About Susan Blackmore's memes and t(r)emes...

I attended this Sunday a lecture given by Susan Blackmore on genes, memes, and tremes. 

Here are in a nutshell my thoughts about it:

The lecture was very entertaining and interesting. Susan appeared as a jovial, youthful and clever woman. Furthermore, she shares many of my interests (consciousness, free will, genes, memes, meditation, out of body experiences, near death experiences, ..).

Here is what I understand about genes, memes, and tremes after having reflected on Susan's lecture:

1/The earth is the environment that enabled the first replicator (gene) to arise. It happened because the earth had what it takes a) to create replicating entities, b) to allow modifications of these replicators, and c) to select amongst these various replicators.  These replicators first simply freely floated around, then they started having phenotypes that helped them catalyzing their own reproduction (e.g. serving as template to the formation of enzymes,...) and ultimately they created gene survival machines (living organisms). In this process, the replicators maybe migrated from RNA to DNA. These organisms are sub-environments that carry out all three processes of copying, varying and selecting (via e.g sexual selection) genes while part of the selection is still performed by its environment, the earth.

2/One of these organisms (humans) became the environment that enabled the second replicator (meme) to arise. It happened because the human mind can a) create and replicate ideas, b) modify them, and c) select them. Memes first simply floated around from one mind to another, then they started having phenotypes that helped them catalyzing their own reproduction (e.g. writing, paper, ...) and ultimately they created meme survival machines (e.g. computers, internet,...). In this process, the meme migrated from neural patterns to binary codes. Computers are sub-environments that carry out all three processes of copying, varying and selecting memes while part of the selection is still performed by its environment, the human mind. 

Susan appeared to have a slightly different opinion, she argues that humans are meme machines. I first arrived at another conclusion. I considered that we are the meme's environment, just like the earth is the original replicator's environment. I considered that we are not meme machines because memes did not create us, let alone create us to propagate themselves. Not like genes, that indeed created organisms to propagate themselves. If the earth was a conscious Gaia, before the appearance of living organisms, she could mistakenly have thought that she was a gene machine since she creates, modify, and select replicators. However, after having further thought about it, I can see how we can indeed be considered meme machines since we perform the tasks of copying, varying, storing and selecting memes.  

3/ Well, yet another replicator (treme) might arise within these new meme machines that are the computers, internet, ... but I do not think it arose yet. I think we are still at the level of the meme. However, I share Susan's view that a major change occurred: (Technological) Meme Survival Machines recently appeared and they will evolve to better serve their masters (the technological memes). The memes might indeed ultimately not need us anymore. 

If Susan Blackmore give a lecture in your neighborhood, I can safely recommend it to you.

Why is it easier to be afraid of snakes than to love them as pets?

It could well be due to an innate drive of ours to loathe them. Most primates raised in captivity and never put in contact with a snake will look very scared the first time they will see one. Interestingly, chimpanzees and bonobos (our two equally closest cousins) have different responses when first confronted with a snake. Chimpanzees are scared but bonobos apparently are not.
Anyway, since most primates are innately scared of snakes, I wonder how would react a man, who never heard of a snake before, in front of one… Like most other primates (scared) or like bonobos (not scared)?
I also wonder if the same kind of innate reaction exists toward spiders because I really do not like them (and writing that down I am now checking my room just in case I spot one...)

Book Review: Consciousness Explained, (Danniel Dennett) (IX): Autostimulation

This part of Dennett's book attempts to explain the origin of "thinking". The hypothesis proposed is very interesting, very simple and convincing.


Consider a time when language just started to develop: hominids would have been grunting various sounds and start to attach meaning to them. Modern apes do that all the time. For a striking and well documented example, see vervet monkies's alarm calls for snakes, eagles and leopards.
We can speculate that at time, our early hominid would ask a question to his comrades by uttering something and could expect an answer (in a social group, "I scratch your back, you scratch my back" behaviours may be beneficial to the individual if  the group members have the necessary memory to keep track of other members behaviours). Our hominid ancestor could have developed the habit to ask questions and to answer other's questions (e.g. "are there crocodiles in this river?"). One day, one of our hominid ancestor might have asked a question while nobody was there to respond, but since he himself heard his own question, it triggers in himself the urge to reply to it! And to its delight, he found out that he just answered his own question! Asking oneself question could arise a side effect of asking other questions. Speaking to oneself could have an evolutionary advantage if the connection between the different parts of the brain was not optimal. E.g. a first part of the brain might need a piece of information present in another part of the brain, not efficiently connected (yet) to said first part. By broadcasting its request in the environment and by relying on a pair of ears to pick it up, said first part could establish a virtual link between both badly connected parts of the brain.

