Dan Dennett: Dangerous memes | Video on TED.com - 2 views
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Alexis Schomer on 02 Nov 12It is crazy how he talks about memes as viruses that infect people and influence others. Our ideas are not our own but are passed down by others and influenced. I think in the beginning when he is talking about evolution he is saying that human "evolution" is actually not benefitting us the same way an animal's evolution benefits it.
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Devon Meredith on 04 Nov 12I think there is obviously a big distinction between how evolution affects humans and animals but Dan Dennett's ideas are definitely defined. Your statement about how our ideas are not only our own thought but influenced by others is a great statement because it is so true.
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When he started talking about the fact that ideas became infectious, he totally captivated my attention. I see ideas in the same way; and the way he explained it made it so interesting! But when he got into the part about memes, I kind of got confused, since my frame of a meme is that of my generation, rather than what he was talking about.
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I agree, I really like how he started out his presentation and seemed to follow along with what he was talking about, understood how ideas became so infectious. I started getting lost when he talked about memes. I didn't really understand memes in the first place, but the way he described it was not very interesting so it was harder to follow. He would randomly draw my attention back, like when he talked about celibacy and joked about no one it died out.
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I agree to an extent. I think that ideas are passed down and influenced to an extent but there are also many new ideas. People have evolved in so many ways and that is partly because people come along with new and educated views. With great advancements in educations and technology people are able to have new ideas about things.
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This is definitely a point I agree with. It seems as though he is saying that our ideas are not original, but a different version of someone else's idea. The meme subject was slightly confusing, and I lost track of what he was trying to say.
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I agree as well. Ideas are definitely infectious. I feel as if we are in a society that is so accustomed to that. We see something, a meme or not, that influences us to feel a certain way. We tend to pass these feelings towards others.
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I really liked Dennett's metaphor about the ant and the parasite to explain how in humans, ideas can be like parasites in the way they develop and spread. I agree that spreading ideas can be harmful to other cultures that are not accustomed to them. It is easy for us to not acknowledge the impacts of our ideas on other cultures because we are already used to them. However, we must use realize our the potential impacts that our ideas can have on other cultures and societies.
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