Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA15484 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 26 May 2000 21:18:19 +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Cui bono, Chuck? Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 21:03:31 +0100 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <392D46A0.928A1C7B@mediaone.net> Message-Id: <00052621145200.00626@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, 25 May 2000, chuck wrote:
>Robin Faichney wrote:
>
>> Could I clarify one point, Chuck?
>>
>> You say behaviour has to be useful, but useful to whom, exactly? Must
>> it be primarily of use to the behaving individual, his/her family or
>> part thereof, or the wider community?
>>
>
>The individual - which Dawkins calls the Survival Machine. The "community
>effect" if you will comes from the fact that social animals need to form
>alliances with each other. So -- the individual can be a legitimate unit
>of analysis.
Legitimate analysis can happen at any level. So can illegitimate analysis.
We have to ask, given an analysis type, what is the appropriate level --
or, given a level, what is the appropriate analysis type?
>Although selection takes place at the "selfish gene" level, the aggregate
>effect must be the creation of a survival machine.
I don't think that's legitimate, because it is too short-sighted to be of
use. Not a survival machine, but a survive-to-reproduce machine. You can
survive to 180, but if you have no kids, your genes have hit a dead end,
and you're an evolutionary failure. I say that as a 46 year old man (nearly
47) with no kids, so this matters to me. My concern with your analysis is
that, by focussing on the individual, you miss out on *both* the low-level
genetic factors, and the higher-level interpersonal factors. Ultimately,
in evolutionary terms, your only use is to (a) have kids, and then (b) help
them reach the point where they can have kids, and your input into (a) is
probably a lot more significant than that for (b). What's of use to you,
as an individual, is of absolutely no evolutionary significance whatsoever,
except to the extent that it facilitates mainly (a) and then (b).
Agreed?
-- 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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