Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA01118 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 19 Oct 2001 22:35:40 +0100 X-Authentication-Warning: rugth1.phys.rug.nl: www-data set sender to P.A.E.Jonkers@phys.rug.nl using -f To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Fitness increment hypothesis Message-ID: <1003527060.3bd09b94b8f88@rugth1.phys.rug.nl> Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 23:31:00 +0200 (CEST) From: Philip Jonkers <P.A.E.Jonkers@phys.rug.nl> Cc: czelano@yahoo.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit User-Agent: IMP/PHP IMAP webmail program 2.2.6 X-Originating-IP: 128.32.195.169 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi everyone,
I got me cooked-up another one:
Fitness increment hypothesis:
Before treating memes let's consider genes for a moment. Biological evolution
is possible by having the three requirements of: variation, inheritance
and selection. Genes construct vehicles to safeguard the their existence.
Since the niches of nature are limited and are insufficient in numbers to
accomodate every vehicle around, a selective pressure is built up to
favor the strongest and fittest vehicles. The genes that give its vehicles
the highest degree of fitness will get naturally selected and will thus
dominate over the genes that yielded inferior vehicles. Since individuals
perish and genes persist, it is the genes corresponding to the highest
degree of fitness that get selected.
The same analogy applies to` memes. In the early days of cultural history
memes exclusively served to increase the biological fitness of its host.
That's how they got a steady grip at human life in the first place; if they
turned out to be completely useless they would have died a silent death.
The archetypical memes aiming to usefully increase biological levels
of fitness include: agricultural memes, tool-memes, functional clothing memes,
food-processing memes, memes for contructing houses etc...
However, over the course of time humans began to become more efficient in
establishing their well-being and the humans began to have time left to spend
on non-survival activities.
The coming of leisure-time opened up memetic
niches towards increasing cultural rather than biological fitness.
Examples of memes that enhance cultural fitness include: art, making
ornaments and juwelry, rituals, fashion, news, fads etc..
Usually, however, a meme increases both biological fitness and cultural
fitness. For example, a necessary precondition for hominids
to keep together as a group demanded some sort of communication between its
members. Bands and tribes arose because they had survival benefits over
the individual. The emergence of language meant to increase the level of
communication between group members and thus induced higher levels of
coherence among its members. Through language survival was even more
secured. Since languages not only transfer memes, they are even composed
exclusively of memes. Therefore adoption of language memes turned out to be
very useful to its host as it not only increased his cultural
(i.e. social) but also his biological fitness.
I will now make a list of meme-categories and try to identify there principal
fitness increasing components.
Sport memes: biological as well as cultural. Improve physical fitness and
social fitness (bonding, contacts) especially so with team sports.
Charity memes: cultural. Increases niceness factor of the philanthropist
as perceived by the community (social fitness). The same goes for human
interspecific altruism. Side-note: both actually decrease rather than
increase the biological fitness of the bearers of such memes.
Religious memes: cultural. Increases spiritual fitness. Although being
an imaginary fitness this does not matter to its hosts who consider it
genuine. For example: regarding the terrorist-bombings of 11-september,
memes were deployed by religious authorities to cause great boosts of
spiritual fitness on adoption by the would-be suicide bombers. Hence
significant numbers of potential bombers lign up to lay down their lives
upon infection by such memes (mind virii).
Technology/science memes: biological and cultural. Technology and science
serve to improve standards of living. For instance: medical science works
biologically fitness enhancing primarily whereas mathematics works cultural
fitness enhancing mostly as it stimulates logical thinking which is useful
in society.
Fads/fashion memes: cultural. Not giving response to such memes may predispose
you with a - often only perceived - lower than average social status.
Sometimes, however, it is quite vital to give hearing to a fad-meme in order
to stave off a social death. For example: being a kid in Denmark means you
are socially seriously impaired if you are not in the possession of a
cellular phone. 90 % of all appointments between Danish kids are arranged
by cellular phone. Not having one means few if not no appointments and thus a
low social fitness ensues.
Political/law memes: cultural. Aim to establish and maintain social coherence.
By not having them, society would crumble and anarchy would prevail. Since
high levels of society generally go hand in hand with high levels of
biological fitness, memes of this sort also aim to warrant or increase
biological fitness.
Art: biological and cultural. Though predominantly cultural, the act of
performing art works good both for `body and soul' and thus serves to increase
biological fitness too (consider martial arts for example).
Mythology/occult/mysticism: cultural. Prior to the advent of science and
a universal rational enlightenment, memes of this category were
regarded to have true explanatory powers on how the world worked. They
were considered to be social and spiritual fitness increasing.
Today, however, most of the ideas are hopelessly outdated and, where
necessary, superseded by more rational alternatives. Nonetheless, they still
serve to increase cultural fitness as they make good story-telling and
movie-scripts.
Job memes: primarily biological as they are a means to make a living. If any of
the previous meme categories are exploited on a professional level the
biological fitness increasing feature is even more emphasized.
Does anyone know of any other categories that I have missed? Any other
comments are welcome too, of course.
Philip.
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Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
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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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