Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA16940 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 3 Jun 2000 05:12:02 +0100 Message-ID: <39383ECA.C3C3594@mediaone.net> Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2000 00:10:02 +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: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJAEHAEOAA.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.>>
>
> Great! Glad to be wrong. So you acknowledge that:
>
> 1. People do not always choose memes that are useful, but instead choose
> memes that appear to them to have some utility. (Do you agree that this
> might be something as simple as "not rocking the boat", believing a
> simplistic but wrong solution, or sticking with a belief because it would be
> painful to admit being wrong?)
No -- because you evidently believe that the meanings of words like "not rocking
the boat", simplistic, wrong, painful, etc. are self evident; they are not, and
the reasons for people making mistakes are not easy to research. It's much too
simplistic. For example, sometimes people will hold on to beliefs precisely
because it is painful. The pleasure-pain principle of human behavior doesn't
work as a general principle.
>
> 2. Sometimes culture evolves in a way that decreases biological fitness of
> the hosts.
No, I would never say that culture evolves. I would say that species may evolve,
and that culture is part of the human toolkit for survival. I would further say
that species can and do become extinct because they can't adapt.
>
> Now we still have to see if you believe that it is possible for ideas to
> spread among people or if you think everyone must come up with each new idea
> in isolation. If you believe it is possible for ideas to spread, then the
> only question remaining is how tightly that spread is reined in to the
> benefit of the genes. Dennett says not at all. E.O. Wilson says it is. My
> hunch is with Dennett but I'm willing to be wrong on that point---it would
> not affect the validity of memetics.
Maybe, but it would certainly affect the personal satisfaction of memics.
> <<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.>>
>
> I believe you and admire your talent for synthesis.
And I believe your sincerity on this matter.
>
>
> [CP]
> > << Since memics is based on a silly
> > metaphor, it simply has no potential to do what it says it can do. >>
> >
> [RB]
> > I'm not sure what "memics" is.
Memics is my word for memetics; it requires fewer keystrokes and calls to mind
memics' emphasis on imitation.
> Memetics is based on Darwinian evolution.
> For
> > someone to call Darwinism a silly metaphor is, in my mind, quite damaging
> to
It is not based on Darwinian evolution; it is based on a Darwinian metaphor.
Blackmore, at least, spends some time in Meme Machine emphasizing this.
>
> > your credibility.
>
> <<Both Dawkins and Blackmore go to great pains to say it is "just" a
> metaphor -
> and then seem to ignore their warnings.>>
>
> As others have posted, all of science is "just" a metaphor. The "just" is
> for people who think there is such a thing as absolute truth and have
> trouble fitting evolution into their world view. I actually think I did a
> pretty good job of explaining this in Virus of the Mind.
As I have said before, there are metaphors and metaphors. I have asked
repeatedly why the meme metaphor has any advantages over existing scientific
explanations, and I get some, well, very strange answers. I might add that
prediction is a necessary but not sufficient indicator of an adequate theory -
see below. Your notion of a good theory is mostly wrong by any known conventions
of science that I know of.
> [<< was just a
> device to get people's attention and not to worry about the question of
> their
> independent existence.>>
>
> I said the syringe on the cover of my book was a device to attract
> attention, not the science of memetics itself. I suggested you not get hung
> up on memes having a "life of their own" because you don't seem to
> distinguish between concrete objects and abstractions and I thought it was
> getting in your way.
Not aware of the differences between concrete objects and abstractions? That's
quite an observation. Elementary understanding of adequate theory is the
following: you posit a quality of an event because it provides an explanatory
advantage over other theories. You posit an independent existence, so can yhou
really be surprised that I get hung up on that when you can't show the advantage
of this? It's an elementary error.
You said in that same response, "Why is this a more satisfying explanation than
yours? Really, without experimentation all I can do is plead obviousness. This
is the major obstacle to memetics being taken seriously: experimental results
are very scarce as of yet. You are right to be skeptical."
No competent scientist would ever plead simple obviousness as his only defense,
nor would he bother giving much publicity to his theory until he had some
credible, reproducible results that could be explained better with his theory.
And indeed, I agree with you - I am quite right to be skeptical. So why do you
now complain about my skepticism?
Further, I don't have your optimism about appearing on Oprah. Some of the good
Amazon reviews you succeeded in getting came from those who are already
convinced of the legitimacy of memetics, and they tend to recommend Blackmore's
Meme Machine as a much more scientific and less popularized work.
