From: stunned (stunned@execpc.com)
Date: Sat 24 Jan 2004 - 01:53:07 GMT
Gooday Bruce!
(sorry but this just reminded me of that Monty Python sketch)
On Fri, 2004-01-23 at 19:13, M Lissack wrote:
> Ted:
>
> If you want to argue that "memes" mistakenly associated with
> replicators and causes are a convenient shorthand to "explain" history
> fine. But either explain why you reject Bruce's challenges, offer
> another answer to them than mine, explain why my answer will not or
> cannot meet Bruce's challenges or accept my reasoning that ONE way to
> meet the challenges Bruce offered is through memes as catalytic
> indexicals rather than as replicators. All I have done is offer one
> possible answer to Bruce.
>
> I await other positive answers to Bruce.
>
> Dace <edace@earthlink.net> wrote:
> The mechanism of cultural evolution is exactly the same as
> natural
> evolution. The environment of the meme, which in this case is
> the human
> mind, selects some memes over others. Those that survive do so
> because they
> are more adaptable to changing environmental conditions.
>
> Memetics is a historical science. This means that testing of
> ideas is not
> necessarily carried out in current experiments. The same is
> true of any
> evolutionary theory. For instance, our theories of how
> galaxies form are
> tested by looking out into space and viewing galxies at
> various levels of
> development. The theory of biological evolution is entirely
> dependent on
> our studies of geological strata and past-preserving genes.
> Even before
> gene studies emerged, we knew species evolved simply on the
> basis of what we
> found in the earth's strata. One species existed at a certain
> era ! and a
> "new and improved" version existed at a later era. That's not
> to say
> Darwin's theory wasn't tested many times over. But the testing
> didn't occur
> in the form of laboratory experiments. Darwin's hypothesis was
> about events
> in the past and was tested by searching for signs that these
> events happened
> the way Darwin suggested. If we hadn't found signs of one
> species yielding
> to a more adapted form-- if instead we found that all the
> species were
> created in the present form at roughly the same time-- then
> the hypothesis
> would have failed the test.
>
> Incidentally, creationists have often labeled evolutionary
> biology a
> tautology because we can't conduct experiments to test whether
> evolution is
> occuring right now or predict what kinds of species will
> evolve in the
> future. Elliott Sober thoroughly refutes this view in *The
> Nature of
> Selection* (University of Chicago, 1984).
>
> If cultural evolution is propelled, in part, by autonomous,
> self-replicating
> units called "memes," then we ought to see irrational elements
> in culture.
> After all, memes are not human and do not reason. If memes
> have causative
> power in the development of culture, then we should see
> cultural forms that
> make no sense and are potentially harmful, that don't promote
> the social
> good but simply follow their own imperative to survive. We
> ought to see
> pathological developments in culture that resist all efforts
> to stamp them
> out.
>
> Indeed, this is exactly what we find in the historical record.
> We see a
> great many examples of cultural trends that take on a life of
> their own,
> that refuse to die even after the social context in which they
> once made
> sense have disappeared. Barbara Ehrenreich provides an
> excellent example of
> this phenomenon from the late Paleolithic. Up until the end of
> the last Ice
> Age, humans were commonly preyed upon by wild animals,
> especially the big
> cats. We developed weapons with w! hich to fight and kill
> these beasts. But
> when their populations were decimated at the end of the Ice
> Age, along with
> the great herd populations they mostly fed on, instead of
> putting down our
> weapons, we began wielding them against each other. The battle
> mentality
> took on a life of its own. Ehrenreich's thesis can be tested
> against the
> historical record. Indeed, the evidence for warfare goes back
> about 12,000
> years, to the end of the Ice Age, where it abruptly leaves
> off. She
> describes war as a meme that was unleashed 12,000 years ago
> and has
> successfully adapted to changing conditions ever since.
>
> To take a more current example, NATO was devised to defend
> against a
> possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Yet, after the
> collapse of the
> USSR, NATO remained in place and even expanded into Eastern
> Europe. The
> idea of NATO is no longer subject to intelligent scrutiny but
> has taken on a
> life of its own. It's due to the success of the pro-NATO !
> meme that our view
> of the world has been re-framed such that NATO's continued
> existence can no
> longer be questioned. This meme has been selected as a result
> of its
> exploitation of the desire of US elites to maintain and extend
> their
> influence over Europe. The meme has exploited its mental
> environment in the
> same way that an organism exploits its natural environment.
>
> As science is a facet of human culture, we should find
> persistent
> irrationalism even among the scientifically-minded. Again,
> this is exactly
> what the historical record reveals. Though the
> Michelson-Morley experiment
> long ago refuted the existence of a universal "ether," many
> theorists, who
> call themselves "natural philosophers," continue to reject
> Einsteinian
> physics. Ever since Einstein, physics has grown increasingly
> at odds with
> common sense. The "natural philosophy" meme succeeds because
> it exploits
> our desire to maintain a common sense physics. Thus a
> discredited school of
> physics persists on the basis of memetic propagation rather
> than logic or
> sense.
>
> The dominance of physics in today's science has caused many
> researchers to
> assume that scientific evidence must resemble the sort of
> evidence derived
> from physics experiments. We might call this the "scientism"
> meme. Thus,
> instead of looking at the historical record for evidence of
> cultural forms
> that persist despite no longer making sense, we redefine memes
> as semiotic
> signs of environmental niches, because these can be analyzed
> in terms of
> "resources, energy flow, constraints, external and internal
> pressures, life
> and death cycles and rates, competition, cooperation etc."
> This way we can
> look like real scientists as we make lots of precise
> measurements and
> conduct statistical analyses while ignoring actual memes
> altogether. Memes
> are "repackaged as symbols" and "stripped of their causal
> role," losing all
> significance as they become subject to pro! per, "scientific"
> study. In other
> words, we save the meme by killing it.
>
> Ted
>
>
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