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Replicators

(In addition to language and signs and ... ), 

... we live in a world which (still, as of this morning) contains an overwhelming excess of life.

Susan Blackmore (in what are now far too many videos) outlines where we are, as the Pandoran Species - the one that, thanks to Eve &/or the serpent in Eden, opened up the box of knowledge (and life), and ...

the three replicators: self reproducing entities that are, or mimic, "life" on this planet, and all of which are in principle 'viral' and 'emergent':

Genes - from (literally) viral RNA upwards, which form the basis for the evolution of life as a self-reproducing / 'auto-poietic / adaptive / emergent 'life' blip in the cosmos, and makes us just sooooo 'unique'! (Self-congratulations all round, NOT). 

Memes - social practices (as in Blackmore's example of folding the last / first clean sheet of toilet paper in hotels, sic!) 

Temes - although she has been toying with an (emerging?) variation, namely "tremes" recently - which are technical devices (hard-wared or soft-wared), like 'swiping' smart phone screens, etc, which also go 'viral'.

The good news is that all of these provide replication and variation, and therefore (she says) 'must' yield evolution. The bad news is that we cant put the genie (e.g. the gene analysis that enables us to synthesise anthrax, or the equations we need to make nuclear bombs - you get the picture) back into the bottle. 

Not to mention that evolution sometime segues into de-volution - like the ability that H. Sapiens had to make our own Vitamin C, only to loose it after eating berries for too many eons, only to wake up on ocean going ships much later, without any lemons to hand, and die of Scurvy - big reality check!

The next problem is that most of us boys (as well as girls?) can't resist the temptation of a new 'toy', particularly if it has the potential to go, somewhere, or, more specifically, to go viral, make (a few of) us billionaires, and probably pollute the planet irreversibly in the process. 

Work to be done ... Come back "Club of Rome" report, 2.0, and no, The Garden of Eden is not a stupid fairy story after all - pay attention next time, Adam.