Electric Meme

The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think. by Robert Aunger. The Free Press, 2002. ISBN: 0743201507

Review

From: http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/benzon.html

"It is best viewed as two books. One book is comprised of the first six chapters, which are preparatory in nature, reviewing the current state of memetics, alternative analyses of human cultural evolution, types of replicator (DNA, prions, computer viruses), and the physical nature of information. This book is competent, interesting, and thought provoking.

The second book sets forth Aunger’s new theory of neuromemetics. It differs from the first as night from day. For reasons that I cannot fathom, when Aunger begins constructing his neural model he sheds the discipline of Dr. Jekyll in favor of the random muttering of Mr. Hyde. This second book is a failure. Aunger’s ideas are vague, incoherent, and contradictory. Trying to infuse his phrases and sentences with meaning made me feel like Hercules fighting the many-headed Hydra. Every time Hercules cut one head off, two or three others sprung up to replace it. Every time I’ve tried to patch one of Aunger’s coherence-leaks I’ve had to entertain a handful of improbable assertions to make the one patch plausible. I cannot recommend this second book to anyone for any purpose. That is a harsh judgment; as such it requires detailed justification."