The others are not human behavior professionals -- they are people who don't
have the slightest idea of other theories out there. Do you really expect the
professionals to get pushed into finding the theory credible just because people
who like any pop psych theory like it?
So people evidently DID go to Blackmore to see what she says. It's not
encouraging. A lot of Amazon reviewers think it's wonderful science fiction or
far too ideological. In short, if memetics has anything going for it, it
shouldn't hit the public before you have decent data. That's elementary.
>
> [RB]
> > 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.
New paradigms should not only explain better, but should also locate where
previous paradigms have gone wrong. I see lots of misconceptions about older
paradigms in memetic discussions, not credible explanations for why they are
wrong. I repeat: predictability is necessary but not sufficient condition for
the makings of a superior theory.
<<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.>>
>
> It's not an assumption... it's the whole damn theory! And since you haven't
> read Brodie or Dennett I don't think you're qualified to judge "proofs" you
> haven't read.
First people said I should read Dawkins. He proved to be a fraud by not even
bothering to check data that was easily available to him in the cultural realm
(he wouldn't have dared to do that in the biological realm). Then someone
recommended Aaron's stuff on contagion. I found that Aaron has largely ignored
population studies -- says it would be too much to put into his book. His theory
of how memes (read "culture") influence fertility is contradicted by facts and
as far as I can, a rehash of what Margaret Mead tried to push in the late
sixties -- and which was proven wrong. Perhaps I am not seeing something, and
perhaps Aaron will correct my perceptions. Let's see what happens. Now I see
that your book is recommended, even though you say you are short on data (while
at the same time insisting that your predictions are "obviously" better).
OK - you really want me to read your book? The request isn't some cui bono
thing, right? If you send it along like you said you would, I will read it.
>
> [RB]
> > 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.
I don't believe in just discussing principles without bringing in examples. I
responded to your critique of my romantic love thesis - that it is circular -
and I never heard back from you. I repeat: it is falsifiable and therefore not
circular.
>
> Paul Marsden has offered you several tests so I assume you're happy with
> that. I have falsified your theory with the counterexample of Ebay.
I have no idea what this refers to.
>
> [RB]
> > 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?
By the same process by which you and I argue about the nature of human behavior.
We look at problems in our environment and try to figure out how to realize our
goals when we run into obstacles. Is that so mysterious? Are you saying you
yourself don't do that every day to get through life?
>
> <<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?>>
>
> No turnaround. I think the problem is that you have a vague or flawed
> understanding of both the scientific method and Darwinian evolution. Science
> proceeds by developing models that prove themselves effective in explaining
> and predicting phenomena. One such model involves the "gene"---an
> abstraction that does not correspond 100% to physical entities although most
> dabblers think genes are precise stretches of DNA. Memes are even less
> precisely matched to the physical (although some believe we will eventually
> make a better correspondence). The utility of the theory does not depend on
> such a physical definition, but rather on a functional definition: how good
> is the theory at predicting the future?
>
> In 1995, when I published Virus of the Mind, I predicted increasing sex and
> violence on TV and proliferation of the "profit virus." The first has come
> to pass and "viral marketing" is now a hot buzzword in corporate America.
I predicted the same thing without memes. I used well know facts about how the
media has been behaving differently over the past 10 years and what has produced
that difference. If you want to compare the advantages of your explanation to
mine, I'm certainly game.
>
> More and more companies are implementing referral and loyalty programs, both
> predicted by memetics. There are many more predictions that can be made and
> experiments that can easily be performed. Will people pay more attention to
> a message with danger, sex, and celebrities in it? Will that message more
> successfully be re-transmitted by word-of-mouth? This is the type of very
> simple result predicted by memetics.
Richard - memics hardly has a monopoly on explaining these things. On what basis
do you think memics is a better explanation? Is it consistent with everything
else we know about human behavior? Or does it show that what we thought we knew
is wrong? If so why. -- If you really think memics is the way to go, than those
are the kind of questions you have to answer. What you have done so far is only
sufficient for the Oprah show or the already convinced.
>
> The more exciting and threatening thing, though, is memetic engineering. I
> predicted in 1995 that memetically engineered cults will become more and
> more powerful. I've been following one in particular whose name I don't
> mention because I don't want to get on their hit list. Evangelistic
> religions are more popular than ever, as predicted. This is all memetics.
Again - how does your theory of Evangelistic religions compare with others. Lots
of people predicted this with different theories. Why is yours better? Why are
the others not as good?
**Strenuously**
chuck
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