Basic Composition: Human Thoughts and Acts as Memes

Name
Course Title
Assignment
Professor’s Name
Date
Human Thoughts and Acts as “Memes”
Introduction
In “Strange Creatures,” Susan Blackmore maintains that the ability of humans to imitate is the single most distinguishable trait that differentiates them from other animal species (34). The author bases her argument on Richard Darwin’s theoretical model explaining how genes compete to be passed on. Blackmore makes a claim that human behavior largely consists in the transmittal through the imitations of cultural units called ‘memes,’ the term Dawkins coined to explain evolution on the basis of competing genes. First published in 1976, Dawkins’ book, “The Selfish Gene” became influential in evolutionary biology, explaining exact mechanisms that are involved in evolution, which was thought to happen for the ‘good of the species’, prior to 1960s (34). Dawkins’ selfish-gene theory suggests that evolution is all driven by competing genes that solely act for themselves. Blackmore calls these memes evolutionary replicators that are defined as sets of information copied from one individual to another through imitation. She claims that humans are only physical ‘hosts’ that are required for memes to be passed on (36). While in Zadie Smith’s “Speaking in Tongues” imitations, both vocal and verbal are cited, Smith tends to attribute more power to an individual’s imagination and choice. Both authors perceive individuals as shape shifting and changeable, although Smith attributes greater significance to the individuals’ active free choice to become what they wish to be. This essay makes a claim that Blackmore argues that every human thought and act is a meme, but the concept of free choice can disapprove the argument.
Dawkins laid a firm foundation for appreciating how memes evolve. In his book, Dawkins explained how memes propagate by hoping from brain to brain, thus likening them to parasites that infect host organisms (36). In addition, he treated memes as physical living structures, and demonstrated how such memes will gang in groups like what genes do. Of significance, Dawkins treated memes as replicators in their own right, and complained that his fellow scientists could not agree to the idea that memes would be able to spread independently for their own advantage without benefiting any gene. He made a distinction between the replicators and their vehicles. Replicators were defined as anything whose copies are made, as well as the active replicators whose nature may influence the chances of them being recopied. Vehicles are entities that can interact with the environment, and according to other observers, they call these vehicles interactors. These interactors or vehicles play a role of carrying the replicators around and protect them while inside them. The early replicator was thought to be a simple self-replicating molecule in the organic soup. Today, the most known replicator is known as the DNA, whose vehicle is the living organism that interacts with other organisms in seas, air, land and forests (35). Genes are referred to as selfish replicators driving the process of evolution here on the planet earth. In postulating his theory of the “selfish gene”, he provided examples such as ideas, tunes, clothes fashions, catch phrases and the manner of building archers or making pots as memes that are imitated from brain to brain over a period of time (36). One compelling example he provided was about religious beliefs, which act as groups of memes with an extraordinary high survival value to infect global societies with belief in a deity and afterlife. All these memes are copied from one person to another and stored either in human brains or printed in books and passed on by way of imitation.
The human actions and thoughts can be regarded as memes as demonstrated by Dawkins. If Dawkins conception is right, then the human life is surrounded with memes as well as its consequences. All that one learns through imitation from another person is a meme. This includes any form of words existing in one’s vocabulary, the stories one has mastered, the habits and skills picked from other people, as well as the games one likes playing. These include the rules obeyed and the songs played. For instance, any moment one drives, eats curry with pizza or lager and coke or shake hands, they are dealing with memes. Each of the memes has evolved in its unique manner bearing its individual history, although each of the memes is using the host’s behavior to have it copied. Blackmore offers an example of a song “Happy Birthday to You” to explain this concept. The song is known and sung by thousands of millions of people globally. The tune is already known by large numbers of people and by only writing the four words, one starts...