Virus of the Mind

The New Science of the Meme

By: Richard Brodie

Narrated by: Richard Brodie

Virus of the Mind is the first popular work devoted to the science of memetics, a controversial new field that transcends psychology, biology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Memetics is the science of memes, the invisible but very real DNA of human society. Here, the author carefully builds on the work of scientists Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, and others who have become fascinated with memes and their potential impact on our lives.

Mind viruses have already infected governments, educational systems, and inner cities, leading to some of the most pervasive and troublesome problems of society today: youth gangs, the welfare cycle, the deterioration of the public schools, and ever growing government bureaucracy. Richard Brodie weaves together science, ethics, and current events as he raises these and other very disturbing issues relating to memes.©2009 Hay House, Inc. (P)2009 Hay House, Inc.

Many new prospectively!

You can gain a lot from this book in terms of business and marketing or consciousness and zen or pure conspiracy theory perspective!

This book literally enlightened me on all levels of the mind!!!

I love this book so much and I have the hardcover and audible for this book and this book has completely enlightened me in ways I thought the mind couldn’t comprehend but I’m so glad I have this book because it has showed me something I wasn’t consciously aware of what is really wrong with society until after I got this book📖🤔🙏🏾

Intentional choice

I just finished the book, so should have a lack of space and distance to know what effect it will have on my future behavior, fortunately however, I remote viewed myself helping many children out of clouds of memes and idioms, so looks promising.

The gift of Clarity

Mr. Brodie's uber effective explanation of memes is remarkably mind expanding. I look forward to my next listen, there's simply too much to capture in a single play.

Intriguing

I took off one star for the annoying and loud music between chapters. Stuff like that remove me from the story and disrupts any thought train or emotional feeling from the book.

Otherwise this is a great, straightforward, easy to understand book that explains how blatantly manipulative actions go on every day in ways unlikely to be noticed. Plus it gives examples of the desired outcome from those efforts.

Wish it was longer

An excellent step into the concept of Meme. Richard Brodie provides thorough and meaningful presentation of the topic of meme. This is a practical book for learning the concept, the history, the implications of meme transfer. The use of the term meme is a convenient method of conveying a complicated concept. The concept is extremely important not only to communication and persuasion, but to the understanding of thought. It has been said that all learning is persuasion. It is necessary to be persuaded in order to believe a thought is true. The difference between carrying and sharing a meme, being a meme replicator, and persuading another of a truth is significant. Brodie not only makes the difference clear, he provides some practical defense against the virulent but destructive type of meme. A question discussed in the book is does the meme improve quality of life, and if so, at what cost? I regard this as an important question. Brodie also raises the question of how memes may improve life for humans more broadly, but doesn't explore this deeply.

There are a few unanswered questions that Brodie's treatment skirts. I'd like to know how music fits the meme model. It certainly replicates, does it use the same path? What are the basic motivators that the music meme rides on?

Could there be a strategy to improve meme quality? What criteria would be valid?

Is there a case/risk for pop-up memes for urgent issues? I know that the morning news is a quasi pop-up meme generator. But this source is worn out and now directly challenged, politically and by Internet competition. Which raises the question about judgement - is awareness enough?

Richard reads this work very well. I enjoyed the listen and am still pondering... I hope he finds the time to write the sequel.

An interesting way of looking at things

Enjoyed this book. One of the best teaching devices n it, is being able to observe the stent to which the author is trapped in his own memes. I do hope that was intentional.

Definitely worth a read

I loved this book, informative and it's one of the few books that are not resident in one fueled like Psychology only or marketing or business.

I am new to the meme subject, I am happy I tried it. BRODIE has put the concepts clear and basic enough to wet my appetite on the subject.

I wanted to like this...

I was excited by the book’s title and was looking forward to an informative Great Courses-Esque in depth discussion on the history of memes and how they spread, with research cited and historical examples etc. I was disappointed.

As others had stated the book is a fair bit repetitive and a bit shallow considering the topic discussed. If feels like a rough draft, or a very long blog post.

I do appreciate what the author was intending (we are largely controlled by ideas, traditions, memes etc that are not our own) but the work just seemed a little unfocused and repetitive with a lot of his assertions left unsupported.

I’d love to find a well researched book that thoroughly/properly explores the phenomena of memes.

thought provoking

While I have to admit that it sounds a little like a sermon, the concept is easy to grasp and not dry at all. This is an good lesson in critical thinking for people who dont want to fall for dumb ideas.