nervously to hide your embarrassment? If so you are
not alone. The very idea of the meme seems to strike fear into even the
most hardened evolutionist.

Some reject the meme outright as a ``meaningless metaphor'' or empty
analogy. However, my intention today is to argue that the idea of
memes as independent replicators is a useful and powerful idea---and
one that will prove essential to understanding the human mind.

I shall first outline the history of the idea of memes and then present
four examples of how a theory of memetics can be used to explain
specific phenomena; two of these I shall skip over quickly just to give
an idea of the kind of reasoning involved. The others I shall consider in
more detail. These are the origins of human altruism, and the size of
our brains. I shall conclude with some thoughts on the nature of
minds and selves.

In 1976 Dawkins published his best-selling

[TSG]

The Selfish Gene. This

book popularised the growing view in biology that natural selection
proceeds not in the interest of the species or of the group, nor even of
the individual, but in the interest of the genes. The genes are the true
replicators and it is their competition that drives the evolution of
biological design---or as he would now put it, Climbing Mount
Improbable.

It is often allowed to elderly and famous men that they can get away
with a few pages of wild speculation on forbidden topics at the very
end of their great books. I well remember my tutor warning me off the
last chapter of Eccles' book on the physiology of the giant squid axon
in which he tackled the naughty subject of consciousness. Well,
Dawkins was neither old nor (then) terribly famous, but he devoted his
last few pages to the topic of memes and has been much derided for it.

Dawkins, clear and daring as always, suggested that all life
everywhere in the universe must evolve by the differential survival of
slightly inaccurate self-replicating entities. Furthermore, these
replicators automatically band together in groups to create systems,
or machines, that carry them around and work to favour their
continued replication. The gene, he claimed, is not the only replicator
on our planet. Staring us in the face, though still drifting clumsily
about in its primeval soup of culture, is another replicator---a unit of
imitation. He gave it the name « meme » and as examples suggested
``tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or
of building arches.''

In just those few pages he laid the foundations for understanding the
evolution of memes. He discussed their propagation by jumping from
brain to brain, likened them to parasites infecting a host, treated them
as living structures, and showed how mutually assisting memes will
group together. He laid the basis for his later analysis of religions as
co-adapted meme-complexes and argued that once a new replicator
arises it will tend to take over and begin a new kind of evolution.
Above all he treated them as independent replicators, chastising those
of his colleagues who tended always to go back to ``biological
advantage'' to answer questions about human behaviour. Yes, he
agreed, we got our brains for biological (genetic) reasons but now we
have them a new replicator has been unleashed and it need not be
subservient to the old.

The meme meme has done fairly well. The word has even been
considered for inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary. However,
the basic idea does not seem to have been either understood or much
used and its two greatest proponents, Dawkins and Dennett, have both
seemed to draw back from the idea after their initial enthusiasm.

Many writers prefer to avoid the term altogether. ``Meme'' does not
even appear in the index of many of the best recent books about

human origins and language such as Pinker's The Language Instinct,
Dunbar's Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, Mithen's
Prehistory of the Mind, or Tudge's The Day before Yesterday, nor in
those about human morality such as Ridley's The Origins of Virtue, or
Wright's The Moral Animal.

There have been many attempts to develop theories of the origins of
culture. Perhaps these use the same idea but call it something else.
Such theories might roughly be seen as falling along a continuum from
the outright rejection of cultural evolution, through most of
sociobiology and Wilson's image of the genes holding culture on a
leash, to schemes that treat cultural evolution as relatively
independent. Among the latter, only Durham uses the word ``meme''
and it may be no coincidence that he provides good examples of the
memes acting against the interest of the genes or forcing the
development of the genes in one direction rather than another.
However, even he makes inclusive fitness the final arbiter in his theory
of coevolution. As far as I can understand them, other authors do not
really treat their unit of cultural exchange as an independent
replicator. When they say ``adaptive'' or ``maladaptive'' they mean for
the genes. In other words, when it comes to the crunch they always fall
back on appeals to biological advantage, just as Dawkins complained
that his colleagues did twenty years ago.

