Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA16498 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 17 May 2000 15:03:20 +0100 Message-ID: <39214CCB.B1554322@mediaone.net> Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 14:27:39 +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: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB19B@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Vincent Campbell wrote:
> Chuck, again I think you've misunderstood several of my points here.
>
> Take my question-
>
> > > What makes cultural change so
> > > much faster than biological change?
> >
> And your answer-
>
> >>That's also easy. Change can happen in a few hours, bioligical
> change - each
> > tiny bit of it - happens a generation at a time.
> >
> The question was not 'how much quicker is cultural change than biological
> change?', but what is the process by which it occurs? You don't answer that
> question in your response.
>
> In addition, there are many aspects of human culture, that have been
> discussed on this list from jingles to sayings etc. etc., that aren't to do
> with technology, which you seem fixated on.
I have written a lot about this, and it is still being debated here. But I
suggest you go back to my previous stuff to get a better idea of what I am
talking about. But as a quick example, I say that ALL belief systems have
economic consequences because beliefs - be it religious or secular or whatever -
are needed to act, and different belief systems direct users to act in more or
less efficient ways. For example, we invented the protestant ethic back a few
centuries ago because it was more appropriate to behavior in an emerging
capitalist system.
> Speaking personally, I don't
> see how using memetics to offer an explanation of why things like religions,
> and astrology, spread can be seen as anti-technology in any way.
Nothing inherent in the idea. It's when people start talking about memes like
fax machines and computer operating systems as "useless" and lots of other stuff
llike that that I came to that conclusion.
> In fact it
> is these systems that are anti-technology, and have been demonstrably so in
> the past (e.g. the Vatican's response to Galileo). Indeed, some religious
> communities actively avoid technology, such as the Amish.
The don't avoid technology - they have a lot more than they had in the 1600s.
They choose technology that will not interfere with their sense of community.
For example, motorized tractors were banned because people started using them to
go into town which in turn increased the frequency of visits to town and had a
negative effect on community cohesion. It turns out that all their technology
choices are guided by that kind of principle.
> Your response to why crazes occur returns once again to the social utility
> problem we've discussed before. And, as Richard pointed out, their are
> extreme examples of mass suicides in cults that can only be described as
> 'useful' in a relativistic manner.
As I have said a few times, there are experiments that fail. Suicide is a
failure because it would lead to the extinction of the species.
> In fact, something like the Jones Town
> massacre offer a good example for the Wilson-ites, in trying to explain why
> people killed not only others and themselves, but their own children. How
> was any of that 'useful' behaviour?
It wasn't except in a fantastical sense. It's at least interesting, even if
wrong, that Jones probably rationalized the behavior by thinking it would get
them to heaven faster. So the brain will often say that something is useful and
do it for that reason - it just happens to be wrong some of the time.
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