Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA05197 (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 20:46:09 +0100 Message-Id: <200005171943.PAA25185@mail2.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 14:47:45 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Central questions of memetics In-reply-to: <00051719011302.00526@faichney> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk>
Organization: Reborn Technology
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Central questions of memetics
Date sent: Wed, 17 May 2000 18:36:42 +0100
Send 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.
>
But cognitive psychology's repudiation of Skinnerian and
Watsonian behaviorism is based upon the concept of top-down
control (see Roger Sperry) and the idea that one can indeed
choose to "change one's mind" and accomplish same, as well as
the idea that innovation is as important as imitation to the survival
of at least mammalian species. No reasonable person would claim
that cognitive psychology, which has been responsible for
breathtaking advances in the last quarter-century, is either non- or
antiscientific, now would they? Are Damasio and Edelman and
Pinker and Gazzaniga and LeDoux and Luria and Lieberman and
Lakoff and Kagan and Zajonc and Sperry and Izard and Kinsbourne
and Pribam and Segalowwitx and Stich and Uttal all non- or
antiscientific?
In fact, EVERY empirical study is "tainted" by subjectivity,
since it is, after all, the subject who perceives the results of
experiments, extracts regularities, and represents them to other
subjectivities by means of intersubjectively human-created symbol
systems. In the absence of subjectivity, there would, and could,
BE NO science; If rocks and clouds and trees could do it, they
would have to possess self- and other-conscious perspectives upon
their objects of study, too. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is
not just testimony to the effects of observer upon observed, but
also to the necessity of both observer (subject) and observed
(object) to any observation.
>
> 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.
>
As i have just demonstrated, there can be no such thing as
"observer-pure" theory. We cannot achieve the Platonically purified
absolutistic abstraction we call "objectivity" - no "we" could - but
we can and do achieve intersubjectivally corroborated and
statistically very probable principles.
>
> 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.
>
There is only from the inside, either unmediated (introspection of
one's own ideation) or mediated (observation of others' behavior). In
either case a subject, that is, an oberver, is as necessary to the
process of observation as is an observed.
>
> 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
>
>
===============================================================
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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