1 00:00:00,306 --> 00:00:04,969 the genes to do their bidding. But since then a lot of people, you and other people have 2 00:00:04,969 --> 00:00:08,592 pointed out, but hang on a minute, what the brain's really doing is much more interesting 3 00:00:08,592 --> 00:00:13,510 and selective than that. It's actually trying to make sure that it chooses the means that 4 00:00:13,510 --> 00:00:18,038 are good for the genes and rejects the others. And it doesn't altogether succeed. So I think 5 00:00:18,038 --> 00:00:22,962 we can have many different views here about the relationship between means and genes and 6 00:00:22,962 --> 00:00:28,636 how this big brain came about. I will stick out my neck and say for sure I think that the 7 00:00:28,636 --> 00:00:34,546 means have a force the gene's hand, but just how much the bone is a selective mechanism, 8 00:00:35,106 --> 00:00:40,766 just whether it's kind of like a symbiotic thing or whether the means are a parasite, I we've 9 00:00:40,766 --> 00:00:46,086 got a lot more discussion and a lot more investigation to do before we're clear about that. Seattle 10 00:00:46,086 --> 00:00:51,606 is our next stop. Liz, welcome to the program. Thank you. I'm an anthropologist who works 11 00:00:51,606 --> 00:00:57,026 in culture and psychiatry, and my question for the guests is how do memes and evolutionary 12 00:00:57,026 --> 00:01:02,669 psychology explain self-destructive behavior and things like innovative or creative ways 13 00:01:02,669 --> 00:01:10,351 of being masochistic? My view on that is not especially magnetic, but I think a lot of things 14 00:01:10,351 --> 00:01:15,703 that are called self-destructive behavior are not in any sense purposely, even at an unconscious 15 00:01:15,703 --> 00:01:20,354 level, self-destructive. mean drug addicts, for example. They're doing something people 16 00:01:20,354 --> 00:01:24,645 are designed by evolution to do, which is when something feels good, you do it again. That's 17 00:01:24,645 --> 00:01:30,011 positive reinforcement. The thing is that during evolution the things that felt good were generally 18 00:01:30,011 --> 00:01:34,964 good for you like going out and and and kept you know killing some game or something and 19 00:01:34,964 --> 00:01:39,476 the environment has changed so the things that feel good may not be good for you and that's 20 00:01:39,476 --> 00:01:44,068 one way of describing this you can turn around and describe that from a monadic point of 21 00:01:44,068 --> 00:01:49,421 view uh... but i don't think you'll really disagree fundamentally about what's what's going on 22 00:01:50,141 --> 00:01:54,637 and so that yes i would agree that There are other kinds of self-destructive behavior like, 23 00:01:54,637 --> 00:01:59,348 for example, when people are deeply, deeply unhappy and in real emotional pain, physical 24 00:01:59,348 --> 00:02:04,289 pain can actually relieve that to some extent, so people will actually harm themselves to 25 00:02:04,289 --> 00:02:07,930 have a simple physical pain rather than a deep emotional difficult one. And that's really 26 00:02:07,930 --> 00:02:13,182 nothing to do with memetics. But there are possible memetic answers sometimes. There are 27 00:02:13,182 --> 00:02:19,943 certain viral memes that people can pick up. um I mentioned martyrdom earlier. The idea 28 00:02:19,943 --> 00:02:24,961 of becoming a martyr for a... for a religion or a cult or something like that that you have 29 00:02:24,961 --> 00:02:30,086 um deeply imbibed during your lifetime can appeal for many reasons. You feel that you will be 30 00:02:30,366 --> 00:02:33,919 admired by other people, that your life will have had some purpose and so on so on. You 31 00:02:33,919 --> 00:02:39,174 may be prepared to kill yourself for that. It's made even more complicated if you have 32 00:02:39,174 --> 00:02:45,881 um acquired the belief in life after death and you believe that if you die for a cause, you 33 00:02:45,881 --> 00:02:51,235 will go to heaven. So that would be a memetic example, think that memetics can't do everything 34 00:02:51,235 --> 00:02:56,927 to answer your question. Liz, thanks a lot for your call. Liz joining us from Seattle. You're 35 00:02:56,927 --> 00:03:05,679 listening to Talk of the Nation from NPR News. Vancouver, Washington. Yeah, Larkin is in 36 00:03:05,679 --> 00:03:11,734 a car somewhere in Vancouver, Washington. Hi there. What I would like to mention are a 37 00:03:11,734 --> 00:03:17,742 couple of things. One, that I've recognized that my brain is like a mouse. gets in, can't 38 00:03:17,742 --> 00:03:22,152 get it out. I can have the capacity to reason and maybe reject 39 00:03:25,867 --> 00:03:35,314 that I let in is thing that comes to my mind is our ability, as you say, choose. 