Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA02246 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 20 Jul 2001 12:52:04 +0100 Message-ID: <3B581AC9.F74666@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 12:49:29 +0100 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Memetic vulnerability: was: Faking It References: <20010719203206.AAA27198%camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> <001901c11100$6dae5ba0$4da2bed4@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
KVO:
> The meme already thrives but is not yet determinated.
> And yes, already niches are occupied by it in the present but for all
> already in the future too.
> And yes, adaptive forces are all already working by and on it, already
> present ( and future ) memes change by the meme's not yet deter-
> minated presence !?
Good point - future memes evolving into niches created with the current
meme set. This is fundamentally what our brains are there for IMHO -
prediction from realistic modelling reusing past experience. Not just
experience though - biases, imagined things, guesses (reapplying a meme
in a new context), lies from others etc.. That's where the problems
start.
VC:
> Then of course there's kin selection, so you'll tolerate and do things for
> relatives, reciprocal alturism where you'll do something for your neighbour
> if there's a good chance of something in return for you, otherwise, everyone
> else is competition to, very generally speaking, be aggressive towards.
Interesting though - this kin thing can demonstrate how far removed we
are from our genetics. I know quite a few people (especially amongst us
GenXers) who find themselves as (or even more) protective of friends as
family. Biological kin selection is all based on the number of genes you
are likely to have in common (high between sibs); this applies in
memetics - you will (memetically) have lots in common with family (and
the other love-based irrational stuff) but you may have more memes in
common with friends - who will benefit from the exact same kin selective
favouritism - kin of the mind (yeuch).
WTS:
> I've always assumed tribalism was more of the center - territorialism.
> And I've come to this mostly because animals don't give too much of a
> shit about things other than their local turf, and because the outsider
> is usually an enemy. So the tribe is the important family to protect, and
> one's location in the tribe is ego territory.
The twist here (considering Wade's and Vincent's comments together) is
that we seem to be aware of various degrees of shared stuff in different
lights - gang vs gang, town vs town, country vs country, and if you've
ever read The Watchmen, you'll know how humans vs (fake) aliens can
suddenly end a world war (ok gimme some licence here) by making us
realise how much all humans share, memetically (sweet, isn't it). Group
selection is a minefield, but does occur, and under more or less the
same rules as kin selection - it's just more dilute. And it goes the
other way - genes work in sub-genomic cooperative groups (although a
situation with competitors is unlikely), and we have the term memeplex
to throw around (and memeplexes do compete)...
VC:
> chickens with teeth
was just as you said - also with scaly tails! The ancestral gnome
(sorry, genome) thing is interesting too. That ancestral genome never
existed, but does in some ways provide a 'centroid' in genotype space
for the species that did exist at the time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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