Welcome to Sentivia

Alright, let me try to unpack what I've been talking about. It's a lot, I know, but it's important stuff.

First off, who am I? I’m a philosopher. My job, broadly speaking, is to think about thinking, to try and understand the underpinnings of our experiences and beliefs. And, as you've seen, part of that is wrestling with some pretty uncomfortable ideas.

I started by pointing out the rather obvious fact that we're, well, at least most of us in this room, are Darwinians. It's very likely that none of us are creationists here. We embrace the idea of evolution as the driving force of life on this planet. And yet, even amongst those of us who believe in evolution, there’s often a sense of unease, a desire to draw a line somewhere.

We're comfortable with the idea that spiderwebs and beaver dams are products of evolution, but when we start talking about things like the World Wide Web or the Hoover Dam, we get a little squirmy. Why? What is it that seems to prevent human creations from being seen as part of the same evolutionary process?

This hesitation is even more pronounced when we turn our lens inward and start to consider evolution as it applies to our own *thinking*. It’s like we want to be the only ones in control of our own minds. And that's what I want to discuss today - the biological effect our ideas have on us.

I used the example of the ant climbing the blade of grass not because it is cute and quirky, but because it’s a brutal illustration of what can happen when a parasitic influence takes control. The ant isn't acting out of its own best interest; it’s being driven by a lancet fluke, a brain worm that is hijacking the ant's actions to serve *its* life cycle.

That’s when I asked, "Does anything like this happen to human beings?" The answer, I think, is a resounding yes. I proposed that our brains are being hijacked, not by worms, but by *ideas*. Now, I’m not saying that the majority of us are suffering some kind of parasitic invasion. What I’m suggesting is that *most of us* have had our brains hijacked by infectious ideas.

Think about it: people die for all sorts of causes. Freedom, justice, truth, communism, capitalism, Islam, Catholicism – these are just a few examples. There are countless ideas that people are willing to sacrifice their lives for, things that transcend the pursuit of individual survival and genetic fitness. How else could one explain it?

This, I think, gets to the heart of the matter. We, as a species, have a unique capacity to subordinate our biological drives to something *more* important, to an idea. We've moved past the "Me Decade." Our summum bonum isn't just about maximizing our grandchildren. It's something else.

This leads me to my little "bumper sticker" philosophy: The secret to happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it. I really believe this. This is a fundamental aspect of the human condition - and it is biologically profound.

So, how do we start to think about this? I believe we need to consider the concept of replicating ideas. The ideas that pass from brain to brain. This is where "memes" come in. A term coined by Richard Dawkins, who you'll hear from later. And I’m borrowing his idea - you can’t copyright or hold onto an idea like this, they're meant to spread, it’s their nature. It's no longer *his* idea, but an idea that is part of the collective.

Memes, as I see them, are like viruses. It’s an analogy, and you may find it a little jarring. It's important to understand that viruses are not "stuff", but strings of nucleic acid with *attitude* - their core purpose is replication. A meme, in a similar vein, is an information packet, an idea with a certain kind of “attitude” that makes it more likely to be passed on. It’s about the information, not the medium in which it's carried.

Now, you might be wondering: Do memes *actually* exist? I think the answer is clear. If words exist, then so do memes. Words are just a kind of meme that can be spoken.

Of course, memes can flourish even if they're detrimental to the fitness of their hosts, like the Shakers whose celibacy was almost certainly the reason for their extinction.

These ideas have far-reaching consequences. We need to look at what Jared Diamond said, how germs conquered the world, and how these ideas are now taking over cultures, wiping out traditions, and practices. As wonderful as technology is and its capability to connect us, there are toxic ideas spreading along with it. And when we spread our education and technology we become the vectors for the memes.

This leads to the question: How do we tell the good memes from the bad? Here's where it's important to make this point clear: the science of memetics is morally neutral. It’s not the job of memetics to determine good or bad. Science should be about understanding how things spread, how they function, without applying our own moral judgements.

Like with germs, we aren't going to annihilate these ideas. We can, however, foster public health measures. We can find ways to mitigate the spread of dangerous ideas by understanding how they work, and promote the good, the benign, and the useful.