From: Price, Ilfryn (I.Price@shu.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 18 Jan 2006 - 16:06:02 GMT
________________________________
From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk on behalf of Chris Taylor
Sent: Wed 18/01/2006 13:42
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Maybe make a brew for this one (or ignore it)
Well if there's one thing I love it's a flippant remark that
actually hides a mighty philosophical payload :)
The accumulate/recombine thing, with your twists, suggests maybe
the biological mode switch occurs earlier in the very bright
child..? There must be physical correlates of this if we were on
to something. It does suggest that careful handling would be
required for such a precious and fragile analytical mind
(lacking as it probably does a really robust self-image).
Actually I wonder (counterpoint): I have in mind that universal
curve (think species diversity, tool diversity over palaeo times
or whatever) an incredibly slow climb for aaaages then once the
gradient increases there's a 'take off' phase -- tools make
tools -- (and depending on the system an asymptotic topping out
to give a sigmoidal curve, the curve may also be puctuated).
That would mean that recombination (of memes) would not become
the norm until you reached that take off (maybe the meta-meme
that memes are malleable/_divisible_ if that's not
oversimplistic?), which would be _entirely_ dependent on input
and not biology (but would work well given the time frame,
suggesting a mature evolved memepool or lifestyles and biology
that have adapted around that meme-driven timescale). I dunno
it's an either-or or a both ;)
The biology one is easier... And given that 'gifted' kids can
come from all sorts of backgrounds it is clearly not just a case
of super-stoking the poor buggers to critical mass, much to the
chagrin of the private prep schools, although that doesn't
clearly distinguish between programmed and emergent; oh well.
As for the 'loss' of the process; as they say one is never too
old to learn (barring neurodegeneration, but even Alzheimer's
patients have demonstrated some learning ability) but I think a
stable mental ecology takes a lot of perturbation to shift much.
I don't think the switch flips off, but the resident memes
reinforce each other's primacy (back to orthodoxy). Anyway I
think this is a meme thing not a bio thing. Then consider the
crises people have when some foundation stone of their psyche
crumbles and it all comes down.
So anyway what I think is the upshot for parents who want their
kids to be a certain thing is that they should basically forget
it! A bright, balanced kid that has seen a little of everything
within certain bounds (just like diet advice really) will make
sensible choices and will come back for counsel if the parents
have a history of being open, tolerant and supportive; and if
one never makes mistakes or bad choices how will one know that
that can be bad (the old Jap puffer fish dilemma)? You have to
learn for yourself for lessons to carry real weight (more on
this below). And anyway ffs drop the ego and let your kid be
what it will be! (As I'm sure you'd agree). Tiger Woods may be a
great and very rich golfer but I bet he'd rather have had a nice
dad (he actually slagged of the Williams sisters' Dad for not
getting all he could from his kids!!!). What is truly of value?
Consider Edward the 8th or something. Sorry, waffling.
And on the Asperger's spectrum and empathy (linked issues); both
the ability to predict and the ability to empathise I think stem
from the same thing, and the meme-only-mind model I keep pushing
gives both for free: What I have suggested before is that there
really is the facility to generate a toy 'other' in one's mind.
When you model others you really do model them. If one's own
mind is just an assemblage of memes it is not so hard to imagine
that mini-minds could be constructed and 'run' in that same
brain (note that these models would reflect ourselves strongly
as they would be made of us, recycled -- an effect of the issue
of what is the 'same' meme in two different heads). Now
obviously we are talking a lot of compute crunch to run such a
simulation in detail. We are pattern seekers fundamentally and I
think that is because we are _always_ trying to model (with
memes) as a biological fundamental of what we are so that we can
predict the world in simulation (BIG survival value for proto
humans there!!!) and most importantly, to predict the behaviour
of others (even BIGGER survival value for a social organism both
in cooperative endeavours and in competition -- think game
theory, coevolution of the social ape blah blah -- not just
brain size increase through intraspecific competition but brain
meme-friendliness).
To exemplify the theory with some instances:
1) Empathy: Seeing as models of others will be made of the same
meme-stuff as your'self' then effects manifesting in the model
can 'bleed' across from the model -- you can _quite literally_
feel others pain once you have internalised them, so being nice
is not altruism, it is selfishness, cos their pain _is_ your
pain as their joy _is_ your joy. I'd argue that a core part of
the meme-machine is a biological link that ties forebrain-based
mind stuff to emotional midbrain centres and that that mechanism
is at work here (this link must exist -- I've been so 'gutted'
by events at times in my life it has made me nauseous for
example -- but god knows what the physical mechanism is -- some
sort of pattern resonance -- I can't be pulled up on this though
as we don't even know why pain hurts!!!): Self-meme-mind
patterns can clearly fire the emotional centres (pain, pleasure
etc.), so given that the models are so similar to the 'main
event' (i.e you) I'd argue that _they_ can actually trigger
those same centres through the exact same effect. That's the nub
of it. And as I say when people 'assume' others are like them
what is happening is that the models really are (as I mentioned
above) just recycled bits of you plus whatever you may have
observed and captured from others, so in the naive it is obvious
why the 'assumption' of 'like me' occurs and why it is so
unpleasant when the model turns out to be misleading as a
result. We do not like our models to fail (that's axiomatic --
as fundamental as physical pain -- an a priori part of the meme
machine along with a handful of other things).
