Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA02244 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 30 May 2000 17:29:06 +0100 Message-ID: <3933A590.71C8928@mediaone.net> Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 12:27:12 +0100 From: chuck <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Cui bono, Chuck? References: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJMEDKEOAA.richard@brodietech.com> 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
Richard Brodie wrote:
> Chuck wrote:
>
> <<Sociobiology itself is far more useful in developing ideas on why culture
> might
> work "against biological reproduction.">>
>
> Now I think you not only don't understand memetics, but you also don't
> understand sociobiology. A sociobiologist would always hold that culture
> ultimately supports biological reproduction.
Wrong again. No evolutionist, including myself, ever said that species don't
make mistakes that can sometimes lead to extinction. As usual, you don't read my
postings very carefully. I have made it quite clear that people fashion
solutions with culture that **appear** to them to be viable solutions. I never
said that they were always right. To the contrary. The sources of these errors
comes from the blindspots. For example, the effort to fashion a system of
abstract logic that applies to all sorts of content runs into problems because
the mind has not evolved with this system of abstract logic. I have posted
messages about this.
>
> Only memeticists "slip the
> leash." As much as I admire your storytelling and debating skills,
I have no debating skills. The concepts I bring to this listserv have to do with
lots of careful reading of others' ideas and research and not being bound to a
particular academic environment that censors ideas.
> << Since memics is based on a silly
> metaphor, it simply has no potential to do what it says it can do. >>
>
> I'm not sure what "memics" is. Memetics is based on Darwinian evolution. For
> someone to call Darwinism a silly metaphor is, in my mind, quite damaging to
> your credibility.
Both Dawkins and Blackmore go to great pains to say it is "just" a metaphor -
and then seem to ignore their warnings.
> Darwinism is widely considered one of the most useful
> metaphors ever invented by man. It provides a satisfying explanation for
> biological and cultural evolution and has been used by engineers to simulate
> the development of life and to actually implement useful learning
> algorithms. It is conceptually quite difficult to understand. It's clear to
> me that you don't understand it. Apparently you haven't read anything on the
> subject other than Sue Blackmore's book, even though you started this
> conversation saying you were "very well read" in Memetics. If you haven't
> read my book or Dennett you are not "very well read."
>
>
> <<For example,
> no one yet has explained to me what advantage resides in using the notion
> that
> memes - whatever they are - are independent entities that are in many ways
> like genes.>>
>
> Alas, half a dozen people have explained it to you. I just don't think you
> get it.
Come now, Richard. I took advantage of your invitation to go to your site to
read your FAQs on the subject, and when I pointed out that the question had not
yet been answered in them, you told me at that point that memics was just a
device to get people's attention and not to worry about the question of their
independent existence.
> I'm guessing that you are having difficulty with what Dennett calls
> the "intentional stance." You use the word "entity" and "life" like they
> have fixed metaphysical meanings. In science everything is a model, a
> metaphor. If the model produces reproducible, useful results it deserves to
> be a part of science.
>
I haven't read Dennet yet. Probably will soon.
>
> <<I'm not sure there aren't a lot of people out there claiming that memic
> theory
> is a complete theory of culture. After all, Dawkins himself says in effect
> that
> it alone can account for variability in culture.>>
>
> I don't know anyone but you who talks about "memic theory." Are you
> inventing a new word for some reason, deliberately using "memic" and
> "memeist" to ridicule, or are you just careless?
I only know what I read, and Dawkins himself is treating it as a theory when he
suggests it can by itself explain cultural variability.
> A lot of times it seems to me that you miss the point of memetics, which is
> that the future is created in large part by successful replication of
> existing things, and that genes, the replicator that evolutionary scientists
> have focused on in the past, are not sufficient to explain culture.
This is an assumption on your part - and a lot of people on this site --
supported by proofs that are either outright frauds or manufactured by
imaginative minds ignorant of the facts.
> When you
> attempt to counter that claim, which I really don't believe you even
> understand, you tend to expound on narrative explanations that demonstrate
> the progress of various cultural developments. But you don't have an
> explanation for the mechanism, just a story about the progress.
You have never answered why my tests of falsifiability are wrong, and I have
never used the word progress or any word that could be construed in that way. On
the other hand, you have never offered any such tests.
> Saying that
> developments are necessary progressions may even be true,
The very fact that you could even suggest this makes me wonder how well you
understand Darwinian evolution.
> but is there a
> magic fairy causing these progressions? I asked earlier if you thought one
> or more persons were designing and implementing these changes and you said
> of course not. What then is the mechanism, if not differential selection of
> cultural replicators?
Selection by whom if not by active human brains evolved for certain kinds of
problem solving? That is the nature of my question about the advantage of
assuming that memes have an independent existence. Again - when I pushed the
question, you admitted that it was just a rhetorical device -- which I agreed
with. So what is the nature of your turnround, if there is in fact a turnaround?
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