RE: Aunger speaks

From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu 14 Nov 2002 - 23:56:37 GMT

  • Next message: Scott Chase: "RE: One man's opinion"

    >From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com>
    >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >Subject: RE: Aunger speaks
    >Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 07:08:46 -0800
    >
    >>
    >> <The media folks believe writing and printing have precipitated
    >>major
    >> > discontinuities in human culture.>
    >> >
    >>Yep. Quite aside from obvious people like McLuhan, someone I've recently
    >>come across who draws on what he refers to as "evolutionary epistemology",
    >>has addressed the history of information and communication technology from
    >>an evolutionary perspective. Paul Levinson offers this position in a
    >>number
    >>of books, but the one I've been looking at is called 'The Soft Edge: A
    >>Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution' (1997,
    >>Routledge).
    >>
    >>I think his understanding of evolution might be as wobbly as Aunger's
    >>biology apparently is, although I'm not really qualified to judge either
    >>author on those bases.
    >>
    >>Basically Levinson's argument is one of "soft" technological determinism,
    >>whereby information and communication technologies had major societal
    >>consequences, but not necessarily ones intended or forseen by the
    >>inventors
    >>of the technology (which would be "hard" technological determinism). He
    >>compares this to natural selection whereby adaptations persist more by
    >>accident than design. I've haven't read the whole book yet, but I guess
    >>he
    >>means something akin to one idea about how insect wings evolved out of
    >>adaptations providing better heat regulation for the insect, and then
    >>eventually could be used for other purposes like flight. Similarly, the
    >>telephone was intended by Bell to be a device to help the hard of hearing,
    >>not a means of long distance communication.
    >>
    >>I don't know if the analogy works any better or worse in this sense than
    >>in
    >>the memetics sense of cultural evolution. But it's another iron in the
    >>fire.
    >>
    >>Vincent
    >>
    >The law of unintended consequences is a driving force in memetic evolution.
    > Look at the internet. Originally invented for DARPA to maintain
    >communications during a nuclear war, it became a tool of science when
    >universities got brought into the circle and went totally crazy when the
    >public caught on and took to it like they took to books when the printing
    >press made books cheap and easy to reproduce. Today's internet bears
    >little or no resemblance to the original idea or purpose for which the
    >technology was invented, although it proved useful for that purpose on 9/11
    >when the communications around the New York area were knocked out by the
    >towers falling and the flood of calls from all parts of the world.
    >
    >
    You might want to look at Gould's stuff on spandrels and exaptation. There are design byproducts that could be co-opted for various uses. Something coud have been built for a certain task, yet have aspects that wind up, accidentally of course, useful for other tasks.

    A windshield is a good place for a decal. A rearview mirror is a good place to hang something. The rear bumper is a good place for bumper stickers etc...

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