The Untouchables

Samson

 

Susan Blackmore’s chapter “The Ultimate Memeplex” and Lauren Slater’s essay, “Dr. Daedalus” both deal with the notion of the highs and lows of human evolution. Human beings are thought to be the only creatures capable of having a soul, free will, and an intelligence that supersedes that of other creatures. However, as evolution supposedly transformed us to the best and most adapted beings, humans still encounter greater problems, through memetics, than that of lower species. Memetics represents the passing of ideas, trends, behaviors, or usages throughout society.

Humans are both threatened by the power of technology and the actual evolution of our minds and bodies. In a sense, we have become powerless against our own creations and ourselves. Therefore, “We have […] come to accept that we are animals created by evolution. However, if memetics is valid, we will have to make another vast leap in accepting a similar evolutionary mechanism for the origin of our minds and ourselves” (Blackmore 8). Blackmore feels that humans accept a similar evolutionary mechanism with memes. Such a similarity is comparable as a dual mechanism shared between memes and humans. For such a relationship to occur, it is likely that memes are at least a human’s equal. Memes are further defined as “selfish replicators” capable of power: “We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators” (219). Blackmore’s quote reveals that although humans have power, these minute “things” called memes have power over us. Humans have had an evolutionary relationship with the selfish replicators since our creation; Blackmore raises the issue of a power struggle between the two, and makes one think that the memes may always have had power over humans.

Slater also deals with the issue of a power struggle; however, this struggle is a direct result from human ideas, as demonstrated through technology:

Although we usually assume technology is somehow deepening the rift between nature and culture, it also can do the opposite. In other words, technology can be, and often is, extremely primitive, not only because it allows people a sort of id-like, limbic-driven power but also because it can provide the means to toggle us down the evolutionary ladder, to alter our brains, struck in their rigid humanness, so that we are at last no longer landlocked. (Slater 18)

Technology is no longer a thing; it is personified as a creation capable of threatening our existence. Though humans have always been creating technologies to supposedly better human life, they may actually be hurting us. Since technology has been transforming into a greater power since day one, as memetics has, this raises the question as to if memes are expressed through our human technologies and are capable of destroying us in their interchangeable relationships.

One may wonder how we can be powerless against tiny little things called memes. Simply speaking, one may also think that consciousness is associated with free will and that one is in control of his or her life due to the choices one makes for his or herself; however, this is not always the case. As demonstrated though Slater, the notion of “proteanism” allows humans to shift shapes and alter their bodies. There is “nothing authentic” (Slater 15) about our protean abilities because the changes we make within ourselves do not represent our genuine humanness. Our newly god-like ability to morph defies our humanness; we may be escaping the realm of our humanness and there may be no turning back once we enter this stage. Such an act can result in us being everything or nothing. We think we have control over our bodies by making such choices, but Slater suggests otherwise: “Rosen is in our face making us face up to the fact that the inner and outer connections have crumbled. In our ability to be everything are we also nothing?” (Slater 15). The connections within ourselves have crumbled, for we are allowing our essential human connections to crumble at the hands of technology. As our powers are slowly falling down the evolutionary ladder, from humans to technology, they may also be falling to memes. Blackmore suggests this power represented by the memes: “Instead of thinking of our ideas as our own creations, and as working for us, we have to think of them as autonomous selfish memes, working only to get themselves copied. We humans, because of our powers of imitation, have become just the physical ‘hosts’ needed for the memes to get around. This is how the world looks from a ‘meme’s eye view’” (Blackmore 9). This quote also suggests that we are not in control of our lives, but memes are, through their replicator powers. Blackmore takes this idea a step further when she reveals: “Further experiments showed that with short stimuli (too short to induce conscious sensation) people could nevertheless guess correctly whether they were being stimulated or not. In other words they could make correct responses without awareness” (227). Consciousness is usually correlated with free will and the ability to make choices, but not in this case. The tiny memes have control over us as we are conscious. If their powers over a conscious human are that strong, just imagine their powers over the unconscious individual, when we are especially susceptible to ideas. Such susceptibility is demonstrated through subliminal messages and hypnosis for example.

Because memes could not exist without humans, we are, in a sense, responsible for the dangers we place upon ourselves, whether consciously or unconsciously. The technological risks we pose to ourselves in Slater’s essay are equally dangerous when compared with the powers of memes. These risks however are subjective; as illustrated in Slater, human advances are capable of easily killing us. Plastic surgery also poses the risks of the loss of humanness in our abilities to morph. Memes, because they have control over us, pose frightening ideas as well because we cannot control the memes. It is ultimately up to us to decide which is the scarier of the two: living a life that can destroy us through our own actions or living a life in which we have no controls of such destructions. Because memes and humans have a close relationship, memes may not only be controlling our lives but the destruction we pose to ourselves as well.

