Counterintuitive Facts (79): You Think You're Thinking, But Actually Viruses Are Using Your Brain to Mine

I. You think your thoughts are yours? You believe in some religion. You hold some political stance. You believe in some moral view. You think these are results of "rational thinking" you chose. You think you're controlling your beliefs. Richard Dawkins tells you: You're overthinking it.

II. In 1976, Dawkins proposed an astonishing analogy in "The Selfish Gene." Genes are replicators in biological evolution. To replicate themselves, they created flesh. Including your body. You're not the gene's master. You're the gene's vehicle. Similarly, Ideas are also replicators. Dawkins calls them Memes. Memes occupy and exploit human brains to replicate themselves.

III. A successful meme doesn't depend on whether it's "true," but whether it's "good at spreading." Truth and falsehood, from memetics per