Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA11989 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 8 May 2000 23:12:42 +0100 Message-ID: <3916F62D.CD85DDFD@mediaone.net> Date: Mon, 08 May 2000 18:15:25 +0100 From: Chuck Palson <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Central questions of memetics References: <3915AEB4.9BE0796F@mediaone.net> <00050820415301.00952@faichney> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Robin Faichney wrote:
> On Sun, 07 May 2000, Chuck Palson wrote:
> >Blackmore in Meme Machine writes
> >that two memes that have infected our brains are the fax and the windows OS. She
> >says that the only reason these memes have been widely accepted is that they
> >have been mindlessly copied because they are useless. How does she know they are
> >useless? Because she finds them useless, period.
>
> I didn't think Blackmore was quite that simple-minded, so I looked up fax and
> Windows in the index. Windows isn't there. Fax has three entries, and in none
> of them, as far as I can see, is it called useless. In fact, she has two fax
> machines in her house! Can you give page references for these claims?
Unfortuantely I don't have the book - I borrowed it from interlibrary loan. I is in
the the second or third chapter. I reread the whole page a few times because it was
such an amazing display of - well, what can I say - stupidity. It was on the left
side of the open book.
>
>
> >This ability to copy accounts
> >for the spread of inventions according to her. She does not once mention the
> >possibility that people find inventions usefull because they solve problems by
> >multplying efficiencies of our efforts -- which happens to be the actual reason
> >why most inventions are eventually accepted.
>
> Are you sure she doesn't take forgranted the fact that being useful is a
> good strategy for memes? That's certainly what I'd have assumed, and
> Blackmore does not strike me as in any way stupid.
No, it's not for granted because sometimes she talks about how a meme is in fact
useful. For example, she says that it helps memes to be useful so that their hosts -
brains - will adopt them and they will therefore win in the competition for living
space in the brain – like “they might tap into needs for sex,… excitement or avoiding
danger.” But many genes never find brains where they can replicate like genes do
because “there are many more memes than can find homes.”
I have never heard her speak, so I can't say anything about her intelligence based on
broader experience. But judging from the book, I would have to say that she is quite
a bit below average intelligence. I even had the feeling that there might be some
psychological dysfunction she was trying to work out. What puzzles me is why Dawkins
gave her such a boost in the intro. I have heard him speak, and he seems intelligent.
But I have seen many times that someone who is very good in the hard sciences just
doesn't have the feel for the social sciences and how they fit into a broader
framework.
>
>
> >She then spends the last two
> >chapters picturing memes as nasty little viruses that she is trying to get rid
> >of, and makes suggestions on how to do this. She never makes it clear why they
> >are nasty, and one gets the impression it is just that she doesn't like them.
>
> Blackmore, to the best of my knowledge, was a Buddhist long before she became
> interested in memetics, and so had a profound appreciation of the benefits of
> a *relatively* meme-free mind, I suspect even before she knew what a meme was.
> Her attitude to them goes a *great* deal deeper than just not liking them.
I am not sure what this whole Buddhist thing is all about. But what does it mean to
say that she has "mostly daft and pointless thoughts." Her book and some discussions
I have had motivated me to ask what is indeed going on in people's heads, and
everyone I have asked, including myself, is that there is a constant dialogue that is
mostly about talking to oneself or others about this or that social strategy or
specific planning of events or projects - which are also in the end social. Techies
add that they may manipulate three dimensional objects (which I can't do). So what
does it mean when she says she has only daft and pointless thoughts? I can't help
but think that there is a disturbance there somewhere, even if she calls it Buddism.
>
> >example, to Dawkins, the only thing that matters in regards religion is that
> >there is no God, and therefore religion is a lie. That is far too facile and, I
> >dare say, straight ideology.
>
> Here I agree with you. Dawkins' attitude to religion is highly unscientific.
> He just lets his feelings run away with him.
This is a good example of what I mean when hard scientists get into the social
sciences. Durkhem, the french sociologist, and many anthropologists know perfectly
well that there is more to religion than the literal truth or falsehood. It's a
pretty big hole in his understanding of people as far as I am concerned.
>
>
> >> - how does culture evolve, given the model of Darwinian selection of memes?
> >
> >You are assuming the Darwinian selection of memes a la Dawkins, Blackmore etc.
> >The whole model is, as far as I can see, based on the faulty methodolgy and
> >value judgements I have described above. People choose to hold on to memes
> >because of some well described reasons. And they get rid of them for other well
> >understood reasons. As far as I can see, describing them as having a life of
> >their own simply mystifies the problem.
>
> It does indeed. But your big mistake -- shared with many, many others
> including Blackmore despite my defence of her above -- is to assume that
> explanations are mutually exclusive. Memes survive *because* people choose
> them (among other reasons). Genes have no life "of their own", either --
> they're totally reliant on the phenotype for their survival and reproduction.
> Both genes and memes are essentially passive: all they do is survive.
I have no idea how they themselves can be either passive or active. People choose to
use them or erase them. And I have never met a "meme" yet that doesn't have some use.
I tried to bet a meme fanatic that I would give him a dollar for every non-useful
meme he can bring up, but he refuses to. What criticism do you have of the idea that
an active human brain uses or erases memes depending on their usefulness?
> It so
> happens that such survival is at the centre of the most complex systems we
> know, and almost certainly ever will know, which is why the gene and meme are
> such important concepts to us. But they are obviously no kind of "active
> agent". And there's no conflict whatsoever between memetic explanations, and
> people making choices. In real life, that is, as opposed to pure theory. The
> things people choose naturally tend to proliferate. To focus on these things,
> and call the more common ones "successful", *as if* they'd engineered the
> situation, can be quite an enlightening exercise, like most radical shifts in
> perspective.
Could you be more specific on how this enlightens as opposed to the model I just
mentioned above?
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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