Susan Blackmore

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 1998

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week says changing her mind was one of the most difficult things she's ever had to do. After an out-of-body experience, psychologist Susan Blackmore set out to study and prove the existence of the paranormal. Twenty years on, she's a convinced sceptic.

She continues, however, to be fascinated by the question of consciousness. In particular, the new theory of memes which examines how habits and beliefs are passed on from one person to another. At their worst, she says, they're evident in fascism or religious fundamentalism. At their best, they're responsible for our co-operation and kindness.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Not Fade Away by Grateful Dead Book: Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Luxury: A handful of cannabis seeds

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
0:06.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:09.1	The program was originally broadcast in 1998, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a psychologist. For more than 20 years she devoted herself to the study of the paranormal, telepathy, ghosts, reincarnation. But eventually she abandoned her work. The theories she discovered went against the findings of science.
0:46.0	Instead, she turned to the study of human consciousness, in particular the way habits and beliefs are passed on from one person to another.
0:55.0	Here her studies have led her to the conclusion that strong beliefs, like strong genes, have the best chance of survival.
1:02.0	Her skepticism towards the paranormal has made her unpopular in
1:05.7	some quarters but she remains sternly convinced. The awful truth she says is
1:10.6	that we are just biological organisms and our precious selves are pure invention.
1:16.8	She is Dr. Susan Blackmore.
1:19.5	Is that an awful truth, Susan, in the sense of the phrase that's to mean it inspires
1:25.7	or, or is it that you just didn't want to know that?
1:28.8	Well, both.
1:30.6	Yes, it does inspire or.
1:32.1	I mean, I think, you think I just got here for no reason at all.
1:36.4	I'm just this lump of flesh that sort of evolved. I'm here because of the genes of my past and the ideas that I've picked up in my lifetime and that's it. That is awe-inspiring.
1:45.9	To me it's more awe-inspiring than what some people would prefer the idea that you know
1:49.2	God put me here or there's a heaven or something and in a a way it's not awful to me in the other
1:54.3	sense, in the horrible sense, because I've got used to it. And I think one of the things we have
1:58.8	to do as scientists is if we genuinely think science is telling us something about
2:02.0	human nature, then we have to live
2:03.4	our lives really believing that.
2:06.2	But when you decided to abandon your studies into the paranormal, I mean let me ask you a very
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.