Tremes – the 3rd replicator

In my 2008 TED lecture I proposed that just as memes are a second replicator piggy-backing on genes, the first replicator, so there may be a third replicator piggy-backing on the first two – in other words on us. I called these digital replicators tremes. Here is more on this idea.

Watch

Interview with Susan Blackmore on the Rhys Lindmark Podcast  “How memes gave rise to the third replicator” . 27.09.2021

Interview with Mel van Dusen at his home in California, on Genes, memes and tremes,  08 August 2017

Consciousness in treme machines. For CogNovo’s summer school “ColLaboratoire” (University of Plymouth), inspired by the students’ question ‘Could the Internet be conscious?’ 19 August 2016 watch on Vimeo

new form of evolution (tremes), interview in The Perfect Human Being series, July 2016

Genes, Memes and Tremes” on TV in Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, May 2015 (The whole programme is 43 minutes long, my interview is from 20:21 to 26:00)

Eyes of the tremes? Our (2 min) Video, inspired by the idea that phones, computers and servers are becoming interconnected like neurons in a brain. Does the advent of drones give this vast treme machine eyes?

The Perfect Human Being (De Volmaakte Mens) on Dutch public TV 2015. This episode –Human versus Machine –includes a conversation between me and Nick Bostrom with host Bas Heijne (the clip involving us starts around 16.40)

Genes, Memes and temes” lecture at the Hay Festival, 5.6.2011 the Philosophy festival HowTheLightGetsIn.

My TED lecture  Genes, memes and temes. 2008. Now with subtitles in 23 languages.

Listen

Cologne Conference Futures, 6 October 2014. Listen to my talk on ‘Memes, tremes and the future of consciousness’.

Podcast interview on US Public Radio To the best of our knowledge about memes and temes. 29 July 2012

Internet memes: interview at The Pod Delusion 18th March 2011. This interview was about the BBC Radio 4 programme “What’s in a meme?” which I presented on 22 March 2011.

Read

Blackmore, S. 2023 The New Evolution, New Scientist, 23 September, p19 (download PDF of my original text, pre-publication)

Blackmore, S. 2016. That Dress In: What to think about machines that think. Ed. John Brockman, NY, Harper, 2017, 520-22

Blackmore, S. 2015. The Next Replicator In: What to think about machines that think. Ed. John Brockman, NY, Harper, 2015, 150-2

Dangerous Memes; or what the Pandorans let loose. In Cosmos and Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context, edited by Steven Dick and Mark Lupisella 2010

The Edge Question 2010. How is the Internet changing the way you think?  See my response on Self and the Third Replicator as well as previous answers.

Copy that: a response, on the third replicator, New York Times, 3 September 2010

The third replicator, Debate in the New York Times, 22 August 2010 with comments and my response 3 September 2010.

Evolution’s third replicator: Genes, memes and now what? New Scientist, 1 August 2009, 36-39, republished by The New York Times, 22 August 2010

Blackmore, S. (2010) Artificial self-replicating meme machines. In: This Will Change Everything: Ideas that will shape the future. Ed. John Brockman, Harper Perenniel  pp 135-8 Reprint of my response to the Edge Question 2009

Help find a name for the new replicator New Scientist, 29 July 2009

Blackmore, S.J. 2009 The third replicator (initial draft of article later published in the New Scientist, see above) May 2009

Blackmore, S.2008 The trouble with Memetics. Skeptical Inquirer, 32,65

Blackmore, S.2007 Memes, Creativity and Consciousness. PROP, October 2007, 50-51 (reprinted from Aesthetica)

The Meme Machine , Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press 1999

Blogs

My blog at CommentisFree : AI is already evolving beyond our control – CommentisFree September 2015 and about Internet memes April 2011

The Edge Question 2010. How is the Internet changing the way you think?  See my response on Self and the Third Replicator as well as previous answers.

See more on memes

There is also a complete list of my publications on memes at my memetics site