Is it coincidence, serendipity or because this course is so up to date, it seems every bit of media, social or otherwise is feeding in to our knowledge base
Daniel Dennett: 'I don't like theory of mind' – interview | Science | guardian.co.uk.
It is interesting that the idea of Darwinian evolution of ideas was mentioned in 2012 by Jonnie Hughes ” divine sparks of inspiration, the accidental by-products of our weird ape brains” which he suggests then evolve separate from the humans and so one is looking for the space between the human beings the ideas bouncing off 7 million brains. Post Humanism
Susan Blackmore said “Everything changed in human evolution when imitation first appeared because imitation let loose a new replicator, the meme. Since that time, two replicators have been driving human evolution, not one. This is why humans have such big brains, and why they alone produce and understand grammatical language, sing, dance, wear clothes and have complex cumulative cultures. Unlike other brains, human brains had to solve the problem of choosing which memes to imitate. In other words they have been designed for selective imitation.”
How these selection processes and spaces in which ideas are bouncing, work in a digital environment is even more interesting due to the global factor adding different cultural perspectives or perhaps flattening culture across space?
Are the ideas using human brains to out-evolve human brains?
Hi there,
Could be! Cultural ideas appear to be using the World’s mass of brains to grow and develop. Can an idea out evolve a human brain? Would this mean a concept has an identity or autonomy?
I think memes already have identity. But do we have a replicator that feeds on memes?
Doing catching up! Thank you for the links on meme – there is a lot to digest here. The course is indeed very up- to-date.