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The Meme Machine
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
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Publisher's summary
First coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, a meme is any idea, behavior, or skill that can be transferred from one person to another by imitation: stories, fashions, inventions, recipes, songs, ways of plowing a field or throwing a baseball or making a sculpture.
Susan Blackmore shows that once our distant ancestors acquired the crucial ability to imitate, a second kind of natural selection began, a survival of the fittest amongst competing ideas and behaviors. Ideas and behaviors that proved most adaptive-making tools, for example, or using language - survived and flourished, replicating themselves in as many minds as possible. These memes then passed themselves on from generation to generation by helping to ensure that the genes of those who acquired them also survived and reproduced.
Applying this theory to many aspects of human life, Blackmore offers brilliant explanations for why we live in cities, why we talk so much, why we can't stop thinking, why we behave altruistically, how we choose our mates, and much more. With controversial implications for our religious beliefs, our free will, our very sense of "self", The Meme Machine offers a provocative theory everyone will soon be talking about.
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By: Alva Noe
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The Philosophical Baby
- What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love and the Meaning of Life
- By: Alison Gopnik
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In the last decade there has been a revolution in our understanding of the minds of infants and young children. We used to believe that babies were irrational, and that their thinking and experience were limited. Now Alison Gopnik - a leading psychologist and philosopher, as well as a mother - explains the cutting-edge scientific and psychological research that has revealed that babies learn more, create more, care more, and experience more than we could ever have imagined.
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Good info, annoying narrator
- By Anonymous User on 05-17-10
By: Alison Gopnik
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Bozo Sapiens
- Why to Err Is Human
- By: Michael Kaplan, Ellen Kaplan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Our species, it appears, is hardwired to get things wrong in myriad different ways. Why did recipients of a loan offer accept a higher rate of interest when a pretty woman's face was printed on the flyer? Why did one poll on immigration find the most despised aliens were ones from a group that did not exist? What made four of the Air Force's best pilots fly their planes, in formation, straight into the ground?
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A tour de force
- By Ivan on 07-05-11
By: Michael Kaplan, and others
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The Ascent of Humanity
- Civilization and the Human Sense of Self
- By: Charles Eisenstein
- Narrated by: Steve Wojtas
- Length: 27 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Charles Eisenstein explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self. He argues that our disconnection from one another and the natural world has mislaid the foundations of science, religion, money, technology, economics, medicine, and education as we know them. It has fired our near-pathological pursuit of technological Utopias even as we push ourselves and our planet to the brink of collapse.
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I love this author!
- By Tamara Smith on 12-03-17
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Moral Tribes
- Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
- By: Joshua Greene
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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A pathbreaking neuroscientist reveals how our social instincts turn Me into Us, but turn Us against Them - and what we can do about it. The great dilemma of our shrinking world is simple: never before have those we disagree with been so present in our lives. The more globalization dissolves national borders, the more clearly we see that human beings are deeply divided on moral lines - about everything from tax codes to sexual practices to energy consumption - and that, when we really disagree, our emotions turn positively tribal.
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Good Science, Bad Philosophy
- By Jacob on 10-27-16
By: Joshua Greene
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The Ravenous Brain
- How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning
- By: Daniel Bor
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Consciousness is our gateway to experience: it enables us to recognize Van Gogh’s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven’s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine: philosophers have for centuries declared this mental entity so mysterious as to be impenetrable to science. In The Ravenous Brain, neuroscientist Daniel Bor departs sharply from this historical view, and proposes a new model for how consciousness works.
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Effectively demystifies consciousness
- By Gary on 11-18-12
By: Daniel Bor
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The Belief Instinct
- The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life
- By: Jesse Bering
- Narrated by: Jesse Bering
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Why is belief so hard to shake? Despite our best attempts to embrace rational thought and reject superstition, we often find ourselves appealing to unseen forces that guide our destiny, wondering who might be watching us as we go about our lives, and imagining what might come after death. In this lively and masterfully argued new book, Jesse Bering unveils the psychological underpinnings of why we believe.
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engaging and insightful
- By juliagee on 01-02-15
By: Jesse Bering
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The Self Illusion
- Why There Is No "You" Inside Your Head
- By: Bruce Hood
- Narrated by: Bruce Hood
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Self Illusion provides a fascinating examination of how the latest science shows that our individual concept of a self is in fact an illusion. Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body is compelling and inescapable. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances.
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Disappointing
- By David R Pinsof on 05-10-12
By: Bruce Hood
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The Mind Club
- Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters
- By: Daniel M. Wegner, Kurt Gray
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing seems more real than the minds of other people. When you consider what your boss is thinking or whether your spouse is happy, you are admitting them into the "mind club". It's easy to assume other humans can think and feel, but what about a cow, a computer, a corporation? What kinds of minds do they have? Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray are award-winning psychologists who have discovered that minds - while incredibly important - are a matter of perception.
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Who is the self in me? Am I part of something bigger?
- By Philomath on 03-24-16
By: Daniel M. Wegner, and others
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2084
- Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity
- By: John C. Lennox
- Narrated by: Justin Brierley
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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What will the year 2084 hold for you - for your friends, for your family, and for our society? Are we doomed to the grim dystopia imagined in George Orwell's 1984? In 2084, scientist and philosopher John Lennox will introduce you to a kaleidoscope of ideas: the key developments in technological enhancement, bioengineering, and, in particular, artificial intelligence. You will discover the current capacity of AI, its advantages and disadvantages, the facts and the fiction, as well as potential future implications.
