Dr. Susan Blackmore is a psychologist, lecturer and writer researching consciousness, memes, and anomalous experiences, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. She is best known for her book The Meme Machine, and has written or contributed to over 40 books, mostly on consciousness.

In this episode, we focus on memetics. First, Dr. Blackmore gives a proper definition of memetics, and then we talk about some specific criticisms, some of them coming from my interview with Drs. Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson, namely units of culture, and memes as viruses. We briefly discuss free will, and then move on to talk about imitation as the basis for memetics, and other cognitive mechanisms that an animal needs to have to have culture and memes. Toward the end, we also talk about how new technologies, like the internet, are changing the way memetics works.

Follow Dr. Blackmore’s work:

Website: https://www.susanblackmore.uk/

Articles on Researchgate: https://bit.ly/2Vy4Rx9

Books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2UJrU3K

Susan Blackmore: Memes and “temes” (TED talk): https://bit.ly/2XYX757

The Meme Machine: https://amzn.to/2ZSc5vs

The Selfish Gene: https://amzn.to/2DAOjug

A couple of relevant articles:

Memes and the evolution of religion: We need memetics, too: https://bit.ly/2GQRzDJ

Delusions of consciousness: https://bit.ly/2voGVOf

Memetics Does Provide a Useful Way of Understanding Cultural Evolution: https://bit.ly/2PEnSsC

A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, RUI BELEZA, MIGUEL ESTRADA, ANTÓNIO CUNHA, CHANTEL GELINAS, JIM FRANK, JERRY MULLER, FRANCIS FORD, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BRIAN RIVERA, ADRIANO ANDRADE, YEVHEN BODRENKO, SERGIU CODREANU, ADAM BJERRE, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, AIRES ALMEIDA, BERNARDO SEIXAS, AND HERBERT GINTIS!

A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE and ROSEY!

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