Dawkins is clear on this issue when he says ``There is no reason why
success in a meme should have any connection whatever with genetic
success.'' I agree.

The most direct support for this view comes from a philosopher, not a
biologist. Dan Dennett has used the idea of memes in both his recent
books. He is absolutely clear that the meme is a separate replicator
and describes its ``replicator power'' in terms of the fundamental
algorithm of natural selection. He also goes further, describing a
person as the entity created when ``A particular sort of animal is
properly furnished by---or infested with---memes.'' His analysis is
thorough and fascinating, but he does not make specific empirical
predictions and few seem to have taken up his ideas.

There is a flourishing Internet community communicating about
memes, but as with all such groups the quality is mixed. Twenty years
on it therefore seems necessary for me to defend the very idea that the

meme is a replicator in its own right, as well as to prove its
usefulness.

The Meme as Replicator

It is widely agreed that for evolution to occur three things are needed;
variation, heredity or replication, and differential survival of the
copies made. There is enormous variety in the behaviours human
beings emit, these behaviours are copied, more or less accurately by
other human beings, and not all the copies survive. The meme
therefore fits perfectly.

Think of tunes, for example. Millions of variants are sung by millions
of people. Only a few get passed on and repeated and even fewer make
it into the pop charts or the collections of classics. Scientific papers
proliferate but only a few get long listings in the citation indexes. Only
a few of the disgusting concoctions made in woks actually make it
onto the TV shows that tell you how to Wok things and only a few of
my brilliant ideas have ever been appreciated by anyone! In other
words, competition to get copied is fierce.

Put another way, there needs to be a replicator that makes slightly
inaccurate copies of itself in an environment in which not all the
copies can survive. Whichever way you look at it, the meme seems to
fit. However, there are some cogent objections to the notion of the
meme as replicator. I shall consider three.

1: Memes are not like Genes

Unfortunately we only have one other well-known replicator with
which to compare the meme. I say unfortunately because this tends to
make us think that all replicators must be like genes. In fact genes may
be just one example of many potential replicators.

So we need not reject the idea of the meme just because it works so
differently from the gene. I suggest we should simply bear in mind the
similarities and differences and wait to find out how important these
are.

In definition genes and memes are comparable. The gene is an
instruction for building proteins, stored in a cell and passed on by
reproduction. The meme is an instruction for producing behaviour,
stored in a brain and passed on to other brains by imitation. However,
there are many differences in the way the replication takes place.
Genes use the cellular machinery to copy themselves rather accurately.
Memes have to be copied by using the brain itself as the replicating
machinery. One person has to observe another's behaviour and work
out somehow how to reproduce it. It is, if you like, a kind of reverse
engineering. Say you snap your fingers above your head. I can copy
this action relatively easily, yet the processes involved in my doing so
must be fiendishly complex and we are nowhere near to
understanding them. What we do know is that humans are supremely
good at imitating each other and do so a great deal from very early on
in their lives. It is this fiendishly complicated process that makes the
transmission of memes possible.

This fact also means that memetic transmission is in some sense
Lamarckian. That is, I copy the actions you make, not the instructions
your brains holds for making those actions. But don't forget that we
can easily ignore the vagaries of environmental constraints on
behaviour. If I trip over when demonstrating my fantastic new
combined garden hose and cat scarer, you will not copy my clumsiness
when turning the invention on me. If I tell you a brilliant story when I
have a sore throat you will not assume a hoarse voice when passing on
the gossip to your friends. Indeed language appears remarkably
resistant to the vagaries of individual voices and accents and language
must be a major way of passing on memes.

Whether we see the process as Lamarckian also depends in part on
what we consider the equivalent of the phenotype to be. If we follow
some authors in persisting in seeing the organism as the phenotype
then obviously the process is Lamarckian. If we follow Dawkins in
treating meme products such as words, music, gestures, skills and
fashions, as the equivalent of the phenotype, then the process still
appears Lamarckian because these are the very things that are copied.
However, we might follow his other suggestion that memes are still
drifting clumsily about in their primeval soup. We can see the brain as
the replicating machinery for behaviours which have not yet created
clear phenotypes. In this case the process is not so obviously
Lamarckian.

