Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA13383 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 16 May 2000 05:11:36 +0100 X-Authentication-Warning: poirot.umd.edu: debivort owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 00:09:35 -0400 (EDT) From: "Lawrence H. de Bivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu> X-Sender: debivort@poirot.umd.edu To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Central questions of memetics In-Reply-To: <39203C76.A6296F1B@mediaone.net> Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.4.21.0005152338410.16229-100000@poirot.umd.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Mon, 15 May 2000, Chuck Palson wrote:
>I think I answered this in another form yesterday - but it goes like this. Yes,
>people do hold beliefs on the basis of their _apparent_ usefulness, and most
>beliefs in an ongoing society _are_ accurate or the society would collapse
>pretty fast. It is up to the scientist to figure out how these beliefs are
>useful because people can't always make that conscious -- because it often does
>them no good to be able to verbalize it.
I think "usefulness" is a significant element in the spread of memes --
quite possibly necessary but not sufficient. (Among the other elements
also necessary are a number of architectural characteristics that have to
do with simplicity, defense, etc.). Now, by 'useful' I am thinkign quite
broadly, to include memes that are perceived as useful, truly useful,
short-term useful, long-term, etc. There must be a _reason for the
adoption of the meme, and the architectural components are not themselves
sufficient.
I also have found that people _can_ express the utility of a meme to them
quite easily, if questioned effectively.
The ditty stuck in a person's head....is it useful? I have been following
this discussion with lots of interest, and would offer this thought: it
may be that the _mechanism_ through which the brain registers the ditty is
a mechanism that has some other (and more recognizably useful) function,
and that its (unfortunate) ability to remember useless ditties is
incidental. (Perhaps there are auditory characteristics of successful
ditties that are important for other reasons, and the ditties merely
contain these characteristics.)
I do use the presupposition that _everything_ a person does, from a
behavior to a belief to a statement, is useful to that person, whether it
is in ways that can understand or verbalize, or not. This presupposition,
which is one I use for utterly pragmatic reasons, may be coloring the way
I think of memes.
>> If the
>> beliefs help their adherents survive better, that more fits what I said
>> about leading to (presumably) a more desirable life. But certainly there are
>> examples of religions, such as Koresh and Heaven's Gate, that do not enhance
>> survival but just the reverse.
>
>Yes - and they don't last. They were the failed experiments.
Well, let us simply suppose that the 'purpose' of a meme lies in the
intent of its designer, in those cases where it is designed, and
deliberately released. One can easily imagine an intention other than that
the meme itself survive. (This notion of the controlling goal of
'survival' is one of the weaknesses that memetics seems to be saddled with
by those who would equate in the social sphere a meme to a gene.)
Supposing the Heaven's Gate meme(s) _were_ designed not with the meme's
survival in mind, but with the suicide of the group's adherents, or to put
it perhaps more precisely, with their 'travel' post-Earth to wherever. The
meme, in guiding them to this end, certainly would have achieved the
intent of its designer, though the meme itself expired. Nothing wrong with
that. I see meems as tools, and the important thing is what is
accomplished with the tool, not the tool itself.
- Lawrence
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