Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id GAA17236 (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 06:06:23 +0100 Message-ID: <39384B8B.29C22511@mediaone.net> Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2000 01:04:27 +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: What is "useful"; what is "survival" References: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJEEGMEOAA.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:
> Replying to some posts from Chuck. Let me ask first, Chuck, what you hope to
> gain from your participation here. Are you interested in understanding
> memetics? Are you here to campaign for an alternate theory? I think either
> is fine, but most of your posts seem to be expressing the fact that you
> don't get memetics, I think carrying an implication that there is nothing to
> get. Are you willing to consider that there might actually be something to
> get, but you don't (yet) get it?
I fish around for different ways to educate myself. Sometimes examining the
weaknesses of fields is a way to "probe the exceptions." Sometimes someone comes
up with an interesting objection to my critiques that helps me to further my own
understanding of a particular behavior. I doubt if memetics has anything much to
offer, but sometimes the information they have is useful for other purposes. I
probably never would have encountered some of Joe Dees's ideas had I not pushed
some points on this listserv. And probably the biggest advantage I have gained
so far is that all of this discussion has kicked off some ideas for pitching a
book I have been researching for the past several years.
Last, but not least, thinking - **any** thinking - exercises brains and helps
them live longer!!
>
>
> Here's a quote that I think illustrates your point of view well:
>
> <<The only way to effectively
> understand the process is by looking at a lot of historic detail that
> illustrates continuously how our society is a **necessary** response to the
> exhaustion of the pre industrial revolution resource base. It has to do with
> increasing population densities, the carrying capacity of the land relative
> to
> old technologies, an increasingly complex division of labor that is needed
> to
> exploit harder to get resources -- stuff like that. The necessity faced by
> this
> basic ecological problem of resource exhaustion is finding new efficiencies
> at
> every level.>>
>
> It's a very interesting study, the progression of culture based on responses
> to new challenges and so on. Since you claim to understand the process, what
> do you predict about the future?
Do weathermen predict the future? How well do they understand the weather?
And - I can never repeat too much: prediction alone....
>
>
> << That isn't to say that people who act in this broad ecological
> stage understand it as such; they don't have to.>>
>
> What, then, motivates them to change?
That's contained in the quote above. But in essence, it's this: when their ways
of thinking don't put food on the table and pay the rent any more. All sorts of
situations invalidate what were previously workable ways of thinking. In the
long run, though, it's exhaustion of a particular resource base.
>
>
> Assuming you are talking about memetics, let me ask you a question. Do you
> think every person to use steel independently invented steel in response to
> a changing ecology? Or did the idea of steel spread rapidly once invented
> once or a handful of times, filling a cultural niche?
As I said in a previous post, one could indeed say that each person "invents"
it. But did it spread rapidly or was it invented a handful of times? It's very
hard to know - the debate has been around for about 150 years. But these days
they are finding more and more evidence for the latter. On a really complex
invention, though, remember that it pays to keep the process a secret. Producing
bronze, for example, is a complex process. It was invented on one island in the
Mediterranean Sea, and there it stayed; it was the source of bronze for the
entire Mediterranean. That may be because the exact minerals only resided there
and there were lots of trees for fuel (the island is now treeless precisely
because it was all used up). Another example that comes to mind are navigational
charts during the Age of Discovery - they were so valuable that they were kept
secret.
>
>
> <<Unfortunately to give this a reality, it is necessary to have a good grasp
> of a
> lot of historical data pertaining to economics, politics, psychology,
> population
> studies, and history. There are simply no easy shortcuts on this one. But
> the
> principle is still ecological, not simply a game of cultural catchup -- even
> though people may conceptualize it that way in their daily lives.>>
>
> I don't think any memeticist would deny that the environment (physical,
> cultural, and mental) is important to the spread of memes. I tend not to
> believe you when you say that something is too complicated to understand
> without reading volumes of stuff. Richard Feynman always said that anyone
> who couldn't express the essence an idea in a sentence or two didn't really
> have a clear idea.
But I DID express the essence by expressing in several words the basic
"principle." And it's not just the environment per se that's important, but the
principles by which we respond to it.
>
>
> [RB]
> > Frankly I've never heard anyone else on this list, other than you, express
> > distaste for technological progress.
>
> <<You evidently aren't reading some of the posts -- or at least not very
> carefully.>>
>
> This is another thing you do that lessens your credibility in my eyes. I
> believe you have a pattern that, when challenged, you tend to point to
> unspecified prior posts rather than answering the challenge directly. I
> always assume, when you do that, that you are wrong but don't want to admit
> it.
Sorry - I don't have the time to go back to find them. I remember at least two
of them at the moment, and the work of Blackmore is saturated with the bias.
===============================================================
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 : Sat Jun 03 2000 - 06:07:05 BST