Memes represent a passing of ideas, similar to the idea of changing through Proteanism. As frightening as our future may appear in the face of memes and technology, a hope of sorts exists for humans because there is something “fundamental or core, to being human”. What defines us from other species is our possession of a soul. One of the many definitions of “soul” according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary is “our essential part”. Being that the words essential and fundamental have the same context in relation to the context of humans, our core in relation to being human is our soul. Evolutionary teachings, as well as atheistic beliefs prevalent among the science fields tend not to agree with the idea of the soul. “Postmodernism, by which I mean the idea of multiplicity, the celebration of the pastiche, and the rejection of logical positivism and absolutism as viable stances, will never die out, despite its waning popularity in academia. Its roots are too deep and ancient” (Slater 16). This quote reveals that proteanism and the rejection of religion has been a widely held belief since the beginnings of our evolutionary nature as humans. Therefore, proteanism has followed humans since we have developed belief systems. Yet, regardless of science’s constant strides in attempting to force people to believe in its theories, which may even disprove some religious roots, there will always be people who hold onto their religious beliefs and feel that man should act and look as Adam was when he was placed on Earth. This belief suggests that man was placed on Earth with a fundamental core, and although the core can be altered, the core still exists. The self that exists with a soul is referred to as the ‘real self’. This real self is a “persistent entity that lasts a lifetime, is separate from the brain and from the world around, and makes decisions. Everyday experience, ordinary speech and common sense are all in favor of the real self while logic and evidence are on the side of the illusory self” (Blackmore 228). Based upon Blackmore’s definitions of types of selves, a self with a soul could not be an illusory self. Because science cannot prove a soul through logic and evidence a self with a soul would have to be the ‘real self’. Additionally, the real self’s persistent entity represents the soul, because persistence is capable of existing for a longer time, or continuously. Therefore, when the body perishes, the soul, in a sense, would survive. The soul is also separate from the brain and the world, as no one can place a finger on exactly where our soul exists, but it is commonly believed that the soul is capable of living outside of the body after death. Since the body is capable of containing a soul, theoretically speaking, our soul cannot coexist only in the brain, because as the brain dies with the body the soul would as well.

In contrast with the ‘real self’s’ abilities of possessing a body outside of the brain, as well as a soul, the ‘illusory self’ defines all of our human qualities as neuronal, completely existing in the brain. Blackmore ultimately rejects the ‘real self’ and supports the ‘illusory self’ theory, claiming we are simply a bundle of neurons. Illusory self theories “liken the self to a bundle of thoughts, sensations, and experiences tied together by a common history, or a series of pearls on a string. Of these theories, the illusion of continuity and separateness is provided by a story the brain tells, or a fantasy it weaves” (Blackmore 228). Although much of the human experience exists within our thoughts, and sensations, life also exists outside of this. The ‘common history’ refers to our lifespan on Earth. Our sensations are a mental process due to immediate bodily stimulation often as distinguished from awareness of the process, as Blackmore demonstrates with the example of one experiencing a burning sensation. The brain tells us our hand is being burnt before we actually feel pain. If sensations are simply mental processes, however, Blackmore leaves out another important human trait: the ability to feel emotions. Unlike sensations, emotions are felt with the heart and not the brain. Perhaps our soul lies in our heart, capable of feeling things the brain cannot feel, be even so according to the ‘illusory self’ one is not capable of such a feeling. Emotions are not always felt due to immediate bodily stimulation, as song for example is capable of evoking emotion. Although the auditory waves come in contact with our ears, such a feeling is very different from a finger on a flame. The commonly used, and often trite phrase used by humans, “I love you with all my heart and soul” is said by people of every culture. Interestingly, this would not be said if the phrase did not suggest that humans are capable of achieving a different type of feeling with the heart as well as the soul. People do not say that they love someone with all their brain, even if every human ‘sensation’ is experienced here, for the sheer fact that we may be capable of feeling outside of the brain. This theory further suggests that everything we experience is due to the brain; we do not feel with the heart and soul, but our life is controlled with the brain.

As the theories of the ‘real’ and ‘illusory self’ are capable and incapable of having a soul, in Blackmore’s theories, Slater and the scientific Doctor Rosen both acknowledge the presence of a soul. The soul’s ambiguous location in Blackmore’s article is clearly defined in Slater’s article as existing in the brain: “Our brains are essentially indiscriminate, able to morph – like the sea god Proteus himself. Now I understand more deeply what Rosen meant when he said, “Plastic surgery changes the soul.” To the extent that we believe our souls are a part of our brains, Rosen is right” (Slater 18). Once again, the belief of where the soul lies, to those who believe in a soul, cannot be proven. Much like Blackmore suggests that the self exists somewhere in our body, behind our eyes, we cannot exactly place a location on our self as well. Although plastic surgery has the capabilities to change our soul, our fundamental core, the fact remains that Doctor Rosen acknowledges the soul. The dangers of proteanism are that once we alter ourselves beyond our core; there may be no turning back. If our soul is what defines our humanness, and plastic surgery can alter our fundamental core, then it also may lead us to question if we have a core. Such jumps in our evolutionary nature since creation may also destroy the existence of a soul, if proteanism is capable of giving humans god-like powers. Although our souls are “a part of our brains” their complete existence does not lie in the brain, as Rosen specifies the soul to be connected with part of the brain. Thence, the portion of the soul outside of the brain is untouchable, much like a spirit, and science is incapable of putting its hands on it, even though it may be able to touch or alter the part in our brain. As suggested through Blackmore, the brain controls experiences as well as soul. Depending on the souls’ location, however, science and even memes may not be capable of touching our essential humanness if it is capable of living outside the body. Hope exists.