In 1973, Susan Blackmore graduated from St Hilda's College, Oxford, with a BA (Hons) degree in psychology and physiology. She received an MSc in environmental psychology in 1974 from the University of Surrey. In 1980, she earned a PhD in parapsychology from the same university; her doctoral thesis was entitled "Extrasensory Perception as a Cognitive Process."[2] In the 1980s, Blackmore conducted psychokinesis experiments to see if her baby daughter, Emily, could influence a random number generator. The experiments were mentioned in the book to accompany the TV series Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers.[3] Blackmore taught at the University of the West of England in Bristol until 2001.[4] After spending time in research on parapsychology and the paranormal,[5] her attitude towards the field moved from belief to scepticism.[6][7] In 1987, Blackmore wrote that she had an out-of-body experience shortly after she began running the Oxford University Society for Psychical Research (OUSPR):[8][9]
Within a few weeks I had not only learned a lot about the occult and the paranormal, but I had an experience that was to have a lasting effect on me—an out-of-body experience (OBE). It happened while I was wide awake, sitting talking to friends. It lasted about three hours and included everything from a typical "astral projection," complete with a silver cord and duplicate body, to free-floating flying, and finally to a mystical experience.
It was clear to me that the doctrine of astral projection, with its astral bodies floating about on astral planes, was intellectually unsatisfactory. But to dismiss the experience as "just imagination" would be impossible without being dishonest about how it had felt at the time. It had felt quite real. Everything looked clear and vivid, and I was able to think and speak quite clearly.
In a New Scientist article in 2000, she again wrote of this:
It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena—only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud. I became a sceptic.[10][11]
In an article in The Observer on sleep paralysis Barbara Rowland wrote that Blackmore, "carried out a large study between 1996 and 1999 of 'paranormal' experiences, most of which clearly fell within the definition of sleep paralysis."[13]
Blackmore has done research on memes (which she wrote about in her popular book The Meme Machine) and evolutionary theory. Her book Consciousness: An Introduction (2004), is a textbook that broadly covers the field of consciousness studies.[14] She was on the editorial board for the Journal of Memetics (an electronic journal) from 1997 to 2001, and has been a consulting editor of the Skeptical Inquirer since 1998.[15]
She acted as one of the psychologists who was featured on the British version of the television show Big Brother,[16] speaking about the psychological state of the contestants. She is a Patron of Humanists UK.[2]
Susan Blackmore has made contributions to the field of memetics.[19] The term meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. In his foreword to Blackmore's book The Meme Machine (1999), Dawkins said, "Any theory deserves to be given its best shot, and that is what Susan Blackmore has given the theory of the meme."[20] Other treatments of memes, that cite Blackmore, can be found in the works of Robert Aunger: The Electric Meme,[21] and Jonathan Whitty: A Memetic Paradigm of Project Management.[22]
Blackmore's treatment of memetics insists that memes are true evolutionary replicators, a second replicator that like genetics is subject to the Darwinian algorithm and undergoes evolutionary change.[23] Her prediction on the central role played by imitation as the cultural replicator and the neural structures that must be unique to humans in order to facilitate them have recently been given further support by research on mirror neurons and the differences in extent of these structures between humans and the presumed closest branch of simian ancestors.[24]
At the February 2008 TED conference, Blackmore introduced a special category of memes called temes. Temes are memes which live in technological artifacts instead of the human mind.[25]
Blackmore has written critically about both the flaws and redeeming qualities of religion, having said,[26][2]
All kinds of infectious memes thrive in religions, in spite of being false, such as the idea of a creator god, virgin births, the subservience of women, transubstantiation, and many more. In the major religions, they are backed up by admonitions to have faith not doubt, and by untestable but ferocious rewards and punishments."
...most religions include at least two aspects which I would be sorry to lose. First is the truths that many contain in their mystical or spiritual traditions; including insights into the nature of self, time and impermanence [...] The other is the rituals that we humans seem to need, marking such events as birth, death, and celebrations. Humanism provides a non-religious alternative and I have found the few such ceremonies I have attended to be a refreshing change from the Christian ones of my upbringing. I am also glad that these ceremonies allow for an eclectic mixture of songs, music and words. In spite of my lack of belief I still enjoy the ancient hymns of my childhood and I know others do too. We can and should build on our traditions rather than throwing out everything along with our childish beliefs.
In September 2010, Blackmore wrote in The Guardian that she no longer refers to religion simply as a "virus of the mind", "unless we twist the concept of a 'virus' to include something helpful and adaptive to its host as well as something harmful, it simply does not apply." Blackmore modified her position when she saw beneficial effects of religion, such as data correlating higher birth rates with the frequency of religious worship, and that "religious people can be more generous, and co-operate more in games such as the Prisoner's Dilemma, and that priming with religious concepts and belief in a 'supernatural watcher' increase the effects".[27][28]
Personal life
Blackmore is an advocate of secular spirituality, an atheist, a humanist, and a practitioner of Zen, although she identifies herself as "not a Buddhist" because she is not prepared to go along with any dogma.[29][30] Blackmore is a patron of Humanists UK.[31] She is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.[32]
On 15 September 2010, Blackmore, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK.[33]
— (1987). "Where am I? Perspectives in imagery and the out-of-body experience". Journal of Mental Imagery. 11 (2): 53–66.
—; Brelstaff, G.; Nelson, K.; Trościanko, T. (1995). "Is the richness of our visual world an illusion? Transsaccadic memory for complex scenes". Perception. 24 (9): 1075–81. doi:10.1068/p241075. PMID8552459. S2CID28031132.
— (November 1997). "Probability misjudgment and belief in the paranormal: A newspaper survey". British Journal of Psychology. 88 (4): 683–9. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1997.tb02665.x.
— (2002). "There Is No Stream of Consciousness. What is all this? What is all this stuff around me; This stream of experiences that I seem to be having all the time?". Journal of Consciousness Studies. 9 (5–6): 17–28.
^Saunders, G. (December 2003). "Is Consciousness Insoluble?". Scientific and Medical Review. The Scientific and Medical Network. Archived from the original(book review of Consciousness: An Introduction) on 1 May 2008.
^"Curriculum Vitae". Susan Blackmore official website. 15 January 2013. Retrieved 19 July 2013.
^Iacoboni, M. (2005). "Chapter 2: Understanding Others: Imitation, Language and Empathy". In Hurley, S.; Chater, N. (eds.). Perspectives on Imitation: From Neuroscience to Social Science. Vol. I: Mechanisms of Imitation and Imitation in Animals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 77–100. ISBN9780262582506.
^Blackmore, S. (2002). "Zen into Science". In Rhawn, R. (ed.). Neurotheology: Brain, Science, Spirituality, Religious Experience. San Jose, CA: University Press. pp. 159–161. ISBN9780971644588.
^Susan Blackmore (14 September 2017). Consciousness: a Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. pp. 130–. ISBN978-0-19-879473-8. My own view is this. Consciousness is an illusion: an enticing and compelling illusion [...] This, I suggest, is how the grand delusion of consciousness comes about.
^Blackmore, Susan (2016). "Delusions of consciousness". Journal of Consciousness Studies. 23 (11–12): 52–64. Frankish's illusionism aims to replace the hard problem with the illusion problem; to explain why phenomenal consciousness seems to exist and why the illusion is so powerful. My aim, though broadly illusionist, is to explain why many other false assumptions, or delusions, are so powerful.
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