From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Mon 17 May 2004 - 12:49:57 GMT
At 10:03 AM 17/05/04 +0100, you wrote:
>>Memes interacted with the human line, making those hominids who could
>>learn the memes more likely to reproduce and to obtain the high energy
>>foods needed to support the energy hungry hardware of a large brain. A
>>computer model going back to the origins of culture would have to include
>>two levels of evolution where both memes *and* genes for better meme
>>capacity would be influencing each others reproduction.
>
>Like this'un (fyi): The mimetic transition: a simulation study of the
>evolution of learning by imitation. Higgs PG. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci.
>2000 Jul 7; 267(1450): 1355-61
>http://pmbrowser.info/pmdisplay.cgi?issn=09628452&uids=10972132
Yes. Thank you for this pointer.
>>As some of you are aware, my interest has largely switched from memes to
>>a larger problem; the brain's gene based switches that change biases in
>>human behavior, particularly in the propagation of memes. There is an
>>observed coupling between hard economic times and the spread of
>>xenophobic memes. The logic of how that mechanism came to be selected
>>and its current day application is profoundly disturbing. There are days
>>when I feel like someone who (by some strange flash of insight) has
>>discovered physics *after* seeing people who are completely unaware fall
>>off a cliff.
>
>I just don't get why this has to be genetically wired-in. I can see how
>some mid-brain fear centre might become overactive in hard times, but I
>don't see how this mechanism would stay selected-for when the pure-memetic
>version suffices to explain everything IMHO (when times are hard you're
>generally more tight-fisted, but tend to be less so with family, familiar
>people, and even your pets perhaps...).
Ever since the human line discovered the high tech life (chipped rocks,
later fire) they have over-populated and over-exploited their environment
with period of about a generation. At 2.5 million years since chipped rock
and 25 years a generation, this happened 100,000 times to our
ancestors. Also, weather glitches would suddenly drops the carrying
capacity of the human ecologic niche on an irregular basis. I am not
talking about modern times--when this happened the entire tribe would die
of starvation unless they moved into new territory (normally impossible) or
attacked and took over the resources of a nearby tribe.
We know that we have conditional psychological traits that switch on in
certain circumstances. Stockholm Syndrome or capture-bonding is one of
them. I recently recognized that the "trait to induce capture bonding"
(TTICB) is *another.* It is switched on by the mere presence of
captives. This is a tight and simple way to account for Zimbardo's famous
prison experiment results. http://www.prisonexp.org/ and a lot of current
news stories. (Google TTICB.)
I claim that the response to "looming privation" of attacking neighbors is
genetically wired in rather than a meme. The spread of xenophobic memes is
part of the causal chain that leads a tribe to attack its neighbor, but it
is a conditional genetic mechanism like the Stockholm Syndrome that turns
up the "gain" on xenophobic memes.
Genes do what is good for them. (Over the long term surviving genes are
100% rational--without, of course, being able to think at all.) In good
times it is not good for your genes to attack neighbors (not counting
raiding for wives). It is better for your genes to spend your time
hunting and raising children rather than fighting with dangerous neighbors
where you and the personal copy of your genes may both come to an untimely
end.
But it is a different matter when your tribe is facing starvation. Our
genes have seen this enough times to have evolved a conditional
strategy. Even the *worse* outcome of fighting with a neighboring tribe,
where every single male of your tribe is killed is usually better for genes
than starving. Reason (see bible accounts of the tribal era.) is that the
wining tribe normally takes the losers young women as booty. They become
wives of the winners and mothers of the next generation. Rough on the
loosing males, but note that the copies of their genes in their female
children march on, satisfying Hamilton's inclusive fitness criteria that
such a trait should evolve.
Hard economic times start up the ancient mechanisms to go to war with
neighbors we evolved when we lived in little hunter gatherer tribes. The
solution is lowering population growth, which requires empowering women and
providing access to birth control measures *and* takes upwards of 20 years
to take effect. Fundamentalist Islamics and the current fundamentalist US
administration agree on the undesireability of empowered ("uppity") women
and the full range of birth control methods.
I have said this a dozen different ways here and on other lists over the
past year, citing Easter Island and the evidence of what happened in the
American Southwest after 1250 CE as examples, and the confirming example of
the troubles fading out in Northern Ireland due to slowed population growth
and rising income per capita. Try "xenophobic memes" and related terms in
Google for more discussion.
If you can find a hole in the logic of this argument, please do. It
accounts for many known events of human history such as the Rwanda
genocide, and (roughly) predicts where we are going to have problems in the
future. Still, I find it profoundly disturbing and wish someone could
provide a convincing argument that it is not true.
Keith Henson
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