Susan Blackmore quotes

Parapsychology seems to be growing further away from the progress and excitement of the rest of consciousness studies. (Susan Blackmore)

If everyone understood evolution, then the tyranny of religious memes would be weakened, and we little humans might find a better way to live in this pointless universe.

Susan Blackmore

Consciousness is an illusion constructed by the memes.

Susan Blackmore

Memetics appears to have a lot of implications that we humans are machines, which people have never liked. Of course we're machines, we're biological machines. But people don't like that. Free will and consciousness is an illusion, and the self is a complex of memes. People don't like that. My view is that if these things are true it doesn't matter if we like them or not.

Susan Blackmore

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they think about memes is they try to extend on the analogy with genes. That's not how it works. It works by realizing the concept of a replicator.

Susan Blackmore

Certainly almost everything we do and think is colored in some way by memes, but it is important to realize that not everything we experience is a meme. If I walk down the street and see a tree, the basic perception that's going on is not memetic.

Susan Blackmore

The other key to my failures seemed to be belief. I was told that I didn't get results because I didn't believe strongly enough in psi, because I didn't have an open mind!

Susan Blackmore

Take male strategies for success in the world. If you've got all the advantages, if you're attractive and clever and all of that, you will generally go for very high quality females.

Susan Blackmore

The way I really think is more like this "I am a scientist. I think the way to the truth is by investigation. I suspect that telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis and life after death do not exist because I have been looking in vain for them for 25 years. I have been wrong lots of times before and am not afraid of it."

Susan Blackmore