The Evolution of Meme machines

by Susan Blackmore

Thursday 24 Oct 2002, 16:30 → 17:30 Europe/Zurich

500/1-001 - Main Auditorium (CERN)

We humans are meme machines. So are the phones and photocopiers, computers and web servers that we have built to help us. But why are they changing so fast, and were they really designed for our benefit? According to the theory of memetics, they were all designed by memetic evolution. Memes are habits, skills, technologies and stories, that are copied from person to person by imitation. Like genes, memes are replicators. That is, they are information that is copied with variation and selection, which makes an evolutionary process possible. As with other evolutionary processes, memetic or cultural evolution happens for the benefit of the replicators themselves, in this case the memes. I shall outline the basic theory of memetics and discuss how it provides a new vision human evolution, with novel explanations for the traditional mysteries of the enormous human brain and the uniquely human capacity for language. These can be seen as inevitable consequences of the co-evolution between replicators (memes) and their replicating machinery (brains). This same process is now occurring in the evolution of information technology. The web and all its consequences are just what we should expect of the rapidly accelerating evolution of meme machines.

Organiser(s): James Gillies / ETT Division

Note: Tea & coffee will be served at 16.00 hrs.