2) Where developed models of others cannot be formed empathy
cannot obtain:
2a) In the young (bless 'em) the ability to empathise is limited
to the ability to model others, which must develop at different
rates as anyone who has observed the normal range of emotional
development in kids will attest. The ability to model others is
something we learn to do (more deep structural meta-memes of
which we are probably not aware) and god knows how many factors
govern that -- a few to do with the substrate (all brains are
physically a little different, just consider myelination
thickness for a start), most to do with experience. Empathy with
others, with non-human life (and for some, even with objects --
gone a bit OTT there though imho unless in fun -- kids try to
find the line by anthropomorphising teddies, dolls etc.)
probably depends on the ability to resuse memes from one's self
(by which I mean the actual self in your mind not a model of
that) with those models, which means for free those new
composites get to trigger the midbrain stuff; this effect likely
as not comes from seeing others equate these people / animals /
things with _them_selves, in a sense fostering that reuse (okay
I'm BSing a bit but only a bit).
2b) In Asperger's sufferers, the brain is just not quite good
enough in some special way (or if one is waaay down the
spectrum, nowhere near good enough) to model others -- that sort
of simulation modelling requires a fully-functioning mind.
Therefore two outcomes:
(i) inability to predict others' behaviour (and to prepare for
unexpected behaviour of objects in the world to an extent),
hence fear of others (seen as unpredictable as a rule), love of
the mechanical and regular patterns in general; but on the
'plus' (a _very_ thin silver lining) side, an awful lot of
'spare' mental capacity (the brain does a _lot_ of maths as
anyone who has looked at AI will attest, although it is done in
a completely different way to computers, by a form of
approximation -- you learn to catch a flying ball on the run
from repeated experience, you don't learn to _calculate_ how to
catch a flying ball on the run).
(ii) inability to 'feel for' others to a varying degree -- no
models = no empathy (no selfish avoidance of models triggering
your emotional pain circuits, or selfish seeking of
internal-model-vicarious joy).
2c) If resources in childhood are expended in a futile attempt
to model an abusive parent, for a start the self is stunted (no
'room' for it), and importantly the ability to model others is
completely frustrated cos no models ever work, so going forwards
models of others cannot develop and empathy is impossible, as
above, but for a completely different reason (training/victim
confrontations _may_ reverse this). All that can fill the gap is
a form of Pavlovian obedience training not to stab people, take
their stuff etc.
3) There's another one from this that is potentially a bit more
controversial but just pops out of the meme-mind theory: Why do
the abused abuse? Surely they should be the least likely to
repeat that behaviour having suffered it? It's because memes can
be swapped from model to self -- they are all the same
fundamental stuff! It is that simple. Given that you find
yourself in the situation that the abuser you modelled was in
when you modelled them (maybe as simple as reaching that age),
the memes once resident in that model suddenly have huge fitness
in your 'self'. They claim the niche and you become your abuser,
even in some sense abusing 'yourself' in that they seek victims
of the age they were when they were a victim. Often we can find
testimony where there was initial resitance to the behaviours as
the niche is competed for, and even as the behaviours manifest
they feel they would like to resist but cannot -- this is so
simple of we just are made of our memes, but a real pain for a
normal psychologist's view of the mind. The mind is whatever
dominant bits are there, cobbled into a self and licensed by the
linearising machinery of consciousness.
4) How to think in a tricky world. As I said one important part
of the meme machine is to linearise a massively parallel ecology
into a plan. We can process lots of information in parallel and
if relaxed can allow stimuli to affect the whole of our minds to
search for a response. Again only a model where the memes are
the meaningful objects can do this simply; senses encoded the
first memes (there are _a lot_ more than five btw) so they are
made in a sense of sensory info, therefore new sense info speaks
to the fundamental informational stuff of memes and can
stumulate them (and they can stimulate each other). Then the
dominant ones (some sustaining each other over the long term in
what we know as a personality) are the seeds of behaviours. The
meta-representation idea is useful here to fill 'gaps'; if a
compound concept has a whole, we can produce a meta model where
the whole is filled and even think what might fill it (either
one thing or another composite -- this is a whole other area of
theory itself -- what are your building blocks made of) and that
can lead to volition as the back propagation from the
happy-me-with-this-done model feeds behaviours of you finding
the answer, which is decomposed ultimately to motor programs.
And multiple personality; constructs gone wild. Another whole
thing; where what should be models get licenced by the
linearising machinery as legit selfs.
Dreams are where you turn this lineariser off and allow free
mixing; waking, we reapply the linearity and then automatically
try to rationalise the afterimage of what was going on but
really we dream massively in parallel and it is not the same as
consciousness (note how little volition one has in dreams).
Yeesh. I have books of notes expanding this stuff but I have to
stop before my mail program dies and I have to top myself.
On learning from one's own mistakes: To feel the effect of a
mistakes oneself has greater impact than to rely on the diluting
empathic transmission of the feel of making that mistake from
others (especially unknown others).
On a tangent, this meme mind is the kind of mind evolution would
build imho. Starting with senory info impacting on a simple
brain, which is easier, to build a von Neumann / Turing
information processor or to somehow just reflect the world
internally?
Cough. What do they pay me for again...? Oh yeah, work :(
Cheers, Chris.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
chris.taylor@ebi.ac.uk
http://psidev.sf.net/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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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
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