Top Susan Blackmore Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Susan Blackmore Biography

Susan Blackmore

Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July 1951) is a British writer, lecturer, sceptic, broadcaster, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth, in Plymouth. Her fields of research include memes, evolutionary theory, psychology, parapsychology, consciousness, and she is best known for her book The Meme Machine. She has written or contributed to over 40 books and 60 scholarly articles and is a contributor to The Guardian newspaper.

Read about Susan Blackmore in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Susan Blackmore Quotes

Free will and consciousness is an illusion, and the self is a complex of memes.

Complex, Consciousness, Free Will, Illusion, Self

You start by copying other people's paintings or music or whatever. You get all of those skills before you branch out. Really creative people have a fantastic ability to copy things and then combine them in new ways. And whether we're talking about genes or memes, recombination is the real heart of creativity.

Creativity, Heart, Paintings, Real

If you found a mammal with feathers, then you'd know that Darwin was wrong. Well, it's rather the same with memes.

Darwin, Feathers, Found, Mammals, Memes, Wrong

Just as the design of our bodies can be understood only in terms of natural selection, so the design of our minds can be understood only in terms of memetic selection.

Body, Design, Mind, Minds, Understood

All things considered, I can see no reason to adopt the afterlife hypothesis. I am sure I shall remain in a minority for a long time to come, especially among experiencers, but for me the evidence and the arguments are overwhelming. . . We are biological organisms, evolved in fascinating ways for no purpose at all and with no end in mind. We are simply here and this is how it is. I have no self and "I" own nothing. There is no one to die. There is just this moment, and now this, and now this.

Adopt, Afterlife, Long, Overwhelming, Self, Time

Parapsychology seems to be growing further away from the progress and excitement of the rest of consciousness studies.

Consciousness, Growing, Parapsychology, Progress, Study

All other species on this planet are gene machines only. They don't imitate at all well; we alone are gene machines and meme machines as well.

Alone, Inspiration, Machines, Motivation, Planet, Species

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?

Brain, Brains, Home, Homes, World

Finally, we might decide that civilisation itself is worth preserving. In that case we have to work out what to save and which people would be needed in a drastically reduced population - weighing the value of scientists and musicians against that of politicians, for example. . .

Civilisation, Drastically, Example, Musician, People, Work Out

Take male strategies for success in the world. If you've got all the advantages, if you're attractive and clever and all of that, you will generally go for very high quality females.

Attractive, Clever, High, Males, Quality, World

Memetics provides a new approach to the evolution of language in which we apply Darwinian thinking to two replicators, not one. On this theory, memetic selection, as well as genetic selection, does the work of creating language.

Apply, Creating, Replicators, Thinking, Two

The sale of sex in modern societies is not about spreading genes. Sex has been taken over by the memes.

Genes, Modern, Sale, Sex, Taken

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they think about memes is they try to extend on the analogy with genes. That's not how it works. It works by realizing the concept of a replicator.

Extend, Genes, Mistake, People, Think, Thinking