Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is probably the best idea that anybody has ever had. Darwin’s idea is not just applicable to biology, though, it also applies to culture.
The application of natural selection to culture has been called ‘memetics’. This is the theory that, like living things, ideas – or ‘memes’ – naturally vary and that (generally) the ‘fittest’ ideas survive and are replicated across generations.
Neuroscientist Susan Blackmore, who has studied memetics, introduces a new type of meme which she calls the ‘teme’: the technological meme. Technology, through temes, she argues, is now driving us forward, whether we like it or not.
In this talk Blackmore uses the idea of the ‘teme’ to pose some interesting questions. She asks whether there are other lifeforms out there in the universe and also whether humanity will survive the arrival of the ‘temes’.
