Book Description
The publication in 1998 of Susan Blackmore's bestselling 'The meme machine' re-awakened the debate over the highly controverial field of memetics. In the past couple of years, there has been an explosion of interest in 'memes'. The one thing noticably missing though, has been any kind of proper debate over the validity of a concept regarded by many as scientifically suspect. Darwinizing culture: the status of memetics as a science pits leading intellectuals, (both supporters and opponents of meme theory), against eachother to battle it out, and state their case. With a foreword by Daniel Dennett, and contributions from Dan Sperber, David Hull, Robert Boyd, Susan Blackmore, Henry Plotkin, and others, the result is a thrilling and challenging debate that will perhaps mark a turning point for the field, and for future research. Superbly edited by Robert Aunger, Darwinizing culture is a thought provoking book, that will fascinate, stimulate, (and occasionally perhaps infuriate) a broad range of readers including, psychologists, biologists, philosophers, linguists, and anthropologists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

10 Big Minds, Essential Foundation Reading
This book, and The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think are both world class and should be read along with Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration and Five Minds for the Future.I believe we are at the very beginning of a new era in which we will be able to map linguistics and culture, and devise beneficial bacteria at the same time that we devise beneficial memes.Ideas, not weapons, will be the dominant feature of the 21st Century.

The book grabs we right away with the statement that good ideas can go extinct and bad ideas can infect.See also Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography and Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq.

Early on the book provokes me to note that what is relevant is culturally determined.In the attack on Iraq, for example, the only relevant information was that which Dick Cheney wished to act on.Nothing else.See Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency and The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11.

This edited work, while a melange of competing opinions, is a very valuable foundation work for an emerging discipline

One note from each contributing author:

Blackmore: into parapsychology, inspired the third book I plan to do in 2009, ABNORMAL INTELLIGENCE: From Bacterial to Extra-Terrestial

Hull: memes can be tracked statistically, e.g. mentions and variants on the web.

Plotkin: Different forms of knowledge and belief (I note: religions and nationality are a form of super-meme).

Conte: 12 different ways for memes to spread

Laland & Odling-Smee: Niche construction alters evolutionary paths

Boyd & Richerson: need to map cultures at memetic level and do population modeling [I note that Information Operations as now emergent in the US Department of Defense is nowhere near this level of sophistication, and that the EarthGame planned by Medard Gabel is precisely what we need now.]

Sperber: notes Chompsky's contributions, linguistics can help, grammar is inferred.I note: Memes plus True Cost at Point of Sale will save us.

Kuper: Ecology of ideas, cultural difusion, ideological change, technical innovtation

Bloch: social & cultural anthropologists shave been wrong to ignore biologists and other natural scientists--memetics must be a multidisciplinary endeavor.

Aunger: cultural change is the next big challenge.Memes CAN improve life, lead to peace and prosperity, but mememetics is not yet documented nor empirically researchable.

The references that each author provides at the end of their respective chapters are a PhD in waiting.

See also:
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People

Culture Clash in Cambridge: Meme's doubters unconvinced
Unlike most edited volumes based on conferences, which typically read like random collections of papers glued between two covers, Aunger's edited volume displays a remarkable coherence.Against all odds, he enticed a highly diverse group of academics to Cambridge who then constructively debated the status of memetics as a science. Susan Blackmore, after Richard Dawkins probably the most well-known proponent of memetics, and David Hull, a sympathetic critic, open the book with strong arguments for taking memetics seriously.Henry Plotkin and Rosaria Conte then offer critiques of what they perceive as the somewhat faulty psychological assumptions underlying the meme concept.Plotkin argues against making "imitation" the centerpiece of mimetic mechanisms, and Conte argues for a much more sophisticated and complex social cognitive perspective on memetics.She presents a complex model of humans as limited autonomous agents, focusing on their active role in the perpetuation of cultural knowledge.

Kevin Laland and John Odling-Smee are sympathetic to the general notion of memes, but ask for more consideration of the multiple processes involved in evolution.Their own contribution is the concept of niche construction, based on the idea that species have effects on their environments that subsequently constrain future generations.Reprising ideas from their 1985 book, Culture and the Evolutionary Process, Boyd and Richerson argue for population level thinking in evolutionary models of cultural change.I should note that the renewed interest in evolutionary thinking stirred up by Blackmore and others has resulted in the University of Chicago Press's re-issuing their book!

The last three chapters of the book are much more negative toward the whole enterprise.Dan Sperber uses creative examples and logical proofs to conclude that Dawkin's conception of memes is misguided.He argues that recent thinking in memetics goes against recent work in developmental and evolutionary psychology.Adam Kuper notes that there already are well-established techniques for the study of cultural diffusion, especially in anthropology.He concludes that the "memetics industry" has yet to deliver on its claims.Finally, another anthropologist, Maurice Bloch, argues that memeticists have merely rediscovered what anthropology has known for decades, and in fact, is making all the same mistakes.He has harsh words for scientists who jump into an area without paying more attention to what has already been done by others working in that area.

Aunger provides excellent introductory and concluding chapters, which constitute valuable contributions in themselves.Chapter 1 beautifully lays out the issues and provides a constructive guide to the issues over which the contributors struggled.Chapter 11 concludes the book with an assessment of the contributors' arguments and a frank admission of his own skepticism.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the concept of memes, cultural and social evolution, and the cultural divide between the natural and the social sciences.You will not only learn something about memes, but you will also see how serious academic debate can be pulled off in a civilized and constructive manner.My hat is off to Robert Aunger!

