Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id DAA02982 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 4 Feb 2001 03:49:32 GMT Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 09:17:10 +0530 (IST) From: Dr Able Lawrence <able@sgpgi.ac.in> To: Memetics Discussion List <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Darwinian evolution vs memetic evolution In-Reply-To: <20010203170611.AAA24352@camailp.harvard.edu@[204.96.32.117]> Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.10.10102040854480.10471-100000@sushrut.sgpgi.ac.in> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi,
You have a point. It is not just the women who make choices, but men
as well which explains why the womenfolk in a family become progressively
more beautiful with passing generations of prosperity!
But that does not negate my point. Here the choice of the female is
influenced by memes and aesthetics. Here the prevalent choice for a
suitable mate can change from time to time. the mate selection is
influenced by memes and the survival of the meme is determined by choice
but the survival of an organism or a genetic trait is determined by nature
which is indifferent.
Choice gets into the grand theatre of evolution only after the entry of
memes.
Mate selection in evolution is determined by surival value and whoever
chooses best gets selected by nature in the Darwinian scenario. But if we
factor in memes, the choice itself keeps changing and evolve.
Theory of evolution should be placed along with Einsteins Theory of
relativity and the first law of thermodynamics in being the most
fundamental and invariant theories.
We must now rephrase evolution into
General theory of evolution applicable to any replicating information
system capable of three essentials 1)replication 2)variation 3)selection
Special theories of evolution like the origin of biological species
or that of culture. It is important that we must distinguish the subtle
differences in evolution of biological organisms ,ie hardwired evolution,
and the evolution of pure information.
This progression from hardware software entanglement where each influence
the other that we see in biological organisms to the evolution of pure
information that we see in replicating computer programmes.
We are now entering the era of computer software evolution. With the
internet it is theoretically possible I would say that humans can lose
control of computer programmes which are capable of variation. The reason
we havnt seen much of it is that the degree of variation that we see here
is not capable of supporting evolution. Another problem must be that the
computer hardware and the OS environment is an oligopoly. The ongoing
research on artificial life may tell us something.
Able Lawrence
On Sat, 3 Feb 2001, Wade T.Smith wrote:
> Hi Dr Able Lawrence --
>
> >in Genetic evolution there is no
> >conscious choice by the participating players
>
> Don't tell that to any woman....
>
> >evolution of memes
> >are influenced by the aesthetic values of the participating humans
>
> And this seems like such a mobius strip of intentionality that I tend to
> strike it quickly with Occam's tool, and let socio-biology sift out where
> the aesthetic came from in the first place.
>
> The aesthetic behind a woman's decision to allow a certain male to
> impregnate her- how can it be said that is not genetic? It seems Wilson's
> tether is long, but intact.
>
> - Wade
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr Able Lawrence MD
Senior Resident
Clinical Immunology
SGPGIMS, Lucknow
able@sgpgi.ac.in
Ph +91 98390 70247
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
===============================================================
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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