Does it matter that the copying of memes is so sloppy compared with
meiosis? A topic for another lecture might be the way in which
language, writing and reading, increase the accuracy of transmission
and hence speed up the algorithm of memetic evolution. The creation
of even more precise computer languages and software packages, not
to mention hardware, may be another step in the same direction.

This relates to another important difference, often noted: the speed of
replication. If there can be said to be a generation time for a meme, it
can be as short as the time it takes to copy an action or a word or two.
Most memes will hang around in various brains for weeks, months or
years before being passed on, but many spread at fearsome rates. The
news that Fergie spent a million pounds on a family holiday must have
passed to millions of brains within a few hours of some journalist
finding it out (or making it up).

I like to think of the question of speed in terms of Dennett's ``Tower of
Generate and Test.'' Darwinian creatures are generated by natural
selection but have to die in the process. Skinnerian creatures can learn
by trial and error and consequently can live on to repeat, or not, the
behaviour they generate. Popperian creatures can imagine behaviours
and decide whether to do them or not according to an internal
generate and test. And finally, Gregorian creatures can pass on their
clever tricks to others, so not every individual has to try the ideas out.
Each floor of the tower builds on the last and each speeds up still
further the process of accumulating clever tricks. Although Dennett
does not explicitly say so, the fourth floor of the tower is the home of
the memes---and they are generated, tested and accumulated faster
than anything that has gone before.

Just how important these differences will prove to be, we shall have to
wait and see. In the mean time I suggest we take careful note of them
and use extreme care in transferring the use of terms such as genotype
and phenotype, allele and generation to the world of memes. We may
be able to use them or we may need to invent entirely new terms.

2: What is the unit of the meme?

This question is often asked and some people appear unwilling to
proceed with memetics because the unit cannot be specified. However,

we must remember that the same question can be asked of genes---
indeed, Dawkins spells out in great detail the problems in choosing
any particular size of unit. Nature does not specify the size of a gene.

I also suggest that when I have explained my four suggestions, you ask
yourself whether it matters what size of unit I am referring to. I have
done this often myself and concluded that for many purposes we may
proceed with a memetic analysis without specifying the size of the
unit.

3: We do not know how memes work

No we do not---though we may speculate in terms of synaptic
potentiation or variations in weights in neural networks. The fact is
that when a person carries out any behaviour there must be some kind
of instruction stored in the brain, and when someone else copies and
remembers an action they must also create some kind of neural
change. We can get a very long way without knowing how it is done---
just as Darwinian theory got a very long way in the many decades
before it was known that genes were the basis of heredity.

I don't think any of these objections is worth worrying about. They are
excuses not to try---and I want to try. I want to take the meme as a
true replicator, selfishly copying itself in the world of human brains,
and see what happens.

The basic approach I take is this---imagine a world full of hosts for
memes (ie brains) and far more memes than can possibly find homes.
Now ask, which memes are more likely to find a safe home and get
passed on again? It's that simple. In the process I must assiduously
avoid lapsing into considering either the interests of the genes or
those of the organisms they create. I am concerned here with the
selfish replication of memes and memes do not care either about genes
or people. Nor do memes have foresight! I must also be careful of
short-hand statements like ``memes want x'' ``memes try to do y'' or ``z
is a good meme strategy.'' These may be quite legitimate but I must
always ensure that they can be translated back into the longer-winded
version, such as ``memes that have the effect of producing x are more
likely to survive than those that do not.'' I have done this as well as I
can and I hope you may enjoy thinking about some of the

consequences of this way of thinking. Some of them are startlingly
obvious---once you see them.

I will now outline four consequences. I shall treat the first two very
briefly, partly as exercises in thinking memically.

1: Why can't we stop thinking?

Imagine a world full of brains, and far more memes than can possibly
find homes. Which memes are more likely to find a safe home and get
passed on again?