A Wonderful Introduction to Meme Theory.
For those unfamiliar with the notion of "memes," they are, quite simply, the theoretical smallest cultural commodity - an idea - that replicates itself through its symbiotic relationship with its human host.The idea is either entirely absurd or the solution to the mystery of culture that has been the providence of anthropologists for the past century and a half.But, the notion was birth by a scientist (Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene [1977]), and this alone is enough to distance some potentially interested parties from the humanities and social sciences.Darwinizing Culture is at once the reiteration and clarification of the memetic theory (although most of the authors only work to obscure the idea in their work, pulling it in one direction or another - for their very particular use) and a series of arguments against memetic theory as it stands, as well as an argument against those theorists, isolated in the sciences, who so often find the idea attractive, and distanced from previous theories of culture and cultural development.

The collection brings together pieces from Susan Blackmore (author of The Meme Machine [Oxford, 1999]), Henry Plotkin, David Hull, and Dan Sperber, as well as many other younger theorists, all succeeding a rather terse foreword by Daniel Dennet - one of memetic theories greatest proponents.Aunger's introduction and conclusion to the collection are both wonderful contributions, and help to establish the debate, both contemporaneously and historically, for both memes enthusiasts and those new to the field.Blackmore's piece is an afterword to her earlier study, in part working to refute critics who found fault with her prior book-length examination, and as such, while it helps to provide a continuity for the debate, sets the tone of the collection, and that is one of distress.The collection effectively critiques itself by including both sides of the debate, which is admirable, but rather than clearing the slate, as Aunger hopes the collection will, it surely asks the reader to choose a side, and those ideologies are clearly demarcated by academic alignments.But that is not to say that the collection fails to be useful - in fact, quite the contrary: there are a number of essays (and I'm inclined to include them all in this), that help the conceptual understanding of the field on one level or another, but as they are in constant dialogue with one another, this utility is constantly compromised.

But, like every anthology, there is a single essay that stands out from the rest for its sheer insight and applicability, and in this case it is Kevin Laland and John Odling-Smee's innocuously titled "The Evolution of the Meme."Laland and Odling-Smee expand on Richard Dawkins' notion of the "extended phenotype" (from The Extended Phenotype [1982]), positing that the cultural artifacts that are created by civilization influence (and possible cause) both cultural and biological evolution.It sounds deceptively simple, but the premise is that by creating artifacts that alter the environment, simply by their sheer presence, the evolution of that culture is irreparable altered, always needing to incorporate the presence and utility of that artifact.With the explosion of artifacts endemic of consumer capitalism, our cultural evolution has been dramatically influenced, and Laland and Odling-Smee provide an interesting hypothesis to explain this sort of transformation in culture (and consciousness - surely Marshall McLuhan would agree with their suppositions).

If there is a fault with the collection, it is simply that the debate over memetics is a rather closed sphere - the majority of the essays cite the author's previous contribution to the field, or one or another of the other included authors.If nothing else, the contributions by Sperber and Adam Kuper should influence this, and hopefully encourage the steady incorporation of more anthropologically minded sources.

While the collection is at times rather tiresome for a meme enthusiast, and especially so for students of culture, who must deal with various reiterations of basic tenants of anthropology, it would seem to provide a comprehensive introduction to both the idea and the debates surrounding the idea for those new to the field.And for the meme enthusiast, especially for those schooled in the sciences, the arguments of Sperber and Kuper are especially important, bringing in more anthropological basis for this understanding. ... Read more

Book Description
This phenomenal work possesses the very real possibility of being hailed as one of the most profound underground books on the magical arts ever written.

Never before has the occult nature of society, the Root Social Matrix, been discussed. In addition, the paradigm-shattering claim is made that this book contains the foundational framework underlying a thorough comprehension of the means by which the very fabric of reality can be manipulated through simple artistic techniques based on memetic symbology.

The ancient wisdom of the pagan sorcerers is combined with modern scientific social theory by a cultural anthropologist, resulting in a new age of magic where reality itself becomes mutable. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

This is the "Green Pill"
No, this tomb will not teach you how to dodge bullets or walk on walls. But it will teach you how to dodge social programming and walk your own SELF chosen path.
I have read many books on magic(as I am sure many of you have too), but what sets this book apart is its intelligent and historically proven approach to magic. If that isn't enough Mr. Packwood explains in detail how over 99% of people are programmed not to use magic or to even think for themselves for that matter.

This book is a marvel.

My suggestion to you....take the green pill.

It will render you binoculars in the land of the blind.

Blatant Rehash of Old Ideas
While packaged in a "new and daring" box, it turns out to be the same old stuff.... Nothing new here...just Maya, or more correctly a subset of Maya. Basic Hindi or Buddhist thought given a Paranoid Conspiracy Theory twist...please be compassionate with the poor controlbots and dominators...they know not what they do. The book lacks any kind of real development of ideas. The lame automatic drawing/writing/etc. hardly qualifies as Magick...I did like the insight of all writing/drawing being influenced by the "spiritual realm"...but to engage in this is just spiritualism...automatic or willed. Besides, consider that these spirits/angels/demons are really Maya at work...JUST a PRODUCT of MIND.MARK PAXSON

Great Ideas
Very unusual and definitely will effect your views on magic and how it can be done. It is mostly geared towards writers, artists or people capable of putting things into public view. He gives you the means to create mental "viruses" which infect the minds of others and change brain programming. Very useful if you have a way to diseminate work into a public forum.

It is also useful as a means of seeing how people get programmed and offers a way to get a measure of your mind un-programmed as well as giving you the chance of what you will re-program your mind with.

Interesting, Different, Well worth the read
This book is absolutely not what I envisioned when I ordered it.
So I was wrong. Happily wrong. This book is full of surprises. It takes a fresh, unique look at a subject swamped with archaic mumbo-jumbo.

