Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA17923 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 13 Nov 2001 19:40:36 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3102A6D115@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Study shows brain can learn without really trying Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 19:01:35 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Filter-Info: UoS MailScan 0.1 [D 1] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
<Hi Vincent
> > <It gives a competitive edge among intensely social animals like
> > > primates. While it does nothing for survival of the group as a whole,
>
> > > reflexive consciousness determines which members of the group are
> > > more likely to reproduce. It's among primates that the terrain of
> > > competition begins to shift from environmental to social. The
> successful
> > > ones are those who are aware of themselves as minds and not just as
> > > bodies.>
> > >
> > Well, that would be so nice if it were true, that all we had to do
> > to be successful in life is to be self aware.
>
>
> That self-awareness is evolutionarily significant doesn't mean it's the
> only factor determining success. Humphrey isn't arguing the point you're
> criticizing him for. You're dismissing him on the basis of a statement
> you yourself have projected onto him. Your mind is playing a trick on
> you. >
>
Well, I interpreted the comment sent in a particular way based on
the apparent idea that individual success within a social group is
influenced by self-awareness. It was the context of your presentation that
made me comment in that way.
>
>> Primate societies may be
>> highly social, but they are also highly hierarchical in both
genders
>> (silverbacks and all that).
<Sure. But ape societies are far more fluid than kingdoms, empires,
corporations, or nation-states. Both males and females are in competition
to determine whose genes get passed along. Females, who face the prospect
of falling out of favor of the alpha male, will struggle for ascendancy just
as mercilessly as males. The dominant male can lose out at any time to a
younger challenger, or the challenger and a few allies can kidnap some
females (who, we can be assured, put them up to it in the first place) and
start a new genetic line-- if, that is, they're able to fend off retaliation
from the tribe. And accidents do happen, particularly when you live in a
jungle. Injuries that would seem like nothing at all to us can strip a
dominant male of his supremacy. When the jockeying begins again, the one
with the greatest degree of mental self-awareness has an edge.
>
> Apes don't make dynasties. They don't have high-tech methods of
> repression. Reflexive consciousness evolved in the play of shifting
> alliances and dominance characteristic of ape society. Anyway, that's the
> going theory. (Humphrey, N., 1984, Consciousness Regained, Oxford
> University Press.)>
>
It depends on what you mean by 'more fluid'. I don't suggest that
hierarchies in ape societies are unchanging, only that such hierarchies
exist.
> > Humans, as we've covered before, are by no
> > means the same, but from interpersonal interaction to international
> > diplomacy force seems to count for quite a lot.
>
<Not only is male dominance absent in early humans, even our hominid
ancestors two million years ago were roughly equal in size between genders.
Our fundamental mistake has been to assume that apes somehow segue into
humans. In reality, we began as a radical departure from primate (or any
other) evolution, and only recently, in the last dozen or so millennia, has
the atavistic ape-like world of "history" emerged. The popular image of
"ape-men," as depicted in Kubrick's 2001, is a projection of the modern
world onto our pre-technological past. If our ancestors half a million
years ago had been as primitive as we are, they could never have survived
and proliferated.>
Well, we've covered this before. The evidence for social behaviour
in our ancestors is very limited since we hardly have enough bones to agree
on the organisation of our ancestry (or for that matter to agree on gender
of some of those bones IIRC). I think the 'radical departure' argument is
the mistake, because there is no precedent for it in any other part of
nature. Evolution occurs slowly, gradually (with blips for major natural
disasters and so on), what we do know about forerunners and close relatives
of humans, like neanderthals, is that they were extremely well adapted to
their ecological niches. The last sentence of this paragraph surely isn't
what you meant to put?
<It works at three levels. A radio signal has no need for
consciousness, either at the point of transmission or reception. But life
is habitual, not automatic, and consciousness is the flip-side of habit.
Memory without consciousness makes no more sense than past without present.
There's no memory without consciousness to perform the act of remembering.
As to human communication, this requires consciousness of oneself as a mind.
Both the sender and receiver must experience mentality itself, in order to
rationally structure its contents. For us, mentality isn't just an
appendage but the substance from which we're (self)made.>
What do you mean by habitual and habit?
>
>> Do individual guppies have selves?
>
<Life is self-creative, self-regulating, and self-perpetuating.
Rather than having "selves," guppies simply exist intrinsically. That means
they aren't products of external forces (supernatural or otherwise).
There's no "self" which is somehow separate from the body, no mysterious
"entity" that pervades our being. The self is nothing more than the
self-existence of the body.>
Does that actually answer the question, or not, I'm not sure?
>
>> They appear to respond to the behaviour of other guppies in
>> experiments in a way that implies cultural transmission, but
would we
>> therefore have to regard them as having selves, or are they
merely
>> following a behavioural algorithm?
>
<Algorithms were invented by mathematicians in the last 2500 or so
years. They have no independent existence in nature, whether in brains or
anywhere else. Math is the original artificial language, the first precise
method of description. It's not that guppies follow the algorithms in their
brains, but that the algorithms in our imagination accurately describe guppy
behavior. >
That's like, IIRC Baudrillard's contention that evidence that
mummies died from TB wasn't really possible because TB wasn't discoverd
until the 19th century. This week's New Scientist, amongst a number of
really interesting tidbits, had a piece of research showing that the
decision-making process over choice of food sources could be incredibly
simple. I don't have it in front of me, but it was suggesting that a lot of
the decision making processes we make, may be far more simple than we
believe. I'll dig it out.
>
>> Now, the next question is whether
>> we consider such transmission between guppies as memes or not,
Dugatkin
>> does, no doubt others would not. Are we talking about something
that has a
>> behavioural impact, or must it be something that is consciously
sent, and
>> consciously interpreted, the kind of "message" you're talking
about? Where
>> would the information transmitted in body language come into your
equation,
>> for example?
>
<Lacking self-awareness, the animal mind isn't a very hospitable
environment for memes. Patterns of behavior are established biologically.
The culture of guppies is a shadow of the biology of guppies. It's not a
thing-in-itself, like human culture. Outside the context of
self-referential mentality, there can't be any self-propagating ideas. >
Well you see that's the core question. I don't know the answer,
initially on this list I was reluctant to acknolwedge the possibility of
animal cultures, but now I find some reasonable evidence and arguments for
that, which I think bring into question the necessity of self-referential
mentality for memes.
The problem is if we explicitly say what animals have is not "real"
culture, then we have to define how we're different and how that is
reflected in our "real" culture. And yet the meaning of culture seems no
nearer agreement than it has been for decades. There are people in my field
who, rightly or wrongly, would view the way we talk about culture and
evolution on this list with rage, jaw-dropping disbelief, or a range of
other responses.
Vincent
-- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of the University of Stirling shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it.=============================================================== 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 2b29 : Tue Nov 13 2001 - 19:50:48 GMT