Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA14776 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 19 May 2000 15:03:48 +0100 Message-ID: <39250417.F6162F1@mediaone.net> Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 10:06:32 +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: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB1BA@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
You ask some very interesting questions. Perhaps they strike me even more
because I just finished giving some lectures on sociobiology applied to history
to some very well read lay people - which are often the best kind for
stimulating new ideas. Let's see what I can come up with:
Vincent Campbell wrote:
> I see your argument here, and as a social scientist it may indeed by a
> professional reservation I have over going the whole hog regarding natural
> selection's influence on human behaviour, because it might put me out of a
> job! :-)
I think this is a serious issue - despite your ":-)"; it lies at the core of
many of these debates. I started out in the social sciences. I don't have a
professional position in them now, so I suspect I don't feel as threatened by a
change like this. On the other hand, now that I use a SB perspective in
investigating behavior, I feel that there is no fundamental contradiction. SB as
a field hasn't quite come to the point where enough people understand this,
although Pinker comes very close in his How the Mind Works.
> Let's forget culture for a moment, and talk about technology. You have said
> on this list explicitly that technological change drives cultural change.
> Let's accept that for a moment. Let's accept also that technology spreads
> because it has utility, I certainly have no problem with this. My question
> is thus how does technology spread? It quite clearly does not spread
> genetically. The process of technological evolution may be analogous to
> natural selection but it is not the same as it because it is not conducted
> through genes.
You are bringing up a lot of issues here and it's hard to know where to begin.
Let's see ....
Yes, I have said that technology change drives cultural change because in the
time spans I am talking about, that is the direction. On the other hand, I
should point out that in the long run - many thousands of years - there has been
and probably still is a dialectical relationship between the two. We know that
individuals are better or worse at inventing and using new technology and this
is due to some degree on their inborn talents at these things. (There are others
who have better social skills, by the way.) That would make the line between
culture and biology pretty fuzzy. It's an issue I have avoided so far in these
discussions on this site, but I think we have to deal with it. The more we know
about the brain, the more it seems like this distinction will get fuzzier and
fuzzier.
2. Underneath all the talk about culture being different is the age old mind
body issue. In my view, the question of "How does 'it' spread?" is entirely
generated by this issue; the nature of 'it' seems mysterious because it is
conceived of as separate from the body. By developing ways over the last twenty
years to peer into the brain, we may be on the threshold of a more effective
understanding of ourselves by eliminating the distinction. The point is, 'it' is
a material reality interacting with a material reality.
With that in mind, tell me what's wrong with this explanation: a physical
individual invents a new widget to do wizzing more efficiently. Other physicial
individuals notice the widget and compute the following: if I don't get the
widget, that individual will have power over me. Soon everyone has one and the
playing field is again roughly equalized (might take a few centuries).
Underlying this is a human brain that evolved under selective pressures as a
particular kind of problem solver that develops a wide range of solutions to the
problems of physical existence; that is why our species now occupies more
econiches than any other mammal. The very competitive pressures that has formed
the brain are in fact responsible for the widespread adoption of the widget.
But, the argument goes, ideas have no material reality; you can't touch them,
you can't see them. Look at the "isness" of your perceptions. I can't agree.
Ideas *do* have material reality that we are just beginning to quite literally
be able to see. And all you need to connect those happenings in the brain and
the outside world is a series of thingamabobs that a) sense events outside
themselves and b) physically react to events in the outside world and/or inside
the brain; something we call a nerve will do. In other words, a kind of
computer, although far more complex and with a number of mechanical principles.
Yet conditions a and b are always present. This is Pinker's idea, and I read it
over a few times before I gave my lectures. It makes so much sense to me that I
have trouble seeing why people can't see it, so maybe I am missing something
here.
I should note that this is certainly not Skinnerism. The notion of a black box
that does one thing very well ("associations") is a form of black magic because
the notion of association covers up all kinds of process that must be going on.
Skinner probably would have been mystified, delighted, and threatened all at
once by today's discoveries.
It seems to me that there is an enormous psychological resistance to this notion
due to one very important human issue: immortality. I am quite serious about
this. As I, a long time atheist, grows old, I see how convenient is the notion
of immortality. If, as I grow frail, I can convince others that they will still
have to deal with me after my death, that we will meet up again somewhere, it
maintains my authority with those younger than myself even though my time is
coming and I can't contribute as much. Of course I can't do that because it's
just not in me. But you might have noticed that the stronger the ancestor
worship in a society, the more firm is the authority structure.
[I always make it a habit to examine the social utility of any idea because it
gives me all kinds of insights into how to present the idea, so I hope you don't
find the above just a digression.]
>
>
> Now if processes like technological or cultural evolution are not conducted
> via natural selection
It is *part* of natural selection, and my hunch is that humans are only the most
impressive example. What do we make of species of birds that have to learn how
to sing, for example.
> even if you use the same terminology for technological or cultural
> evolution, such as utility, the meaning of utility in these different
> systems may be different from what it means in terms of the genes. Second,
> although there is much debate about it, technological change may have
> already had significant impacts on selection pressures within humans,
I don't think there is any debate about the principle among those in the field;
they only disagree on the details - principally how fast it takes place and is
it happening now.
> As a media scholar it is the process rather than the underlying origins or
> determining basis of that process that interests me. I'm not interested
> necessarily in why people believe religion 'a', but the process by which
> religion 'a' spread. It may spread because it's useful to its believers,
> but so what? What's interesting to me is how religion 'a' spreads,
>
I pay as close attention to findings in the neurosciences as time permits
because the brain is where the all action is. When an experiment demonstrates
that something actually takes place outside of consciousness when I had thought
all these years that it was entirely conscious, it challenges my world view a
little, it opens me up to new ways of exploring behavior even though we don't
know nearly enough about the meaning of the experimental results. It seems to me
that you might find that a useful approach.
But in all seriousness, I'd like to see how you analyze my widget/wizzer
example.
Also, at some point I might give you a chapter I have written as part of a
proposed book on how and why the romantic period developed in the United States.
It is partly based on the sociobiological finding that it is hard to entirely
fake emotions, emotional expressions are universal, and emotional displays make
us more transparent to others. It has to do with establishing new ways of
developing trust among relative strangers in a historical period when large
scale migrations made it impossible to know others through their established
reputation. It's a good example of how you aren't as professionally threatened
as you think you might be by sociobiology.
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