快猫短视频

HOLD out your arm in front of you. Whenever you feel like it, of your own
free will, flex your wrist. Repeat this a few times, making sure you do it as
consciously as you can. You鈥檒l probably experience some kind of decision
process, in which you hold back from doing anything and then decide to act. Now
ask yourself, what began the process that led to the action? Was it you?

Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet of the University of California in San
Francisco asked volunteers to do exactly that. A clock allowed the subjects to
note exactly when they decided to act, and by fitting electrodes to their
wrists, Libet could time the start of the action. More electrodes on their
scalps recorded a particular brain wave pattern called the readiness potential,
which occurs just before any complex action and is associated with the brain
planning its next move.

Libet鈥檚 controversial finding was that the decision to act came after the
readiness potential. It looks as though there is no conscious 鈥渟elf鈥� jumping
into the synapses and starting things off.

This and other research has led me to believe that the idea of 鈥渟elf鈥� is an
illusion. You are nothing more than a creation of genes and memes in a unique
environment. Memes are ideas, skills, habits, stories, songs or inventions that
are passed from person to person by imitation. They have shaped our minds,
leading to the evolution of big brains and language because these served to
spread the memes. But the memes with the cleverest trick are those that persuade
us that our 鈥渟elves鈥� really exist. We all live our lives as a lie. The memes
have made us do it鈥攂ecause giving us the illusion of 鈥渟elf鈥� helps them to
survive and spread.

The term meme was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book,
The Selfish Gene, which explored the principles of Darwinism. Charles
Darwin鈥檚 insight is simple, yet often misunderstood. It is this. If organisms
vary, if only some of them can survive, and if whatever helped them survive is
passed to their offspring, then the offspring will be better adapted than their
parents were. In this way the organisms become designed, by the blind processes
of copying and selection, for the environment in which they live. As Dawkins
puts it, if you have variation, selection and heredity, then you must have
evolution.

Darwin did not have the benefit of our modern concept of an algorithm, nor
our tendency to look at everything from fundamental physical processes to life
itself in terms of information
(see 鈥淚 is the law鈥�,快猫短视频, 30 January 1999, p 24).
Yet he saw how this mindless procedure
could produce design without a designer. It was the American philosopher Daniel
Dennett who dubbed the process 鈥渢he evolutionary algorithm鈥�. At its heart is the
information that is copied, or the replicator.

In biological evolution, the replicators are genes, but there is no reason
why there should not be other evolutionary systems, with other replicators. This
was Dawkins鈥檚 point鈥攖hat Darwin鈥檚 insight was too important to confine it
solely to biology鈥攁nd he wanted another example. So he invented the
meme.

Everything you have learnt by copying it from someone else is a meme. This
includes your habit of driving on the left or right, eating beans on toast,
wearing jeans or going on holiday. You would do none of these things if someone
else hadn鈥檛 done them, or something very like them, before you did. Imitation,
unlike other forms of learning, is a kind of copying or replication. Other
animals can be masters of learning, as when squirrels remember their hundreds of
food stores, or cats and dogs build extensive mental maps. But this is learning
by association, or trial and error. Only by imitation are the fruits of the
learning passed on from one animal to the next鈥攁nd humans are unrivalled
when it comes to copying one another.

But are memes replicators? In other words, do they fit into the evolutionary
algorithm of variation, selection and heredity? I say the answer is yes. Memes
are 鈥渋nherited鈥� when we copy someone else鈥檚 action, when we pass on an idea or a
story, when a book is printed, or when a radio programme is broadcast. Memes
vary because human imitation is far from perfect, and the vagaries of memory
mean that every time we retell a story we change some little detail, or forget
some minor point. Finally, there is memetic selection. Think of how many things
you hear in a day, and how few you pass on to anyone else. Think of how many
scientific ideas you have read in this magazine, and how few you will
remember.

To understand what makes a meme successful, let鈥檚 take a 鈥渕eme鈥檚 eye view鈥�.
Imagine a world full of hosts for memes (such as brains), and far more memes
than can possibly find homes. Which memes are likely to find a safe home and get
passed on again? Highly memorable ones should do well, as should useful ones
(such as science, perhaps), and ones that provoke strong emotional reactions.
Those that fit well with our genetic predispositions should succeed鈥攕o
sexy photos get everywhere, and recipes can spread around the world.

Chain letters, like viruses, spread because they include instructions to pass
them on, along with threats or promises. The same can be said of cults and
religions鈥攊ndeed Dawkins calls religions 鈥渧iruses of the mind鈥�. They
succeed because of the tricks they use to persuade us to copy them. If this
sounds as though memes have plans and intentions, remember that the only process
going on is selection. The memes that get copied鈥攆or whatever
reason鈥攕tay with us, the rest die out.