Now imagine a meme that encourages its host to keep on mentally
rehearsing it, or a tune that is so easy to hum that it goes round and
round in your head, or a thought that just compels you to keep
thinking it.

Imagine in contrast a meme that buries itself quietly in your memory
and is never rehearsed, or a tune that is too unmemorable to go round
in your head, or a thought that is too boring to think again.

Which will do better? Other things being equal, the first lot will.
Rehearsal aids memory, and you are likely to express (or even sing) the
ideas and tunes that fill your waking hours. What is the consequence?
The memosphere fills up with catchy tunes, and thinkable thoughts
and we all think an awful lot.

The principle here is familiar. In a forest any tree that grows tall gets
more light. So genes for growing tall become more common and the
forest ends up being as high as the trees can make it. We can apply the
same principle again.

2: Why do we talk so much?

Imagine a world full of brains, and far more memes than can possibly
find homes. Which memes are more likely to find a safe home and get
passed on again?

Now imagine any meme that encourages talking. It might be an idea
such as ``talking is a great idea'' or ``It's friendly to chat.'' It might be
some urgent thought that just compels you to speak it aloud. It might
be just something terribly easy to say.

Imagine in contrast any meme that discourages talking, such as the
thought ``talking is a waste of time.'' It might be something you dare
not voice aloud, or just something very difficult to say.

Which will do better? Put this way the answer is obvious. The first lot
will be heard by more people and, other things being equal, simply
must stand a better chance of being propagated. What is the
consequence of this? The memosphere will fill up with memes that
encourage talking and we will all talk an awful lot. An alternative way
of looking at it is this---people who talk more will, on average, spread
more memes. So any memes which thrive in chatterboxes are likely to
spread.

This makes me see conversation in a new light. Is all that talking
really founded on the interests of the genes---on biological advantage?
Talking takes a lot of energy and we do talk about some daft and
pointless things! And what about thinking? Any meditator will tell you
that the mind is constantly full of rubbish---thoughts that come and
come and come and won't go away. Do these trivial and stupid
thoughts have some hidden biological advantage?

I would at least like to offer the suggestion that they do not. That we
do all this talking and all this thinking merely because memes that
make us do it are good survivors. This sets the stage for a more
audacious suggestion.

3: Why are we so nice to each other?

Of course we aren't always nice to each other, but human co-operation
and altruism are something of a mystery. Despite the tremendous
advances made in understanding kin selection and inclusive fitness,
reciprocal altruism and evolutionarily stable strategies, we do seem to
do some peculiarly altruistic things.

Everyone can probably think up their own favourite example. Richard
Dawkins (1989 p230) calls blood doning ``a genuine case of pure,
disinterested altruism.'' I am more impressed by charitable giving to
people in faraway countries who probably share as few of our genes as
anyone on earth and whom we are unlikely ever to meet. Why do we
hand in wallets found in the street, clear away rubbish on picnics,
support eco- friendly companies or recycle our bottles? Why do so
many people want to be poorly paid nurses and counsellors, social
workers and psychotherapists? Many people believe all this must
ultimately be explained in terms of biological advantage but I shall
offer an alternative for consideration. We can use our, by now, familiar
tactic.

Imagine a world full of brains, and far more memes than can possibly
find homes. Which memes are more likely to find a safe home and get
passed on again?

Imagine the sort of meme that encourages its host to be friendly and
kind. They might be memes for throwing good parties, for being
generous with the home-made marmalade, or being prepared to spend
time listening to a friend's woes. Now compare this with memes for
being unfriendly and mean---never giving dinners or buying drinks,
and refusing to spare your time to listen. Which will spread more
quickly?

The first type. People like to be with nice people. So those who harbour
lots of friendliness memes will spend more time with others and have
more chances to spread their memes. It is therefore in the interest of
memes to get into nice people. In consequence many of us will end up
harbouring lots of memes for being nice to others. You may wish to
challenge any of the above steps. It is therefore reassuring to learn
from many experiments in social psychology, that people are more
likely to adopt ideas from those they perceive as friendly or attractive.
Whether this is a cause or a consequence of the above argument is
debatable. It would be most interesting if psychological facts like this,
or others such as cognitive dissonance, or the need for self esteem,
could be derived from simple memetic principles---but that is a topic
for another time!

