Dis man tling the Selfplex; Meme Ma chines and the
Na ture of Con scious ness S.Blackmore (De part ment of Psy -
chol ogy, Uni ver sity of the West of Eng land, Bris tol, BS16 2JP).

The world and the self who ex pe ri ences it seem sep a rate, even
though no self can be found within the brain, and there are good
rea sons for think ing it is an il lu sion. For any one who wants to
avoid du al ism the in ter est ing ques tion is this. Why should we
hu mans live un der the il lu sion of be ing a self with con scious ness
and free will, if such a thing does not ex ist?
Evo lu tion ary the ory might pro vide an an swer, yet a false
sense of self does not ob vi ously con trib ute to in clu sive fit ness
and may even re duce it. I pro pose that the cor rect evo lu tion ary
ex pla na tion is not in terms of ben e fit to genes, but ben e fit to
memes. Memes are in for ma tion that is cop ied from per son to
per son by im i ta tion. They are replicators sub ject to he redity,
vari a tion and se lec tion, and they com pete for space in our minds
and cul tures, shap ing hu man na ture as they go. We hu mans are
meme ma chines; se lec tive im i ta tors, who spend our lives copy -
ing memes. Why then do we have selves?
A self is a co-adapted meme com plex (or memeplex) whose
func tion is to pro tect and prop a gate its con stit u ent memes. A
memeplex forms when ever a group of memes can prop a gate
better to gether than they can alone. Ex am ples in clude re li gions,
lan guages, po lit i cal sys tems and sci en tific the o ries that have
evolved over long pe ri ods, with ad ap ta tions that pro tect them
from dis so lu tion or from com pet ing memeplexes.
The selfplex is a large col lec tion of memes us ing a sin gle body
for their pro tec tion and prop a ga tion. Once a selfplex be gins to
grow it pro vides a ha ven for more memes. For ex am ple, peo ple
may ar gue strongly for their be liefs, us ing emo tional lan guage
and phrases such as ‘I be lieve ...’ ‘I think ...’ ‘I want ...’. This be -
hav iour pro motes the memes, and in ad di tion feeds the false idea
that there is an in ner self who has the opin ions, makes the de ci -
sions and per ceives the world.
Thus far the the ory is sim i lar to Dennett’s but there are two
fun da men tal dif fer ences. First Dennett calls the self a ‘be nign
user il lu sion’. I sug gest it is far from be nign, and is the root
source of hu man suf fer ing and de lu sion. The cre ation of a
selfplex means we live our lives as a lie; con stantly fall ing into
du al ism, and prey to all the emo tions con cerned with pro tect ing
our false self from harm or dis so lu tion. Sec ond, for Dennett con -
scious ness ‘is it self a huge com plex of memes’, which im plies
that if all the memes were dropped con scious ness would cease.
An al ter na tive is that the memes of the selfplex ob scure and dis -
tort con scious ness rather than con sti tut ing it.
This is a an em pir i cal ques tion, well suited to first-person re -
search with avail able meth ods. Med i ta tion and mind ful ness can
be seen as tech niques for drop ping memes (or meme-weeding),
their ul ti mate ef fect be ing to dis man tle the selfplex. We may ask
those who have com pleted this path what hap pens. I be lieve their
an swer is that du al ism falls away but con scious ness (though it
may be trans formed) does not.