THIRD GENERATION REPLICATORS: AN OVERVIEW OF THE BLACKMORIAN TEMES CONCEPTION

This article aims at presenting the theoretical foundation of the temes, the third generation replicators proposed by Susan Blackmore. Blackmore’s hypothesis is grounded on the premise that a novel evolution process is presently taking place on earth, in which the copy, variation and selection of information are carried out directly by the machines, and no longer by the genes and memes alone, thus bringing about an evolutionary algorithm in a different complexion. Naturally, a large part of Blackmore’s theoretical foundation stems from Richard Dawkins’s memetic theory, to which memes would be able to account for the cultural evolution pertaining to human beings. By scrutinising the notions of memes and temes, based on the battle of the replicators’ scenario imagined by Blackmore, this article intends, ultimately, to ponder upon the human condition, especially in regard to its relationship with the construct of the cyborg, at a moment in which the temes all but determine the merging of man and machine.