For now we should consider whether the idea is testable. It predicts
that people should act in ways that benefit the spread of their memes
even at some cost to themselves. We are familiar with buying

information and with buying a way into people's minds for the
purposes of selling products, but this theory predicts that people will
pay simply to spread the memes they hold---because the memes force
them to. Many aspects of persuasion and conversion to causes may be
turn out to involve this mechanism. Altruism may turn out to be yet
another of the meme tricks that religions (those most powerful of
meme-complexes) have purloined. Almost all of them thrive on making
their members believe they are doing good.

Of course, being generous is expensive. There will always be pressure
against it and if memes can find alternative strategies for spreading
they will. For example, powerful people may be able to spread memes
without being altruistic as well! However, that does not change the
basic argument---that altruism is a good way to spread memes. If
memes have replicator power we should expect them to press their
carriers into service.

You may have noticed that the underlying theme in all of these
arguments is that the memes may act in opposition to the interest of
the genes. Thinking all the time may not be very expensive in energy
terms---the brain is still using energy even when not thinking.
However, it must cost something. Talking is certainly expensive, as
anyone who has been seriously ill will attest. And of course any
altruistic act is, by definition, costly to the actor.

I would say that this is just what we should expect if memes are truly
independent replicators. They do not care either about the genes or
about the creatures the genes have created. Their only interest is self-
propagation. The consequence is that if they can propagate by stealing
resources from the genes, they will do so. And of course this is not a
recipe for human happiness.

I want to take just one more step along this path. My final example
shows the memes forcing the hand of the genes in a much more
physical way.

4: Why are our brains so big?

Yes, I know this is an old chestnut, and there are lots and lots of good
answers to the question. But are they good enough? Let us not forget

how mysterious this issue really is. Brains are notoriously expensive
both to build and to run. They take up about 2% of the body's weight
but use about 20% of its energy. Our brains are three times the size of
the brains of apes of equivalent body size. Compared to other
mammals our encephalisation quotient is even higher, up to about 25.
On many measures of brain capacity humans stand out alone. Brains
are also dangerous organs to give birth to. The fact that such
intelligence has arisen in an animal that stands upright may or may
not be a coincidence but it certainly adds to the problem. Our pelvises
are not ideally suited for giving birth to huge brains---yet we do it.
Why?

The mystery was deepened for me by thinking about the size of the
biological advantage required for survival. I was fascinated to read
about a study addressing the question of the fate of the Neanderthals.
Zubrow used computer simulations to determine the effect of a slight
competitive edge and concluded that a 2% advantage could eliminate a
competing population in less than a millennium. If we only need such
a tiny advantage why do we have such a large one?

Several new answers have recently been proposed. For example, Robin
Dunbar argues that we need large brains in order to gossip, and we
need to gossip as a kind of verbal grooming to keep very large bands
of people together. Christopher Wills argues that the runaway
evolution of the human brain results from an increasingly swift gene-
environment feedback loop. Miller proposes that our vast brains have
been created by sexual selection; and Richerson and Boyd claim they
are used for individual and social learning, favoured under increasing
rates of environmental variation. What these authors all have in
common is that their ultimate appeal is to the genes. Like Dawkins'
bewailed colleagues, they always wish to go back to biological
advantage. I am going to propose an alternative based on memetic
advantage.

Imagine early hominids who, for good biological reasons, gained the
ability to imitate each other and to develop simple language. Once this
step occurred memes could begin to spread. And also---once this step
occurred the genes would no longer be able to stop the spread!
Presumably the earliest memes would be useful ones, such as ways of
making pots or knives, ways of catching or dismembering prey, and
names for people, events and tools. Let us assume that some people

would have slightly larger brains and that larger brains are better
copiers. As more and more people began to pick up these early memes,
the environment would change so that it became more and more
necessary to have the skills in order to survive. So these slightly larger
brained people would have an advantage. That, I propose, is how we
got our big brains.

