Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA15361 (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 16:22:03 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB1C3@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Central questions of memetics Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 16:20:04 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Your widget example is an excellent one to develop my point.
You talk of people 'noticing' the widget. How do people 'notice' the
widget? By direct experience? What if your exposure to the widget occurs
only through reading an instruction manual on the widget? Or you see it on
TV? Or you see a painting of the widget?
The material reality of experiencing something in person is clearly
different from experiencing it in the form of a book or a TV programme, so
do you interpret the widget the same way, no matter how you notice it, or do
different ways of noticing things, produce different responses.
Technology has allowed for 'widgets' to be transmitted in ways other than
directly from human brain to human brain (in terms of imitating observed
behaviour), and contemporary (developed world) culture is dominated by
technologies of these alternative forms of 'widget' transmission.
Essentially this is the basic set of questions of media studies- how does
mediated communication (at its most fundamental level this includes
language) differ, it at all, from direct interpersonal communication- and
this, again, is in terms of process.
As to the point about technological capacity which varies in people, and
clearly has a genetic basis, this is absolutely right, but it doesn't change
the point that technology itself isn't transmitted via the genes, does it?
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Chuck Palson
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Friday, May 19, 2000 10:06 am
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Central questions of memetics
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri May 19 2000 - 16:22:33 BST