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another stellar work from Lennox!
- By Amazon Customer on 09-03-20
By: John C. Lennox
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The Moral Animal
- Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Greg Thornton
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics - as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.
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Ridiculously Insightful
- By Liron on 10-25-10
By: Robert Wright
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VSI#67
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The only other review was so bad that I wrote this
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Godless
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Part 1 of Godless, "Rejecting God", tells the story of how I moved from devout preacher to atheist and beyond. Part 2, "Why I Am an Atheist", presents my philosophical reasons for unbelief. Part 3, "What's Wrong with Christianity", critiques the bible (its reliability as well as its morality) and the historical evidence for Jesus. Part 4, "Life Is Good!", comes back to my personal story, taking a case to the United States Supreme Court, dealing with personal trauma, and experiencing the excitement of Adventures in Atheism.
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good writing, irritating narration
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Epigenetics: How Environment Changes Your Biology
- By: Charlotte Mykura, The Great Courses
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- Original Recording
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Epigenetics is the science of living DNA, charting the chemical pathways that spur DNA into action by turning genes on and off. While the Human Genome Project of the early 2000s was hailed as the key to understanding human heredity and disease, that historic effort was just the beginning. It has taken epigenetics to fill in the picture, explaining how the fixed code of our genome is implemented in countless living processes.
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Really good
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What listeners say about The Meme Machine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- J. C. Weaver
- 03-13-24
Rigorously thought out and argued
Her conclusions really seem unarguable, and the implications could not be more profound. Presented with kindness and sympathy for the resistance one might feel towards her ideas. Ends up being quite comforting really.
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- NJB13
- 02-06-20
Essential reading on Evolution
An essential read for anyone interested in evolution. My question to Susan would be - "Was it necessary to inject your destroy-the-self-meme meme at the end?"
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- ade adetayo
- 10-21-21
simultaneously illuminating as well as confusing
close to Richard Dawkins style of thinking and writing.
takes some of his ideas further.
loved it.
Not sure how much I agree with. But it does make I think about what really goes on inside.
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- Kindle Customer
- 01-07-20
British accent of narrator may not appeal
I normally like listening to books where narrators have British accents.
This book is an exception.
It reached a point that I shuddered every time I heard the word EEEEE-volution.
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- J Garner
- 08-07-21
Deep and well argued
This is a deep and well argued conceptualization of memes. It is a great starting point for further thought.
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- Hans Thieme
- 02-14-22
memes are gut bacteria, not godlike puppet masters
there are a few things that really bug me about this book. but i suppose they are all just intellectual disagreements. we do see imitation in other animals, such as chimpanzees bashing nuts with stones. this meager start of "imitation" does not then give way to a new all powerful replicator that brings the species into dominance, it is a meme, but it is stagnant.
i suspect the root issue is that me and the author disagree about the primary selection pressures on humans. to me, memes in humans have become a dominant force because we are a very rare large eusocial species. eusociality causes communication to become much more complex and abstract. it is when memes are added to this situation, with the addition of large brain size and selection for constant "memetic warfare", that human memes evolve.
additionally, humans do have another brand of replicator, they are the bacteria in the gut. but these bacteria do not control us like a dog on a leash, the only reason they are allowed to exist is because our body has figured out how to regulate them so that on average they benefit our fitness. the exact same almost certainly takes place in our brains. we should be studying the brains immune defenses from memes, rather than a complete subservience as implied by this book.
finally for such a speculative field, i feel more attention should have been placed on real examples. the evolution of science, religions, cultures, computer science. (online dna can be translated into a virus, so you can "catch" diseases over the internet. and memes can be turned into viruses as well, showing these are one and the same).
but i suppose strong disagreement on the fundamentals is still to be expected at this point
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Overall
- Dakota limberhand
- 05-31-21
I'm a mf meme machine
I have never felt more up-to-date on meme then I am right now. praise the meme!
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- Gavin R.
- 12-25-23
Voice
Narrator is too British and Woman. British woman. She's bri'ish innit? The british are notoriously the narration of all time.
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- João pedro
- 12-25-21
Narrator kinda killed the book
Never has this been an issue for me in any of the audiobooks i own. I always thought of it as a petty critique that many point out in otherwise great books. This one is unbearable though. Apologies to the narrator but honestly it feels Luke it's being read by a text to speech software. completely monotonical throughout the entire listen. Will trade for another after 30mins in. Writing it to save others from the hassle.
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- Michael
- 06-13-20
Insightful but incomplete
This had some interesting thoughts, but I felt like Blackmore never quite defined what a meme was in her usage, and her apology for not quite defining it was not quite satisfactory. She also didn't clearly show how memes are truly independent of genes, because I don't think they are, and a lot of what she ascribed to memes could just be complex neurology and biology dependent on genes. If memes are a new separate replicator, how are they different from, say, human bodies, which also replicate? Biologists would say that genes make human bodies in order to make more genes, but Blackmore didn't clearly demonstrate why memes aren't also the creation of genes for making more genes.
I appreciated her discussion at the end about Self. It's an important discussion, and I think she's on the right track. I'm not sure I love her conclusion about how to live in light of the absence of self, but she's probably logically consistent there. If there's no self and no suffering, there's no enjoying. Ergo, nihilism. Food for thought.
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