From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Fri 18 Feb 2005 - 15:58:42 GMT
At 07:15 PM 17/02/05 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>If I may jump in on a brief and abstract note? I found the remark about the
>PC meme rather intriguing.
>
>In physics, small moons orbit big planets. It's not just a good idea, its
>the law. I wonder if the same rule might apply in human interactions -
>although humans are much more complicated due to the many (and less visible)
>influences.
Modern evolutionary theory claims that all physical characteristics,
species-typical behaviors and psychological traits are the direct or
indirect outcome of evolution. This layer would be analogous to the
physics of orbits. Of course just because physics says a moon can orbit at
a particular altitude and velocity does not mean there is actually one
there. In the case of memes/human interactions, there are strong
constraints on the kinds of memes. Pascal Boyer discussed this in his
book. If I get a chance will scan in a few pages and post.
>Might we apply the same idea (where we can determine the relative force
>between two objects through observation) to the relationships between memes
>and men? For example, it is clear that the "force" of the PC meme on the
>average individual is greater than the force of the individual on the PC
>meme.
>Thoughts?
While this is true, I don't think it provides much insight, particularly
into why some memes do well at certain times and others don't. Obviously
what we now consider PC memes didn't do well in pre war Nazi Germany or
Rwanda prior to the genocide there.
I have discussed PC memes under a different name calling the driving force
behind them the "metameme of tolerance." I proposed that the MMOT arose
out of shear exhaustion due to the religious wars that washed back and
forth over Europe for centuries. David Brin has used "the Dogma of
Otherness" as a related term in his discussions.
I now doubt either one of us had a proper model.
"My contention, simply put, is that the evolutionary approach is the only
approach in the social and behavioural sciences that deals with why, in an
ultimate sense, people behave as they do. As such, it often unmasks the
universal hypocrisies of our species, peering behind self-serving notions
about our moral and social values to reveal the darker side of human nature.
--Irwin Silverman, Psychology Department, York University, Toronto, Canada.
Simply put, hominids outstripped the ability of the environment to feed
them countless times in the past. When the tribe members could see a bleak
future, evolved behavioral switches put them into predation mode through
xenophobic memes (humans lack other predators). Good times keep the
psychological trait of spreading memes leading to war switched off.
PC memes are in this light a memetic build up of a long period of a
substantial population seeing a favorable future. Anticipating a favorable
future keeps the spreading mechanism for memes leading to war switched off.
The places where PC memes thrive and don't should make this connection
fairly obvious.
This is developed in detail in the 20 page paper I offered here a while back.
>Thanks,
>
>Steve
>
>PS - wow, Mr. Henson has been through quite a saga!
Ongoing. If anyone wants to help, let me know. Not all loss because it
was the main force behind the widely linked sex drugs and cults article.
Google Results 1 - 10 of about 809 for sex drugs cults henson
Keith Henson
===============================================================
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 2.1.5 : Fri 18 Feb 2005 - 16:24:11 GMT