Weirdly Cool and Modern
I'm glad I decided to ignore a couple of the recent reviews. It looks like someones' X-girlfriends are angry heheheh. But please... can we keep that kind of stuff out of book reviews?? Huh?

This book is non-scientific only in the fact that Memetic Magic is the cutting edge of occult memetics. This is the kind of stuff that won't get mainstream "scientific" (cough.. cough... can you say "Dark Ages and Catholic Church") acceptance for another 50 years or so. But it's true nonetheless. That's what I like about this one. Packwood's not afraid to talk about the occult aspects of memetics, society, and magick even though mainstream scientists would never let this kind of information come out. It's too dangerous to our essentially conservative society.

This book was out there, but that's why it was so cool. I checked out the Jaguar Temple Press webpage (jaguartemple com) and saw some more weird-weird pics and a list of upcoming releases that go even deeper into occult memetics and hardcore real magick. Looking good.

and Mr. Packwood... don't let the naysayers bother you. You're writing what needs to be written and the truth always gets heavy resistance.

This book is for the rare SMART individual who (at the very least) has a sense of what's really going on but can't express it or can't make that last step into real-reality.

A REALLY good book. Read this one.
... Read more

Book Description
While authorities in psychology discuss whether memetics is a science, its use by politicians, marketing departments and mass media becomes more and more ubiquitous.

Consider a computer. You can only use a word processor to edit a text. You can only use a merchant's website to order merchandize. But you can use programming languages like C++ or C# to make a computer do virtually anything you want. Similarly, psychology is not enough anymore for politicians, mass media, and large businesses. Preinstalled programs in human minds, such as widely accepted social norms, habits, and prejudices, are not enough for them to exploit anymore. They want to make you do virtually anything they want you to do.

Do you want to defend yourself?

Mind viruses are not biological viruses like influenza, but pieces of information or ideas that, once they get into our minds, are capable of causing us to replicate them to other people's minds. They are very much like computer viruses, but instead of spreading from one computer to another, they spread from one human mind to another. They are also similar to the usual biological viruses (flu, cold, hepatitis, AIDS) in the sense that they use us to replicate themselves. And just like biological and computer viruses, they usually hurt the host in the process. This host is you.

Mind viruses force your mind to replicate them, because that's the only purpose of their existence. If it hurts you, the virus does not care, as long as you continue to replicate it.

As such, they compete with each other for the place in human minds, like yours. This competition results in a sort of evolution where only those mind viruses survive that are most efficient in grabbing your attention and forcing you to spread them. In doing so, they have no concern for your well-being. They don't have a reason to be relevant to your life and wellness. In fact, one of their main goals is to impair your judgment, because otherwise, why would you spread them?

The very existence of mind viruses is based on their ability to impair your judgment, which you need for your own survival and success.

And once they take over, they are forcing you to spread them. This means that you spend cycles in your life spreading the virus instead of working on improving your own life … or just merely enjoying your own life. In fact,

Enjoying your life is something that mind viruses attack first, because the promise of enjoying your life in the future is one of the most efficient ways to force you into replicating them.

As you can guess, the future reward never comes.

Long story short, mind viruses can:

• Impair your judgment;
• Make you act against your own interests;
• Prevent your success in life;
• Prevent you from enjoying your life.

Don't believe it? Read on… ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Practical information
This is a really nice, straight-to-the-point breakdown of what memes are, how they are used, how they affect you, and how to use them. I've been experimenting with trance states, meditation, nlp, and classical hypnosis for a few years and this short book has done more for me than anything else I've read.I've been fed up with long-winded nonsense and this book was the answer to my prayers. There was a small amount of biblical reference I could have done without, though, it they were relevant examples, I guess.Bottom line, this book is pure substance, No fluff.

Real good!
I like books of this author. They are fun to read, but this one also was an eye opener. I never thought about a human mind as sort of a computer, programmable with what we see, hear or read, but once I read the book, it makes a lot of sense.

For example, We all know that hamburgers and french fries are bad for us. But imagine that you read first time in your life some good book, which describes what a hamburger does to your body with all this glycemic index, insulin resistance and turning your genes into a store-fat mode? That's sort of what _this_ book shows you about watching TV. For a couple of weeks after reading this book I could not help but count hooks, which the authors used in every political show or commercial ad I saw. And it's more than that. I really tried to use techniques from this book at work, and in a couple of months my idea was adopted and the way to go for the whole team. Something that does not normally happen unless you are a boss or an architect.

On a minus side, some examples closer to the end are somewhat hard to follow, but overall it's a very good read. A must-read, if you want ot keep you head bugs-free (and use bugs in the heads of others instead of being annoyed like hell with them). ... Read more

Book Description
From the boardrooms of big business to the streets of the inner city, from the south side of Chicago to apartheid South Africa, Dr. Don Beck has taught people at all levels how to stop clashing and start communicating. His method is called Spiral Dynamics Integral—a revolutionary new way of perceiving human nature that lets us understand, predict, and resolve even the most difficult conflicts. In his effort to "map the genome" of the mind, Dr. Beck has created a tool he calls the Spiral, which charts the underlying reasons for virtually everything that human beings think, believe, and do. "Breaking down the 'complexity codes' that lie at the heart of a problem," he explains, "is the first step toward coming up with a real, lasting solution." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Most accessible exploration of Spiral Dynamics
This is the most accessible exploration of this profoundly important developmental theory. If you've always wondered what Spiral Dynamics is or how to use it, get this 6 CD set.

The Continuing Development of Spiral Dynamics
The speed of personal and societal change can seem bewildering, and there have been many attempts to try and make sense of what is going on in the world.