Some people object to the whole idea of memes on the grounds that memes are
not like genes. No, they are not. We cannot pin memes down to a single molecule
of DNA as we can with genes. Memes also vary enormously in the size of their
effective unit, from a few notes to a whole symphony or from a single word to a
whole book. And while genes use the cellular machinery of protein synthesis for
their replication, memes use the human brain as their copying device.

So if we try to draw strict analogies between genes and memes we will be led
astray. The right starting point is not the analogy with genes, but the
principles of Darwinism. From this perspective, a human being is the creation of
two selfish replicators, genes and memes, working together. And once we look at
it this way, some of the mysteries of the human mind begin to fall into
place.

For example, why do we have language, a complex culture and such an enormous
brains? These evolutionary developments did not come cheap. We can speak only
because our neck, mouth and brain have been completely restructured. In
proportion to our body mass, our brain is three times as large as that of our
nearest relatives. This huge organ is dangerous and painful to give birth to,
expensive to build and, in a resting human, uses about 20 per cent of the body鈥檚
energy even though it is just 2 per cent of the body鈥檚 weight. There must be
some reason for all this evolutionary expense.

Coevolution

Early theorists suggested that our bigger-brained ancestors survived because
they were better at hunting or finding food, while more modern theories
emphasise complex social pressures. For example, the Machiavellian intelligence
hypothesis suggests that our ancestors needed a larger brain to deceive others,
detect deception, and remember who had done what to whom
(see 鈥淟iar! Liar!鈥�, 快猫短视频, 14 February 1998, p 22).
According to psychologist Robin
Dunbar of the University of Liverpool, the function of language is gossip, and
gossip is a substitute for grooming for keeping large social groups together.
Other theories emphasise the use of symbols and their importance in
communication.

These theories all have something important in common. They assume that the
ultimate function of the human brain and of language is to serve the genes. If
you are a Darwinian, you might think that this is the only possible answer
because design for a function can only be the result of natural selection
working through genes. Yet that would be to take too narrow a view of Darwinism,
for genes are not necessarily the only replicators. Once you allow the idea that
memes have been coevolving with genes, a new possibility opens up鈥攖hat the
human brain and language evolved not to spread genes, but to spread memes.

It could have worked like this. Members of a species of early hominid
acquired the difficult and rare skill of imitating each other. At first they
imitated things important for survival, such as new ways of carrying food,
hunting or making tools. Since these skills helped them survive, it made sense
for everyone else to imitate the best imitators, and also to try to mate with
them. This meant that genes for being good at imitation spread and, since
imitation is difficult and requires a large brain, brain size increased.

And as early humans became ever more skilful imitators, any meme that was
good at getting itself copied, for whatever reason, would tend to spread. The
practice of copying sounds for communication was one of the more useful memes
for humans. Sound can be used to transfer memes to many people at once. If it
can be grouped into distinct units鈥攁s it is with words鈥攖hen the
copying fidelity is improved, and memes will spread farther and more easily
without being corrupted.

If variations of word order can be copied, then more niches for memes open
up, allowing more memes to spread. As people both imitate, and try to mate with,
the best imitators, the ability to copy complex words in precise orders will be
spread, both memetically and genetically. In other words, by what we might call
鈥渕emetic driving鈥�, the memes put pressure on the genes to create ever better
apparatus for spreading them. This means big brains designed especially for
language.

This process might seem unfamiliar, but in fact something similar occurred
long ago, when genes coevolved with the cellular mechanisms that copy them. In
their new book The Origins of Life, John Maynard-Smith and E枚rs
Szathm谩ry urge us to view life on the largest scale, starting with the
first simple replicating molecules. They describe all the major changes in the
way information is transmitted, copied and stored. The appearance of memes can
be seen as the latest stage in this evolutionary process. It explains the
appearance of a species capable of language and complex culture. We are meme
machines.

What鈥檚 more, this process has not stopped. It is still creating new
meme-copying devices. While human language is a vast system for transmitting
memes with high fidelity, it took the invention of writing to enable memes to be
stored. Now telephones, fax machines, photocopiers, computers and the Internet
all increase the speed and ease of meme-replication. We may think that we
invented all these machines for our own convenience, but once memes got going,
these devices鈥攐r something like them鈥攚ere inevitable. The real
driving force is the evolutionary algorithm. And the real beneficiaries are not
us but the selfish memes.

Just as selfish genes group together for mutual protection, so whenever memes
can propagate better as part of a group than on their own they form co-adapted
meme complexes, or memeplexes. Memeplexes include languages, religions,
scientific theories, political ideologies and belief systems such as acupuncture
or astrology. Like memes, memeplexes spread as long there is some reason for
them to be copied. Some are true or useful, others are copied despite being
false.

