Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA22803 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 17 Mar 2000 20:56:53 GMT Message-ID: <20000317205517.17364.qmail@nw175.netaddress.usa.net> Date: 17 Mar 00 20:55:17 GMT From: Derek Gatherer <derek-gatherer@usa.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk X-Mailer: USANET web-mailer (M3.4.0.33) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Mark: (on Martin Gardner)
His whole argument is summarized in this quote: "I will argue here, a meme
is so broadly defined by its proponents as to be a useless concept,”
Derek:
Funnily enough, that is exactly the criticism I would apply to internalist
views of memetics. The ‘hard internalist’ position, that there are defined
neural patterns corresponding to certain behaviours, is at least logically
coherent, albeit wrong. Few people would hold to it now – maybe Robert Aunger
(if he’s listening, I hope he’ll correct me if I’m wrong), Dawkins might have
done once, but there isn’t enough detail in his early writings to make it
clear.
The ‘soft internalist’ position is that even if there aren’t specific neural
activation patterns for each behaviour, then there is some kind of
abstraction, or an abstract class of neural somethingness, so that when we see
a replicating behaviour, we can say ‘aha, the cause of that replicating
behaviour is some kind of replicating something in the brain, but it is bound
to be different in each person, of course’. Then a lame software-hardware
analogy gets trundled out, and it is laboriously explained that there can be
several versions of wordprocessor at the software level that still give you….
‘ etc, I won’t drag this out. You’ve all heard it before in various versions
from the internalists.
This is simply unfalsifiable (at best – I could be ruder, and have been in the
past). Hard internalism is implausible, but at least it is open to some kind
of verification/falsification of sorts. Once you get into soft internalism,
there’s the endless escape route of denying that replicating brain patterns
actually need to be ‘the same’ in any way. Externalists, on the other hand,
say better to use Occam’s razor, and then you’re just left with behaviours
(replicating or otherwise).
Mark:
This [ie. Gardner above] restates the Gatherer definition. The meme is the
behavior. A meme is
anything humans 'do or say.' As Gatherer and Blackmore acknowledge, the
definition abandons the genotype-phenotype model. It cuts any ties to
evolutionary science. It shouldn't be surprising that evolutionary
scientists hate the 'meme=behavior" notion.
Derek:
Cuts any ties to evolutionary science? That’s a bit strong, isn’t it?
Attempting to attack culture from an evolutionary perspective does not cut
ties with evolutionary science, quite the contrary in fact. I’ve never
stopped thinking of myself as an evolutionary scientist.
Mark:
Adherents to the Lynch definition have little trouble with this. They can
point out similarities between DNA sequences and neural receptor sequences.
Derek:
Yes, because neural receptors are coded for in the DNA. What’s that got to do
with the internalist definition? When have you ever seen an internalist
memetics paper with any reference to neural receptor sequences? I certainly
haven’t.
Mark:
Research into understanding these neural sequences may be limited, but we
are making rapid progress. The current understanding of synapse receptor
sequences is not unlike the understanding of DNA during the 1900-1910
period when DNA was linked to heredity.
Derek:
(A little pedant attack: it was Griffiths 1928 experiments that first linked
DNA to heredity).
I don’t understand what you say here at all – our understanding of receptor
sequences is pure molecular biology. Neural receptor research is not ‘like’
early genetics, it’s part of the research tradition that extends out of early
genetics. What you say is rather like saying that our understanding of the
motor car is like the ancient Roman’s understanding of the chariot. I don’t
think that such an observation is illuminating in any way.
Mark:
Whatever the name, I
fully anticipate there being bodies of knowledge built upon the premise
that neural substrates function like DNA.
Derek:
Sorry Mark, but I think you’re really confused about this. Neural subtrates
don’t ‘function like DNA’. They are made based on the DNA code via the RNA
and translation etc. They function like the way they function, by
neurotransmitter binding, ion channel opening and closing, depolarisation of
membranes etc.
Mark:
Genes play a foundational role
in production of physiological effects, organizational units on the neural
substrate do the same for cultural effects.
Derek:
That’s just the straight internalist premise restated. But unless you can
show me one of these internal replicating things, then as Gardner says all
you’ve got is a something “so broadly defined …… as to be a useless
concept,”
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