Spiral Dynamics is one very interesting model that was originally developed by the psychologist Clare W. Graves. He was a friend and colleague of Abraham Maslow, who had developed the well-known Hierarchy of Needs, ascending from basic biological needs to the more complex psychological motivations - belongingness, esteem, cognitive, esthetic and self-actualizing - once the basic needs have been satisfied. In Maslow's scheme, the needs at each level need to be at least partially satisfied before the needs of the next level start to determine action. But Graves' research lead him to believe that there were levels beyond self-actualization, and that different people achieved different kinds of development at different times in their lives. Over the last 30 years, Spiral Dynamics has been developing in a number of new directions. Ken Wilber has been working with Don Beck and has incorporated many of the ideas into his Integral Psychology, and I have recently shown how some of the ideas are immensely helpful in the field of health and wellness.

One of the important concepts of Spiral Dynamics is the meme. The word meme was first introduced by the Oxford University biologist Richard Dawkins, who used the word to mean things that are transmitted or broadcast through culture. Good examples would be songs, ideas or fashions in clothes, which are quickly disseminated through a culture, rather like a virus spreads around a population. These are now called "little memes." Spiral Dynamics takes a broader view. Each level of development is represented on a spiral and is called a "Value Meme" (vMeme), which expresses itself through the "little memes."You will normally see "vMeme" abbreviated to Meme, with a capital "M" to distinguish it from the "little memes." Each Meme is a code, or a system of information. Weare each composites of memetic levels.

I was very interested to hear what Don Beck - one of the most important figures in the development of Spiral Dynamics, and heir apparent to Clare Graves - had to say about the current state of the model. There is one thing that marks out Spiral Dynamics from many other models: it has been successfully applied in some very difficult situations around the world, most famously in the post-Apartheid era in South Africa.

On the first CD, which Don has entitled The Dance of the Double Helix: How Humans Emerge, he begins with a broad overview, which includes a recoding of Clare Graves himself. For people not familiar with Spiral Dynamics, it might be necessary to go back and listen to the first CD again later: he uses a small number of terms without defining them.

On the second CD - The Codes by Which We Live -Don Beck provides a lucid description of the first six developmental levels. This is the clearest description that I've ever heard or read.

The third CD - The Leap into Second Tier - discusses a quantum jump in consciousness and the emergence of new moral codes and ways of thinking and behaving that promise t revolutionize the world around us.

On CD Four - The Dynamics of Leadership - Don gets very practical, in applying the model to leadership, natural organizations and the importance of understanding that people and organizations often have multiple bottom lines.

The Fifth CD - The Many Dimensions of Change - is the most dense of all of them in terms of concepts: Don discusses the phenomena of human emergence, the eight change variations, and the three components of change. His discussion of alpha fit, beta condition, gamma trap and delta surge is terrific for anyone who has ever tried to negotiate changes in relationships or in organizations.

Finally, CD Six - Stitching Together Our Wounded World - is a series of very practical lessons in how Spiral Dynamics can and has been used, and some pointers for the future.

These CDs are well produced and come with a small booklet and color chart. All the materials are of the same high quality that we have come to associate with Sounds True who produced and published the CDs.

If you are a complete beginner in the field of Spiral Dynamics, these CDs are sure to get you oriented very quickly, and you should be able to see how the theory applies in your life. The booklet contains some precise questions for helping you map your vMemes. It can be immensely helpful to do this exercise with people with whom you are in relationship. If you are already familiar with some of the concepts of Spiral Dynamics, you will likely still find some interesting material and a stimulating discussion. You may want to use the CDs to flesh out you understanding, before going on to the book Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan.

Whichever group you are in - beginner or more advanced student, you may well need to listen to some parts of the CDs more than once.

Highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description

Memetic algorithms are evolutionary algorithms that apply a local search process to refine solutions to hard problems. Memetic algorithms are the subject of intense scientific research and have been successfully applied to a multitude of real-world problems ranging from the construction of optimal university exam timetables, to the prediction of protein structures and the optimal design of space-craft trajectories. This monograph presents a rich state-of-the-art gallery of works on memetic algorithms. Recent Advances in Memetic Algorithms is the first book that focuses on this technology as the central topical matter. This book gives a coherent, integrated view on both good practice examples and new trends including a concise and self-contained introduction to memetic algorithms. It is a necessary read for postgraduate students and researchers interested in recent advances in search and optimization technologies based on memetic algorithms, but can also be used as complement to undergraduate textbooks on artificial intelligence.

Book Description
This digital document is an article from American Journal of Applied Sciences, published by Thomson Gale on May 1, 2007. The length of the article is 3124 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: Key words: Project management, Petrinet, memetic algorithm, resource leveling

Citation Details
Title: Resource Leveling using Petrinet and Memetic approach.(Report)
Author: K. Raja
Publication: American Journal of Applied Sciences (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 4Issue: 5Page: 317(6)

