Initially, little attention was paid to the theory surrounding memes . It was the philosopher Daniel Dennett who, with his book 'Darwin's Dangerous Idea' (1995), laid the foundation for a completely new science, called memetics . In his book, Dennett shows that Darwin's logic can be translated into an all-encompassing algorithm that applies to any system. If there is 'something' that is copied with variation and that 'something' is selected, then design must emerge from nothing. Universal Darwinism is, according to Dennett, "a scheme for creating Design out of Chaos without the aid of Mind" .
Susan Blackmore is one of the great pioneers of this science. With her book 'The Meme Machine' (1999) she put this new science on the map once and for all. In the foreword of her book, written by Richard Dawkins himself, Dawkins writes that he never envisioned that imitation is so important:
“But is it really credible that imitation could become the basis of a major theory of nepal phone number list the evolution of the human mind and the explosive inflation of the human brain, even of what it means to be a conscious self? Could imitation have been the key to what set our ancestors apart from all other animals?”
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Genes, memes and terms
In her story, Blackmore takes us back in time. Deep into prehistoric times, to the point where humans invented language. About 50,000 years ago, humans began to communicate with each other by exchanging sounds. This was the starting signal for an arms race between genes and memes. Genes fought for a small economic brain. Memes parasitized the human brain and advocated for an ever larger brain in order to be able to copy themselves. Or as Dennett puts it “It is ideas that hijack our brains” . Instead of wiping out humans, the meme parasite entered into a symbiotic relationship with its vehicle. In this way, humans became both a gene machine and a meme machine. According to Blackmore, the fact that humans are saddled with a larger brain is a direct result of this battle.