Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA20849 (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 22:10:27 +0100 From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Cui bono, Chuck? Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2000 14:02:25 -0700 Message-ID: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJIEJGEOAA.richard@brodietech.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <39383ECA.C3C3594@mediaone.net> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Responding to Chuck:
[RB]
> 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.>>
Would it be fair, then, to say you acknowledge that people do not always
choose memes that are useful, but instead choose memes that appear to them
to have some utility, and it is in every case so complex to research the
reasons for them making mistakes in choosing that we can never know why they
choose wrong?
[RB]
>
> 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.>>
Begging the question. How about if I substitute the word "changes" for
"evolves"?
[RB]
> 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.>>
Are you talking about yourself? No one else uses that term.
<<Memics is my word for memetics; it requires fewer keystrokes and calls to
mind
memics' emphasis on imitation.>>
In my mind your making up a new word smacks of ridicule. I liken it to a
demeaning epithet applied by a religious bigot to a group of people whose
culture he feels threatened by. Each time you use it I feel irritated. I
believe that is your intention.
Beyond that, imitation is only a small part of memetics, one that Blackmore
focuses on and has been criticized for. I think many of the interesting ways
memes spread cannot be classified as imitation, but rather teaching and
learning or even unwitting conditioning.
[RB]
> 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.>>
If I read you right, you think it is silly (not useful?) to apply the
principle of evolution of self-replicators by natural selection to culture,
for that is the essence of memetics. It's certainly your prerogative to
think it's silly. I don't happen to think it's silly because people are
already engineering cults and businesses based on that principle and having
frightening success.
[RB]
> 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.>>
The advantage in my eyes is that it can be used for engineering. What
existing scientific explanations do you believe are superior to predict and
engineer lasting cultural institutions?
<< 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.>>
Be specific or it's just more hot air.
[RB]
> 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.>>
Earlier in this same message you said that predictive ability was necessary
(but not sufficient) for a sound theory. Now you contradict yourself by
saying that explanatory advantage is adequate. I'll assume you mean both.
When I said you were not aware of the difference between concrete objects
and abstractions, this is exactly what I was referring to. You keep saying
"independent existence." Memes are abstractions. Does an abstraction have an
existence? That's not a meaningful question to me. Memes are a useful model.
Being a useful model is the be-all and end-all of scientific theory. If
explanation were all that were necessary, "God's will" would suffice. The
reason that's not science is that it's not predictive. Without predictive
ability any "explanatory advantage" of one theory over another is purely a
matter of personal taste.
<<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?>>
I'm not a scientist. I'm a college dropout. I applaud your skepticism.
However, your ridicule of memetics is far from the open-mindedness I would
expect from a skeptic. I would expect you to be chomping at the bit to
understand the cool theory that all these smart people seem to espouse but
you don't get.
<<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.>>
Yes, one of those recommendations of Blackmore's book is from me!
<<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?>>
No, I expect smart people to find the theory credible because it is.
<<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.>>
Fortunately you weren't around when the Bill of Rights was passed.
> [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.>>
Which particular scientific paradigm for predicting and engineering the
future of culture did you have in mind? If I can, I'll be happy to point out
where it's wrong.
<<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.>>
Great, please send me your address privately. You've earned a complimentary
copy. I'm celebrating! It took me four years to get Wade to read it. :-)
<<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.>>
I just searched through all my posts to the memetics list containing the
word "love" and didn't find what you are talking about. If you're interested
and will repost the relevant sections I'll be happy to take a look.
[RB]
> 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.>>
It refers to the paragraph before it, which you deleted.
> [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?>>
No, I wouldn't describe the nature of my everyday life that way. I would
describe it as playing most of the time.
[CP]
> <<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?>>
>
[RB]
> 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.>>
You predicted viral marketing? I'm impressed! I'd love to see where you
predicted it. Was it natural resource exhaustion that caused it, or romantic
love?
[RB]
> 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.>>
See if you still have these questions after you read my book.
[RB]
> 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?>>
Please name these lots of people and cite their theories. Oh darn. I bet you
don't have time.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com www.memecentral.com/rbrodie.htm
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