Article Type: Report

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Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from European Journal of Operational Research, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
We address the automatic generation of timetables for non-commercial sport leagues. By example of table-tennis we stress the particularity of non-commercial leagues, namely the limited access to sport facilities and temporary non-availability of sportsmen. For this problem class we propose a Memetic Algorithm backed by a constraint propagation based heuristic. The order of variable instantiation for this heuristic is evolved adaptively by means of a co-evolutionary approach. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from Computers and Operations Research, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
A new problem encoding is devised for the minimum span frequency assignment problem in wireless communications networks which is compact and general. Using the new encoding, which reduces search space dramatically over previous problem encodings, an optimization algorithm is developed which combines a genetic algorithm global search with a computationally efficient local search method from the literature. This memetic algorithm is shown to be more effective than six previous approaches in the literature on a suite of established test problems. Further, it shown that the integration of the global search with the local search is important; neither component by itself is nearly as effective. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from Computers and Operations Research, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
A new metaheuristic for (combinatorial) optimization is presented: memetic algorithms with population management or MA|PM. An MA|PM is a memetic algorithm, that combines local search and crossover operators, but its main distinguishing feature is the use of distance measures for population management. Population management strategies can be developed to dynamically control the diversity of a small population of high-quality individuals, thereby avoiding slow or premature convergence, and achieve excellent performance on hard combinatorial optimization problems. The new algorithm is tested on two problems: the multidimensional knapsack problem and the weighted tardiness single-machine scheduling problem. On both problems, population management is shown to be able to improve the performance of a similar memetic algorithm without population management. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Computer Science & Technology, published by Thomson Gale on December 1, 2005. The length of the article is 8208 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Cellular memetic algorithms.
Author: Enrique Alba
Publication: Journal of Computer Science & Technology (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 5Issue: 4Page: 257(7)

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, published by International Society for General Semantics on March 22, 1998. The length of the article is 1159 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: The field of general semantics might be given a boost by being related to the emerging discipline of memetics. The concept of memes or ideas provides an additional and satisfying nomenclature for expanding one's thoughts on general semantics and one's awareness of some of the mechanisms involved in human interactions. A combination of the notions involved in memetics or the science of memes as well as general semantics would constitute a powerful tool to explore human relationships in relation to communication.

Citation Details
Title: General semantics and memetics: a tentative relationship?
Author: Robert G. Grimes
Publication: ETC.: A Review of General Semantics (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 1998
Publisher: International Society for General Semantics
Volume: v55Issue: n1Page: p30(4)

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from Variaciones Borges, published by Thomson Gale on July 1, 2005. The length of the article is 6688 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Borges and memetics: the immortality of ideas.(Jorge Luis Borges )(Critical Essay)
Author: Ricardo Waizbort
Publication: Variaciones Borges (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 20Page: 125(18)

Article Type: Critical Essay

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Book Description
The modern freight carrier business requires a sophisticated automatic decision support in order to ensure the efficiency and reliability and therefore the survival of transport service providers. This book addresses these challenges and provides generic decision models for the short-term operations planning as well as advanced metaheuristics to obtain efficient operation plans. After a thorough analysis of the operations planning in the freight carrier business, decision models are derived. Their suitability is proven within a large number of numerical experiments, in which a new class of hybrid genetic search approaches demonstrate their appropriateness. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Skeptical Inquirer, published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2007. The length of the article is 1168 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The trouble with memetics.(THINKING ABOUT SCIENCE)
Author: Massimo Pigliucci
Publication: Skeptical Inquirer (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 31Issue: 5Page: 23(2)

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Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from European Journal of Operational Research, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The Service Allocation Problem (SAP) is a tactical problem arising in the yard management of a container transshipment terminal. The objective is the minimization of the container rehandling operations inside the yard. This study of the SAP was undertaken for the Gioia Tauro port which is located in Italy and is the main hub terminal for container traffic in the Mediterranean Sea. The SAP can be formulated as a Generalized Quadratic Assignment Problem (GQAP) with side constraints. Two mixed integer linear programming formulations are presented. The first one exploits characteristics of the yard layout at Gioia Tauro where the berth and the corresponding yard positions extend along a line. The second formulation is an adaptation of a linearization for the GQAP. In both cases only small instances can be solved optimally. An evolutionary heuristic was therefore developed. For small size instances the heuristic always yields optimal solutions. For larger sizes it is always better than a truncated branch-and-bound algorithm applied to the exact formulations. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from European Journal of Operational Research, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The capacitated arc routing problem (CARP) involves the routing of vehicles to treat a set of arcs in a network. In many applications, the trips must be planned over a multiperiod horizon, giving a new problem called periodic CARP (PCARP). The paper describes several versions encountered in practice and suggests a simple classification, enabling the definition of a very general PCARP. For instance, the demand for each arc treatment may depend on the period or on the date of the previous visit. The proposed solution method is a memetic algorithm based on a sophisticated crossover, able to simultaneously change tactical (planning) decisions, such as the treatment days of each arc, and operational (scheduling) decisions, such as the trips performed for each day. Two versions are appraised on two sets of PCARP instances derived from standard CARP files. The results show significant savings compared to one insertion heuristic and a more elaborate two-phase method. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from Computers and Operations Research, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This paper presents a linear formulation, valid inequalities, and a lower bounding procedure for the mixed capacitated arc routing problem (MCARP). Moreover, three constructive heuristics and a memetic algorithm are described. Lower and upper bounds have been compared on two sets of randomly generated instances. Computational results show that the average gaps between lower and upper bounds are 0.51% and 0.33%, respectively. ... Read more

Amazon.com
In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins proposed the concept of the meme as a unit of culture, spread by imitation. Now Dawkins himself says of Susan Blackmore:

Showing greater courage and intellectual chutzpah than I have ever aspired to, she deploys her memetic forces in a brave--do not think foolhardy until you have read it--assault on the deepest questions of all: What is a self? What am I? Where am I? ... Any theory deserves to be given its best shot, and that is what Susan Blackmore has given the theory of the meme.

