Meme Logic: susan blackmore

17 March 2020

16 March 2020

25 April 2016

Three answers to three problems with memes

In her influential 1999 book, The Meme Machine (chapter 5) Susan blackmore raised three important problems about memetics. Each problem was titled as follow: "We cannot specify the unit of a meme", "We do not know the mechanism for copying and storing memes", "Memetic evolution is Lamarckian". These three problems are still largely relevant today, as progress with memetics is proving to be slow. However I think my proposed views on memetics, which I call the code model, could help answering or clearing up some of those points.

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6 November 2014

Memelab Autumn 2014

So I had the pleasure of joining the latest session of Susan Blackmore's Memelab which took place on the first and second of November 2014.

It was a fun, inspirational and enlightening experience. The idea of the Memelab is very simple. It is a rather informal gathering of people interested in discussing the subject of memetics. There were seven of us this time, coming from various backgrounds and different parts of the world. The only rule to this event was a schedule planned so that each participant had a chance to lead the discussion one way or another for an hour.

This time, Memelab took place in Bristol:

Alan Winfield hosted this session in his own house and made everyone feel at home. It made for a charming weekend indeed.

We discussed many subjects during this session. Here are a few I can remember:

Martin was interested in understanding how advertising fatigue may occur and if we develop some kind of immunity to memes in advertising.
Rachel wanted to explore how simple drawings get affected by successive hand copying.
Susan, was asking what should be done to inform the world about the fast approaching reign of technology.
Alan introduced his work on ethical robots.
Andrew introduced us to his PHD work on memetics and religion.
And myself I tried to emphasise the fact that we find it hard, still today, to define memes.

I enormously enjoyed this event and very much look forward to renewing this experience.

Here is the list of participants:

Susan Blackmore

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/