Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA04909 (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 19:22:20 +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Central questions of memetics Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 18:36:42 +0100 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <392278B0.E3EC00D7@mediaone.net> Message-Id: <00051719011302.00526@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Wed, 17 May 2000, Chuck Palson wrote:
>Robin Faichney wrote:
>
>> Because despite Chuck's insistence on usefulness, I think it's
>> very clear that the overwhelming mass of culture is anything but that -- tied
>> to immediate survival, I mean.
>
>See what you think of the notion of survival after reading my recent post on the
>subject.
Sorry, seeing its length, I deleted it. Don't take it personally -- due to lack
of time, only very rarely would I read something that long on any list. But see
below.
>> Entertainment value seems much more
>> significant than actual practical usefulness, and if you widen "useful" to
>> include "entertaining", then I think it ("useful") loses its usefulness (and
>> it's not terribly entertaining either).
>
>A lot of people say almost as a matter of faith that Darwin's theory is
>meaningless because it can be applied to everything. They even claim that it is
>tautological because the actual survival is supposed to be the explanatory
>factor. And indeed, you might be suspicious of a theory that explains everything.
>Trouble is, it does -- so far -- because there are ways to falsify the theory. If
>someone could find an organism that just popped out of nowhere or a change that
>did not benefit the replicator, the theory is disproven.
>
>So you provide me with a example of a meme (besides the annoying ditty that keeps
>repeating itself in your head) that is not useful in either direct practical
>terms or indirectly through establishment of alliances and status (which in turn
>lead to access to material resources), and you have falisfied my theory. Your
>frustration that I do find usefulness where you find only triviality is a comment
>on the differences we have in method and theory.
I'm not clear why the little ditty is not a counter example, but neither am I
wedded to the notion that some memes are useless. That's not really the point of
memetics, nor is the associated assumption that there is necessarily some kind of
conflict between what's good for memes, and what's good for individuals. Memetics
relies, rather, on the claim that what's good for memes is not necessarily good
for *genes*. So memetics constitutes a systematic attempt to explain why some
behaviours are "successful" in that they're widespread and long-lasting, despite
being genetically bad. "Systematic", because any such attempt that brings in
freewill, or any associated concept, is tainted by subjectivity, and necessarily
unscientific.
I said some time back that there was no conflict between memetics and human choice
*outside* of pure theory, but inside it, there certainly is.
Not that there's a theory that says you can't have both, but rather that no
consistent theory can include both -- they belong to different explanatory
frameworks. For those who are satisfied with the limitations of objectivity,
genes+memes can explain all human behaviour. I am *not* one of these people --
because I don't see an explanation "from the outside" as sufficient, in general
terms -- but I do recognise the usefulness of objectivity, as far as it goes.
Anyway, I won't argue anymore about the usefulness or otherwise of memes to
their hosts.
-- Robin Faichney===============================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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