Blackmore is a parapsychologist who rejects the paranormal, a skeptical investigator of near-death experiences, and a practitioner of Zen. Her explanation of the science of the meme (memetics) is rigorously Darwinian. Because she is a careful thinker (though by no means dull or conventional), the reader ends up with a good idea of what memetics explains well and what it doesn't, and with many ideas about how it can be tested--the very hallmark of an excellent science book. Blackmore's discussion of the "memeplexes" of religion and of the self are sure to be controversial, but she is (as Dawkins says) enormously honest and brave to make a connection between scientific ideas and how one should live one's life. --Mary Ellen Curtin Book Description
'Any theory deserves to be given its best shot, and that is what Susan Blackmore has given the theory of the memeI am delighted to recommend her book.' Richard Dawkins Humans are extraordinary creatures, with the unique ability among animals to imitate and so copy from one another ideas, habits, skills, behaviours, inventions, songs, and stories. These are all memes, a term first coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. Memes, like genes, are replicators, and this enthralling book is an investigation of whether this link between genes and memes can lead to important discoveries about the nature of the inner self. Confronting the deepest questions about our inner selves, with all our emotions, memories, beliefs, and decisions, Susan Blackmore makes a compelling case for the theory that the inner self is merely an illusion created by the memes for the sake of replication. 'Anyone who hopesDSor fearsDS that memetics will become a science of culture will find this surefooted exploration of the prospects a major eye-opener.' Daniel Dennett ... Read more

Customer Reviews (86)

From the Oxford University Press Editor
The following elucidation of her text, copied from the back cover- does much to reveal the content of Dr. Blackmore's insightful and often controversial insights into the perspective of life from the view of memes. What it fails to portray are Dr. Blackmore's total reversal of every aspect of human life, viewed not from the everyday perspective, but from that of the self-replicating selfish "mental" gene, the Meme.

Humans are extraordinary creatures, with the uniques ability to imitate, and so to copy from one another ideas, habitats, skills, behaviours, inventions, songs, and stories. These are all memes, a term first coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene." Memes, like genes, are replicators, competing to find space in our minds and cultures, and this enthralling book investigates the consequences. Confronting the deepest questions, from why humans have such a big brains and language, to altruism, sex and the Internet. Susan Blackmore makes a compelling case for the theory that even our inner conscious self and our sense of free will are illusions created by the memes for the sake of their own replication.

Copied from the text by: Bryan McGilly

clear and interesting, but...
I just finished the book and think it is a clear and interesting introduction on the subject. On the other hand I felt it was rushing into too many generalizations and the arguments on science vs. religion sounded quite empty.

The Meme Machine
This book was just plain fun to read and has given me new insights into why people push there points of view even when you wish they would not bother you with them. Reading this book has brought an increased sense of humor to my experience in relationships with people where discussion about religion are concerned. My tolerance for meme campaingns has increased, and I feel better able to accept my own "meme" infections. While this is a relatively serious topic, it is also a fun one. After reading the book, I am aware that I too am pushing my own meme preferences in sublties, and am able to laugh about it when I catch me doing it.better, I am doing it less and less. My daughter is a mom with a little daughter, and we laugh and play with the memes we are passing along to her. Some "memeing" is useful enough, and supports having a quality life experience. Reading this book has opened my eyes to why I got caught up in certain beliefs that were without practical applicatons in my life. It explained to me why belief agenda's get promoted and why I bought into some of them unwittingly. I jokingly refer to replicators, and meme fountains in causual converstaions now with others who have read the material. I feel better able to choose my loyalty to certain meme complexes now. I can stop the insanity of participating with the subtle control that can happen in a society where people don't ask why. And, I am having a lot more fun dealing with the meme fountains in life experience now~ including dealing with those who push their invasive and distructive memes unmercifully onto others who are innocent and unaware of the affects it will have on them to remain passive. If you want to wake up and smell the roses on purpose, read this book~

An aid to understanding thought contagion
Blakemore's book endeavors towards two goals:

1)A recapping of the origins of meme theory...which she does exceedingly well and

2)Humble suggestions on the place of memes in consciousness...where she seems to stumble.

In relation to her first goal, Blakemore admirably retraces the work of the likes of Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennett.For his part, Dawkins coined the term "meme" in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene" wherein he described meme as a process or idea subject to replication.The song "Happy Birthday" for example would be a meme.Dennett built on Dawkins work by saying in his 1991 book "Consciousness Explained" that consciousness is a combination of in built human cognitive systems (like our innate understanding of physics or our ability to acquire language) along with memes.

Blakemore also recapped Dennett's later book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" for his tower of states of consciousness, viz. a first level occupied by Darwinian creatures who have to produce a new generation in order to acquire new abilities, a second and higher level occupied by Skinnerian creatures that can acquire new abilities inter vivos but only through operant conditioning, a third and still higher level occupied by Popperian creatures -- for Karl Popper -- capable of abstract reasoning to acquire new abilities and a final highest level occupied by Gregorian creatures that can pick up additional abilities by means of culture or memes.

Building on these earlier thinkers Blakemore asserts that meme theory in and of itself can explain everything from temporary fads like the tulip craze bemoaned by Charles Mackey in his 1841 book on the Madness of Crowds to religion itself.

The mechanism by which Blakemore posits the transmission of memes is one of virture wherein superiorly altruistic memes will oust those previously occupied by more selfish memes.Her thinking is that the vehicles of meme transmission, us, will be more favorably disposed to ideas disseminated by people who have been nice to us than by those who haven't.

To the extent Blakemore ventures out on her own, I would part company with her.

Understanding any aspect, let alone persuasion of others, of human behavior is tricky business.And while Blakemore would posit a subtle arithematic to human behavior the truth probably lies closer to a delicate calculus.

As she herself indicated in her book, understanding consciousness is probably best begun with an understanding of first principles, namely that that subset of evolution relating to human behavior is but a special case for the general rules bearing on behvaioral evolution generally.

In other words, human consciousness is not different in kind but rather merely in degree from animal consciousness generally.

As shown by evolution, animals with motility will have to have both the ability to differentiate between themselves and their environment as well as discriminate the ingredients of their environment between potential areas of sustance and potential areas of threat.And so, the seemingly nettlesome questions of consciousness kind of answer themselves.

