2006 : WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?

susan_blackmore's picture
Psychologist; Visiting Professor, University of Plymouth; Author, Consciousness: An Introduction
Everything is pointless

We humans can, and do, make up our own purposes, but ultimately the universe has none. All the wonderfully complex, and beautifully designed things we see around us were built by the same purposeless process — evolution by natural selection. This includes everything from microbes and elephants to skyscrapers and computers, and even our own inner selves.

People have (mostly) got used to the idea that living things were designed by natural selection, but they have more trouble accepting that human creativity is just the same process operating on memes instead of genes. It seems, they think, to take away uniqueness, individuality and "true creativity".

Of course it does nothing of the kind; each person is unique even if that uniqueness is explained by their particular combination of genes, memes and environment, rather than by an inner conscious self who is the fount of creativity.