The process is related to the Baldwin Effect. I like to use Dennett's
``Tower of Generate and Test'' again here.

On the ground floor are the Darwinian creatures. As these develop they
change the environment in which they live, creating new selection
pressures that lead to new design improvements. One result is larger
brains capable of learning and the arrival of Skinnerian creatures.
These again change their own environment, giving an advantage to the
quicker learners. One aspect of quicker learning is internalisation---
thinking before you act. So Popperian creatures are born and again
change their environment so that better thinkers are at an advantage.
Finally the ability to copy actions appears, giving rise to the Gregorian
creatures and the birth of the new replicators---the memes. Creatures
of this kind again change their environment so that those most able to
adopt the memes are at an advantage.

Although the process is similar to all the previous ones, this last step
is a big one. Note, most importantly, that it depends not on learning
nor on cleverness per se but on the ability to imitate. A second
replicator has now appeared that spreads at a fantastic rate and
changes the environment as it goes.

An early hominid who was incapable of mastering any of the new
techniques of tool making, speaking or hunting would be at some
disadvantage, and the importance of this disadvantage would increase
as the memes spread. In a population with few available memes, brain
size would not be very important, in a population with lots of memes
it would. It seems to me that this fundamental change in selection
pressures, spreading at the rate of meme propagation, provides for the
first time a plausible reason why our brains are totally out of line with
all other brains on the planet. They have been meme-driven. One
replicator has forced the moves of another.

Minds, Memes and Selves

We can now see the human mind as the creation of two replicators,
one using the machinery created by the other for its replication. As
Dennett pointed out, people are animals infested with memes. Our
personalities, abilities and unique qualities derive from the complex
interplay of these replicators. What then of our innermost selves---the
``real me,'' the person who experiences `my' life?

I would say that selves are co-adapted meme complexes---though only
one of many supported by any given brain. Like religions, political
belief systems and cults, they are sets of memes that thrive in each
other's company. Like religions, political belief systems and cults, they
are safe havens for all sorts of travelling memes and they are
protected from destruction by various meme-tricks. They do not have
to be true. In fact we know, of course, that selves are a myth. Look
inside the brain and you find only neurons. You do not find the little
person pulling the strings or the homunculus watching the show on an

[Cart]

inner screen. You do not find the place where `my' conscious

decisions are made. You do not find the thing that lovingly holds all
those beliefs and opinions. Most of us still persist in thinking about
ourselves that way. But the truth is---there is no one in there!

We now have a radically new answer to the question ``Who am I?'' and
a rather terrifying one. `I' am one of the many co-adapted meme-
complexes living within this brain. No wonder people want to raise
their hands in scare quotes and giggle nervously at the very idea of
``memes.''

References

Gould,S.J. (1996) Life's Grandeur (US Full House) London,
Jonathan Cape---see chapter 15. He used the term ``meaningless
metaphor'' on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week November 11 1996.

Dawkins,R. (1976) The Selfish Gene Oxford, OUP (new edition
with additional material 1989).

Dawkins,R. (1996) Climbing Mount Improbable London, Viking.

The Selfish Gene p322.

The Selfish Gene p192.

Dawkins,R. (1993) Viruses of the Mind. In B.Dahlbohm (ed)
Dennett and his Critics: Demystifying Mind Oxford, Blackwell.

Dennett,D. (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea London, Penguin. On
page 361 Dennett says of Dawkins ``He has since drawn in his
horns slightly,'' and asks ``Why, indeed, is the meme meme so
little discussed eighteen years after The Selfish Gene appeared?''
Note that Dennett himself does not mention memes in his latest
book Kinds of Minds, New York, Basic Books, (1996).

The word ``meme'' is not listed in the index of any of the
following books:

•

Barkow,J.H., Cosmides,L. and Tooby,J. (Eds) (1992) The

Adapted Mind: Evolutionary psychology and the
generation of culture Oxford, OUP.