A sense of "I" exists because it evolutionary has to and the likes and dislikes of "I" (the so called "qualia" question) really amount to a running tally of emotionally encoded learned experiences.

To be sure, that sense of "I" is different for a person than a pidgeon but again, the differences of degree (albeit, in some cases a great degree, rather than kind).

So, to take religion as an example:

1)From pidgeons to humans, it's an aspect of cognitive perception to allow for false connections or superstitions to arise.And so, the difference between a pidgeon dancing around a machine to obtain randomly produced pellets is not that different from a person performing an elablorate ritual prior to gambling.

2)In the case of humans, theory of mind works powerfully to over ascribe personality.And so, the gambler makes his petitions not to chance but to Lady Luck personified.

3)Because, as noted by Dennett, we have in built cognitive systems, those systems can be decieved from time to time in remembering certain types of knowledge in preference to others.And so, while most English verbs use "ed" as past tense, the special case, commonly used verbs have irregular endings to promote their specialized recognition and recall.In the same way, we remember novel creatures over others.And so, Lady Luck is just like any woman but if pleased can grant you unlimited fortune.

4)Humans also respect strategic knowledge.From evolution in an environment where an extended knowledge of strategic relationships was helpful, we are capable of understanding metarepresentational interactions up to the sixth level.What I think that you may know about what someone else believes that somone else said is not a meaningless sentence.This quality fires our mythologies just as certainly as our soap operas.If we could experience an alligator religion or soap opera, I think we'd be bored.

5)Again, as noted by Blakemore, game theory gives us a sense of the outer contours of religious belief.In this regard, the recent Jeffrey Moses book "Oneness" which is a verbatim repetition of religious principles from around the world shows that the similarities in the main statements of religions around the world (e.g. all of them have a "golden rule," advice to respect elders, educate children and the like) shows that all human religions have made basically the same types of prescriptions and prohibitions.

6)And powerfully, finally a sense of group membership.Are you or are you not one of us?

As can be seen, though the exchange of ideas operates in each of the six domains (and there are certainly others in some cases) the interplay of those ideas varies in individual cases.In this way, while why humans religiously ideate is certainly a question of history and society it's also a question of individual psychology.

Like choas theory operates to produce no two snowflakes that look alike so again no two personal histories are the same respecting their religious ideation.

In other words, while Blakemore's provides some helpful aid in understanding memes and their place in thought contagion, the ultimate answer is certainly much more complicated than her impressions would suggest not only on religious ideation but as to the other examples of meme transmission she discussed.

Before closing, it's noteworth that there's a definate Daoist feel to her last chapter wherein she renders her advice for taking the "I" out of your consciousness.Though she didn't intend it, it certainly does provide some interesting food for thought as to why attempts at Daoist living have such a...well...Daoist feel to them.

Really Fun!
I won't try to describe the book's content as several excellent reviews below have done. I just want to add that this book is one hell of a read. It's great fun and will stretch your mind (if there's really a "you" in there - see the book for more on this). I could barely put it down. Memes were definitely transferred! ... Read more

Amazon.com
Why do certain ideas become popular? The naive view is that it's because they're true, or at least justified. This fascinating book, influenced by evolutionary biology and epidemiology, is the first full-scale examination of some of the other reasons. Consider Aaron Lynch's example of optimism--it may not be true or warranted, but it tends to prevail because optimists tend to have more children to pass along their outlook to. Sometimes, Lynch points out, there is a paradoxical but predictable expansion-contraction pattern to the social spread of ideas. If nothing else, lobbyists need to look into this stuff to see which side their bread is really buttered on. Warning: this book is densely written. But it's worth the wade.Book Description
Fans of Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Bennet, and Richard Dawkins (as well as science buffs and readers of Wired Magazine) will revel in Aaron Lynch's groundbreaking examination of memetics-the new study of how ideas and beliefs spread. What characterizes a meme is its capacity for displacing rival ideas and beliefs in an evolutionary drama that determines and changes the way people think. Exactly how do ideas spread, and what are the factors that make them genuine thought contagions? Why, for instance, do some beliefs spread throughout society, while others dwindle to extinction? What drives those intensely held beliefs that spawn ideological and political debates such as views on abortion and opinions about sex and sexuality? By drawing on examples from everyday life, Lynch develops a conceptual basis for understanding memetics. Memes evolve by natural selection in a process similar to that of Genes in evolutionary biology. What makes an idea a potent meme is how effectively it out-propagates other ideas. In memetic evolution, the "fittest ideas" are not always the truest or the most helpful, but the ones best at self replication. Thus, crash diets spread not because of lasting benefit, but by alternating episodes of dramatic weight loss and slow regain. Each sudden thinning provokes onlookers to ask, "How did you do it?" thereby manipulating them to experiment with the diet and in turn, spread it again. The faster the pounds return, the more often these people enter that disseminating phase, all of which favors outbreaks of the most pathogenic diets. Like a software virus traveling on the Internet or a flu strain passing through a city, thought contagions proliferate by programming for their own propagation. Lynch argues that certain beliefs spread like viruses and evolve like microbes, as mutant strains vie for more adherents and more hosts. In its most revolutionary aspect, memetics asks not how people accumulate ideas, but how ideas accumulate people. Readers of this intriguing theory will be amazed to discover that many popular beliefs about family, sex, politics, religion, health, and war have succeeded by their "fitness" as thought contagions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Profoundly thought provoking
This book is a rare gem, providing the general reader with an interesting and valuble way of looking at the sometimes mysterious cults of popularity that many ideas including religions, taboos and politics engender. This is not a scholarly work (although it is based on substantial research) but a more of an introduction for the lay person to memetics.