These vast memeplexes, with their varied means of propagation, form the very
stuff of our lives. Yet there is one memeplex, perhaps the most powerful of all,
that we readily overlook. That is our own familiar self. Like other animals, we
have a body image鈥攁 plan of our body used for organising sensations and
planning skilled actions. We also have, as some other animals do, the ability to
recognise other individuals and understand that they, too, have desires and
plans. So far so good鈥攂ut now we add the capacity to imitate, the use of
language and the word 鈥淚鈥�.

Heart of the selfplex

At first 鈥淚鈥� may mean just 鈥渢his body鈥�, but soon it begins to change. We say
鈥淚 like ice cream鈥�, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 stand shopping malls鈥�, 鈥淚 want to be famous鈥�, or 鈥淚
believe in Father Christmas鈥�. And the 鈥淚鈥� no longer refers just to a body, but
to some imagined inner self that has intentions, possessions, fears, beliefs and
aspirations.

This 鈥淚鈥� forms the heart of the selfplex. And all the memes in your selfplex
thrive because you work to defend them in arguments, to promote them in
discussions, perhaps even to write about them in books and articles. In this way
these self-related memes succeed where others fail, and so the selfplex
grows.

Once the 鈥渟elf鈥� has begun to form, it meets each new idea it comes across
with 鈥淵es, I agree with this鈥� or 鈥淣o, I don鈥檛 like that鈥�. Although each self is
unique in the body it describes as 鈥渕ine鈥�, and in the ideas it picks up along
the way, those ideas are all memes and the self offers them a safe haven.

I think modern neuroscience makes it clear that the self cannot be what it
appears to be. We may feel as though we have a special little 鈥渕e鈥� inside, who
has sensations and consciousness, who lives my life, and makes my decisions.
Yet, this does not fit with what we know about the brain. Look inside a brain
and what do you see? There is no central place into which all the impressions
come and from where the orders go out. Rather, there is a massive processing
system dealing with numerous things at once, only very few of which ever reach
consciousness.

It may feel as though 鈥渕y鈥� consciousness starts the actions this body
performs, but as Libet鈥檚 experiments showed, conscious awareness takes about
half a second to build up, far too long for it to initiate reactions to a fast
changing world. And the brain is constantly being changed by everything that
happens to it, so that 鈥淚鈥� am not the same as I was ten years, or even a few
moments, ago.

There is a long and venerable tradition of thinkers who have rejected the
idea of a real and persistent self. The Buddha proclaimed that actions and their
consequences exist, but that the person who acts does not. According to the
Buddhist doctrine of anatta, the self is more like an ever-changing
construction than a solid entity. The 18th-century philosopher David Hume
likened the self to a bundle of sensations tied together by a common
history.

Using more contemporary metaphors, Dennett argues that the brain builds
multiple drafts of what is happening as information flows through its parallel
networks. One of these drafts becomes the story we tell ourselves and includes
the idea of an author of the story, or a user of the brain鈥檚 virtual
machine鈥攃onsciousness is a 鈥渂enign user illusion鈥�. So rather than being a
permanent, persisting entity, the self may be more like a story about a self
that does not really exist.

I believe these ideas have implications for the way we live. As society
becomes more complex, and memes spread faster and farther, so our selves become
more complicated. The unhappiness, desperation and psychological ill-health of
many modern people may reflect the fact that increasing numbers of memes are
using our poor over-stretched brains to construct a false self for their own
propagation. Perhaps the user illusion is not so benign after all. Some would
even say that belief in a permanent self is the cause of all human
suffering鈥攐f fear, jealousy, hatred and unkindness.

But is it possible to live life without the illusion? One way might be to
calm your mind. Techniques such as meditation, say, can still the memes that are
constantly competing for your brain space, forcing you to keep thinking. Long
traditions of training in meditation show this is possible: that years of
practice can bring emptiness, compassion and clarity of mind. Meditation, at its
simplest, consists of just sitting quietly and clearing the mind of all
thoughts, and then, when more arise, just letting them go.

Meditation is itself a meme, but is, if you like, a meme-clearing meme. Its
effect is not to obliterate all awareness, but rather to create an awareness
that is more spacious and open, and seems, perhaps paradoxically, to be without
a self who is experiencing it.

If this memetic analysis is correct, the choices you make are not made by an
inner self who has free will, but are just the consequence of the replicators
playing out their competition in a particular environment. In the process they
create the illusion of a self who is in control.

Dawkins ends The Selfish Gene with his famous claim that: 鈥淲e, alone
on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators鈥�. Yet, if we
take his idea of memes seriously, and push it to its logical conclusion, we find
that there is no one left to rebel.