Reviews for Proceedings

The average rating for Proceedings based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-04-20 00:00:00 Patrick Gordon A “meme” is a unit of culture which can be transmitted from one mind to another through communication. It was first coined by Richard Dawkins in his book “The Selfish Gene” in the mid-1970s. Dawkins suggested that an idea (take religion for example) propagates through a culture in much the same way as a virus replicates its genes. In the case of religion, it infects a host, who then passes on the meme through evangelism (as opposed to sneezing on them). This way of looking at things is an interesting one, and it offers a new way of thinking about the way ideas travel through a population. In “Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme” author Richard Brodie attempts to explain memetics (the study of memes) and some of the benefits that can come from an understanding of the concept. The main problem with memetics in general and this book in particular is that a “meme” is a metaphor. The metaphor being that an ‘idea’ has some of the same properties as a ‘virus’. Metaphors are useful in that they can help explain properties of the underlying object. For example – the statement that ‘my memory is foggy’ is a metaphor which implies that my memory of what happened is unclear; it is not a statement about the weather. You get into trouble when you begin treating the metaphor as if it were the thing itself. This brings us to the heart of the problem with Virus of the Mind. Genes physically exist and have real physical properties; a meme does not exist, it is merely a metaphor. When you begin to treat a metaphor as if it exists you begin ascribing real physical attributes and properties to it, and it doesn’t work any better than would an attempt to study a physical fog bank located in my head. If Brodie had used the concept of the meme to illuminate and provide insight into the ways ideas can propagate through a population then Virus of the Mind may have been interesting. Instead he takes the metaphor to absurd extremes and in the process loses the value that the metaphor presents. Later in the book Brodie loses all focus and makes a lame attempt to discuss evolutionary psychology, followed by an anti-government rant, a promotion of religion (even though he acknowledges that it is a fairytale), wrapping the mess up with a little Zen and a 3 level system of human flourishing which resembles something you might find in Scientology. And what happened to the 'meme' amidst the scattered thinking, unsupported opinion and odd deviations? Well, it seems we all need to re-program ourselves with our own custom memes so that we can become level 3 people ... uh, right ... good luck with that.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-11 00:00:00 Jose Torres I read about a quarter of this book. First off, I thought it would be more about the science than some sort of self-help approach. Probably my fault. More importantly, the author makes unsupported assumptions about many topics not directly related to memes. The one that made me give up was when he trotted out the age old myth about too many "dumb people" breeding leading to a lowering of general intelligence. Over the past century, measurements of general intelligence have actually grown significantly (despite the fact that this barely disguised class-ist concern has been around the whole time). If the author is so lazy in holding offensive views about general topics, I have a hard time having faith in the rigor of his beliefs about memetics. Read The Tipping Point instead. It doesn't use the trendy meme word, but it covers a lot of the same topics in a more compelling, more rigorous way.