I first read it when it first came out about 10 years ago, and likeEric K. Drexler's "Engines of Creation" it has kept echoing in my mind ever since.

Banal and trite - look at Goffman's work for the real thing
This book is a poor exposition of a poor theory. The idea of a viral analogue for ideas spreading is not that profound (it's a kind of lightweight analogy that fails to identify the nature of the host, the nature of the contagion, the nature of the conversion etc). If you want to read the best account of the standard Meme theory, then read Dawkin's Selfish Gene.

However, rather than that you might want to go back to a genuine mathematical epidemic model for the spread of beliefs. This was put forward by Goffman et in 1967-71 in a series of papers in Nature and other journals, analysing the spread of symbolic logic through Europe in the 19th century - these are very interesting to read in and of themselves, but also show why the Meme theory is insufficient in and of itself. Refs are

GOFFMAN, W., and NEWILL, V.A. Communication and epidemic processes. Proc. Royal Soc. A 298 (May 1967), pp316-334.

GOFFMAN, W. Mathematical approach to the spread of scientific ideas. Nature. 212 (Oct. 1966), pp449-452

GOFFMAN, W. A Mathematical Method for Analyzing the Growth of a Scientific Discipline (JACM 18(2) April 1971 pp12-28

GOFFMAN, W., & HARMON, G. Mathematical approach to the prediction of scientific discovery. Nature, 229, 1971 103-104.

GOFFMAN, W., & WARREN, K. S. Scientific information systems and the principle of selectivity (pp. 22-25). New York, NY: Praeger Publishers. 1980

GOFFMAN, W., & KATZ, M. J. Performance of ontogenetic patterns. Philosophy of Science, 48, 1981 438-453.

There is also a use of the system to examine the spread of the APL mathematical programming language in J. C. Rault and G. Demars - Is APL epidemic? or a study of its growth through an extended bibliography in the Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on APL 1972 pp1-21 1972, which revisits the idea with 400 references drawn from the literature

60 years out of date
When sociobiologists finally conceded that reductionalism could not quite be explained by genes, they had found a new holy ground with people like Lynch and Dawkins.The problem here is that what Lynch advocates is at least 60 years out of date.Cultural ecology, particularly, has moved much beyond garbage written in this pseudo-scientific book.Instead of evidence, we are given conjecture.What is worse is that this conjecture simply does not stand against the HRAF (Human Resource Area Files), an anthropological database of cultures.What Lynch presents as truths, is not found in the HRAF.His explanations DIRECTLY challenge 200 years of anthropology.His examples are terrible.Consider:

Memes that are against birth control "offer the clearest examples of the quantity parental effect. By raising extra babies, followers of these memes can outpopulate nonhosts across various times and places"

Roy Rappaport, as well as Marvin Harris would groan.Population control is likely as old as humans.Anyone even slightly familiar with Cultural Ecology knows that human populations of horticulturalists and hunter/gatherers go well below the carrying capacity.Although there are explanations for this, such as cyclical starvation, or the simple fact often raised that higher population would mean more work, they go _against_ Lynch's argument.Widespread infanticide and other methods of birth control are plentiful in the HRAF.It is true that humans could perform the rabbit strategy, but they DO NOT, which is a slap in the face to everything memes try to explain.

OR, consider: "Laws against eating shellfish, pork, and other parasite-laden animals may reduce morality rates, thus propagating the movement."

Marvin Harris who did earlier research actually went to the ethnographic databases to see HOW actual cultures behave.Result: pig taboos occurred in places where they competed with humans for food.Or consider cows, another parasite-laden animal, which cannot be eaten in places like India.After lengthy analysis, supported by QUANTIFIABLE data, the economics of eating cows just wouldn't make sense.Yet ANOTHER slap in the face for Lynch.

Lynch showcases problems of not only memes, but also of reductionalist neo-Darwinism.Its results continue to be unimpressive and unscientific to the extreme.

I recommend reading cultural ecologists; Marvin Harris, in particular, is a good place to start.

There's no such thing as a meme
A sack of conjecture clothed as science.

For example - optimistic people have more children leading to greater propagation of the 'optimistic personality meme' (p71). Interesting! In addition, one must hope that the development of a science of memetics can lead to the quantification of how much optimism 'reality warrants'. Thanks to the optimism meme we're all happier than we should be.

It should not be forgotten that the 'meme' is merely a vaguely defined, hypothetical element of social transmission; let's not get carried away. I bet Richard Dawkins wishes he'd never bothered coining the term. It just provides science fiction fans the opportunity to 'understand' culture.

Robert Aungur's 'The Electric Meme' demonstrates a more credible effort to grasp this rather strange notion.

Apparently, if you hold a seashell to your ear it's memes you can hear - not the sea (Anon,2003).

Insightful and Quick!
Of course Mister Lynch offers mostly superficial coverage to this all-encompassingtopic. To do more would have required a thousand-page tome that would have gone beyond the average reader's interest and comprehension.
As it is, he has expresssed an uncanny ability to see the true nature of what drives the realm of ideas and opinions, that causes some to replicate in such a way as to give the appearance of contagions. A clear message makes itself available to the astute reader, that beliefs and ideas that feel comfortable are most likely to be the ones that prove harmful--kind of like the way that good-tasting food is the kind your doctor eventually makes you avoid if you want to go on living. The bland, the ugly, that kind that takes a little work to chew, is the kind that ends up being the good stuff.
Mister Lynch wisely (I thought) left the implications of memetics for future resolution. His insights into the gaming nature of what drives the spread of ideas are what make this book a definitely worthwhile read, and a step to take before going after the deep stuff offered by other authors. ... Read more