•

Dunbar,R. (1996) Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of

Language London, Faber & Faber.

•

Mithen,S. (1996) The Prehistory of the Mind London,

Thames and Hudson.

•

Pinker, S. (1994) The Language Instinct New York, Morrow.

•

Ridley,M. (1996) The Origins of Virtue London, Viking.

•

Tudge,C. (1996) The Day before Yesterday.

•

Wills,C. (1993) The Runaway Brain: The Evolution of

human uniqueness Basic Books.

•

Wright,R. (1994) The Moral Animal Pantheon Books (and

London, Abacus, 1996).

•

(Cronin,H. (1991) The Ant and the Peacock Cambridge,

CUP does have one entry)

Gould,S.J. (1996) Life's Grandeur.

Wilson,E.O. (1978) On Human Nature Cambridge, Mass. Harvard
University Press.

Durham,W.H. (1991) Coevolution: Genes, culture and human
diversity Stanford, Ca., Stanford University Press.

For example, Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman have developed a
detailed scheme based on cultural traits, including notions of
cultural fitness and cultural selection pressures, yet they seem
to expect natural selection to rein in cultural evolution.

•

Cavalli-Sforza,L.L. and Feldman,M.W. (1981) Cultural

Transmission and Evolution: A quantitative approach
Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.

Boyd and Richerson have analysed the forces of cultural
adaptation and yet still, when they say generation they mean
genetic generation, and when they say ``adaptive'' or
``maladaptive'' they mean for the genes.

•

Boyd,R. and Richerson,P.J. (1985) Culture and the

Evolutionary Process Chicago, University of Chicago
Press.

•

Richerson,P.J. and Boyd,R. (1992) Cultural inheritance

and evolutionary ecology In E.A.Smith and
B.Winterhalder (Eds) Evolutionary Ecology and Human
Behaviour 61-92.

Dennett,D. (1991) Consciousness Explained Boston and London,
Little, Brown & Co. Dennett,D. (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea
London, Penguin.

Darwin's Dangerous Idea p341

See for example:

•

http://www.sepa.tudelft.nl/~afd_ba/mem.html

•

http://www.lucifer.com/virus/alt.memetics/

•

http://www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/memetics/

Dawkins (1982) The Extended Phenotype Oxford, OUP. p110
discusses this in detail. Durham (1991) p187 calls this principle
``Campbell's Rule'' quoting from Campbell (1965) ``The analogy

to cultural accumulations (is not) from organic evoloution per
se: but rather from a general model... for which organic
evolution is but one instance.'' See also Dennett (1991) p200.

For definitions of the meme see Dawkins (1976) p192 and (1982)
p110.

Dawkins (1976) p192. R.Webb also takes this view. ``Fossil Soup:
The evolution of technology: life as we know it or a pre-biotic
soup?'' presented at LSE, 27 June 1996

Dennett (1995) p373-381

Dawkins (1976) p28.

For good discussions of human altruism see:

•

Cronin,H. (1991) The Ant and the Peacock Cambridge,

CUP.

•

Ridley,M. (1996) The Origins of Virtue London, Viking.

•

Wright,R. (1994) The Moral Animal Pantheon Books (and

London, Abacus, 1996).

For recent discussions of brain size see Leakey,R. (1994) The
Origin of Humankind London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson;
Wills,C. (1993) The Runaway Brain London, Basic Books.

See Leakey (1994) p98. For further discussion of the mechanisms
of competition see Tudge (1996).

Dunbar,R. (1996) Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of
Language London, Faber & Faber. Wills,C. (1993) The Runaway
Brain London, Basic Books. For discussion of Miller see
Mestel,R. Arts of Seduction, New Scientist, 23/30 December 1995
28-31. Richerson and Boyd (1992) p75.

Dennett (1991) describes this imaginary place as the ``Cartesian
Theatre'' and argues that we may reject Cartesian Dualism but
still implicitly believe in the CT.