40 00:03:40,174 --> 00:03:42,290 consciousness for creating existence. 41 00:03:46,574 --> 00:03:51,798 You know when you think something you're actually projecting yourself in that direction And I 42 00:03:51,798 --> 00:03:56,862 think the more we talk about means and the internet and everything it makes us we have to be 43 00:03:56,862 --> 00:03:57,522 much more 44 00:04:03,342 --> 00:04:10,994 are actually helping to create our world. Another aligned, you might say, 45 00:04:14,888 --> 00:04:20,876 Dr. Hans Jenny's 15 years with the work out of Basel, Switzerland on a small scale showed 46 00:04:23,182 --> 00:04:25,746 create form and matter out there. uh 47 00:04:30,446 --> 00:04:36,043 creating a certain amount of our own reality. And I like the concept of means because it 48 00:04:36,043 --> 00:04:44,140 means we have to... oh Thanks a lot for your call, Locke. And let's get a quick reaction 49 00:04:44,140 --> 00:04:51,595 from Susan Blackmore. Given the sort of uh promiscuous meme production of 1999 and your head being 50 00:04:51,595 --> 00:04:58,579 bombarded by them, uh whose interests, whose ends are being served there? Well, our caller 51 00:04:58,579 --> 00:05:03,852 there has raised the question of responsibility, and I think this is really tricky. I tend 52 00:05:03,852 --> 00:05:08,998 to take a really kind of thoroughgoing, romantic view. that all that is happening in the world 53 00:05:08,998 --> 00:05:14,458 is the competition between replicators to be copied and this is the design process. We are 54 00:05:14,458 --> 00:05:19,738 all unique creative people but only by virtue of the means. Now then the responsibility really 55 00:05:19,738 --> 00:05:23,778 comes back to the means and not us and that's a tricky one that we need to think a lot about. 56 00:05:24,178 --> 00:05:28,521 Thanks a lot for being with us Susan Blackmore. It's a pleasure. and Blackmore is the author 57 00:05:28,521 --> 00:05:33,193 of The Mean Machine and senior lecturer in psychology at the University of the West of England in 58 00:05:33,193 --> 00:05:38,285 Bristol. She joins us from the BBC studios in Bristol. Robert Wright, good to see you again. 59 00:05:38,285 --> 00:05:44,047 Thanks a lot, Robert Wright is author of The Moral Animal, Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday 60 00:05:44,047 --> 00:05:49,460 Life. Earlier we spoke to Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene and professor of the public 61 00:05:49,460 --> 00:05:55,178 understanding of science at Oxford University. His latest book is Unweaving the Rainbow. Talk 62 00:05:55,178 --> 00:05:59,760 of the Nation is produced by Ellen Silva and directed by Arun Rath. The production staff 63 00:05:59,760 --> 00:06:06,533 includes Cici Modube Fadube, Setsuko Sato, Lina Okada and Susan Lund. Our interns are 64 00:06:06,533 --> 00:06:11,515 Rick Martinez and Stephanie Purdy. Suzanne Mesnik is the technical director with engineering 65 00:06:11,515 --> 00:06:17,067 support from Marty Curseus, Michael Cullen, Rene Pringle, Susan Klein and Brian Jarbo in 66 00:06:17,067 --> 00:06:22,569 Washington and Chris Sackis in New York. We had helpful program librarians Denise Chen, 67 00:06:22,709 --> 00:06:29,307 Giselle Foss, Beth Howard. Tom Susinski and Catherine Baer, Allison Denny, and music librarian 68 00:06:29,307 --> 00:06:34,942 Robert Goldstein, who had help from reference librarians Caleb Giesessi, Kee Molesky, Rob 69 00:06:34,942 --> 00:06:40,127 Robinson, and Alphonse Vinn. Pete Michaels is the executive producer. 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