Talking out loud is one possibility, drawing pictures to oneself is another. One can also see how making such "communication with oneself" more private would be advantageous.


This scenario strikes me as a good candidate for how "thinking" evolved!

Consciousness Explained (D. Dennett): Part VIII; The Baldwin effect

We are the result of natural selection. Natural selction works by 1) allowing mistakes in the genome of an animal's offspring and 2) selecting the offsprings whose genome makes them better at survival/reproducing. If you are not familiar with this concept, go to buy "the selfish gene" from R. Dawkins (a live changing book).

The Baldwin effect is a mechanism that speeds up natural selection in a very peculiar way. It require you to have a plastic nervous system, in short: an ability to learn. If there is a "good trick" out there for an animal to learn, e.g. a behaviour that would greatly enhance an animal success at reproducing, any animal having this good trick hard-wired in its genome would be at an advantage. However, since having this "good trick" within it would be an all or nothing story, there maybe lacking a sufficiently progressive slope for natural selection to opearte swiftly. Hence, the time for this trick to be hard-wired in every animal within its species might be very long indeed. See left side of the figure below:

However, species not having this good trick hard-wired in their genome but having a plastic brain wired in such a way that they are capable to learn that trick during their livetime, are able to evolve the hard-wirering of this trick much faster. Here is how it works: Animal A has a brain slightly more able to learn the good trick than animal B. Animal A has therefore an advantage over animal B and will therefore probably leave more offsprings. Amongst said offsprings, animal A', due to a fortunate mutation, is still beter at learning the trick than its parent was, A' acquires it faster in his livetime than his siblings and therefore outcompete them and makes more offsprings. Amongst the kids of animal A', animal A'' is gifted with a further fortunate mutation that makes him particularly able to learn the good trick...and so on and so forth until the good trick (or at least the ability to learn the trick damned-easy) is practically hard-wired in the genome. What the Baldwin effect provides is a gentle slope for natural selection to operate on (see right side of the figure above). Any small improvement in the learning ability of the individual gives him a higher chance to hit on the good trick(s).

This makes clear the big advantage that a plastic brain provides to a species.

Book Review: Consciousness explained.Part VII. The evolution of consciousness

Daniel Dennett proposes the following evolutionary scenario for consciousness:

1) In the environment on earth before the appearence of life, some molecules acquired the ability to replicate (Richard Dawkins would call them replicators). This creates a point of view from which the world's events can be roughly partitioned between the favorable to this replication, unfavorable to it or the neutral".

2) "As soon as something gets  into the business of self-preservation, boundaries become important, for if you are setting out to preseerve yourself, you don't want to squander effort trying to preserve the whole world: you draw the line."

3)Next in line comes a certain ability to react to direct stimuli upon contact. E.g. engulfing food you touch or coiling away from harmful things you touch. This is the most rudimentary type of nervous response. It is a very crude way to predict the future. If I don't recoil, I will get eaten/destroyed/damaged.

4)Next, comes short range anticipations like the ducking reflex that permits to avoid being hurt be a projectile. Such reflexes are hard wired, including in humans (newborn infants have it). An interesting fact Dennett points out is the ability of many animals (from fish to humans) to be particularly sensible to the presence of a vertical axis of symmetry in its visual field. This is presumably caused by the fact that in our evolutionary past the most likely item in our environment having such an axis would have been a predator, a prey or a mate facing you. He argues that the fact that such alarm mechanisms are so crude, has the advantage of being fast and economical at the cost of many false alarms (the vision of a quasi symetrical tree for instance). For such a trick to be selected by evolution, it only has to give to its owner a slightly higher than otherwise chance to survive or to mate.

5) Once such a signal is detected, a further evolutionary advantage is achieved by a discrimination process capable to determine (at least in a crude way) if the first crude signal was a predator, a prey or a mate. In some fish, the vertical symmetry signal triggers an "orienting response", i.e. a swift interuption of ongoing activity. Dennett says that we have many such subsystems running unconsciously and performing specialized tasks.
When an alarm signal is recieved, e.g. due to the perceiving of symetry, our system stops and all our senses are open to maximize the input of information. If the alarm is confirmed, we get a rush of adrenaline and we react by e.g. fleeing. He says monst animals have such a system and he sees such "orienting responses" as a precursor to what we call our state of conscious awareness.

6) The animal acquired the ability to trigger such an "orienting reponse" also as a consequence of internal stimulis (not only external inputs such as symetric objects).

7) "Regular vigilance" turned into "regular exploration" where the animal frequently acquire information for its own sake, just in case it turns out useful in the future. E.g. primates with their saccaded eye movements scan uninteruptly their environment.

That's already a nice start I think...

Pearl Jam - Do The Evolution

It's evolution baby! Yep, we might be doomed.