Message-Id: <199708082357.SAA04047@mail.tds.net>
Date: Sat, 09 Aug 1997 08:00:31 -0500
From: "Lawrence D. Rupp" <rlawrenc@mail.tds.net>
To: Jay Hanson <j@qmail.com>, memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Memetics Digest V1 #69
fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk wrote: (Jay: You might want to try this. Lots of
tedious stuff, but easy to delete. Larry)
>
> Memetics Digest Thursday, 7 August 1997 Volume 01 : Number 069
>
> Managed in association with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> at URL: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
> In this issue:
>
> Re: re. explanatory coherence
> Re: re. explanatory coherence
> Re: re. explanatory coherence
> response:re.evolutionary coherence
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
> Date: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 13:58:31 -0500
> Subject: Re: re. explanatory coherence
>
> Aaron Lynch responding to Alex Brown:
>
> Alex, consider reading THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY: A SOCIOLOGIST RECONSIDERS
> HISTORY, by Rodney Stark (Princeton University Press, 1996). There you will
> find considerable evidence of how the Roman Empire became predominantly
> monotheistic because of a monotheism that OUT-POPULATED polytheism. It did
> so by growing at 40% per decade, compounded over several hundred years. The
> extra babies and extra proselytizing of the Christians accounts for this
> growth. A monotheistic god allowed the faith to coherently command these
> retransmission behaviors in the service of just the one god-meme. (It would
> be nice if Stark had also been able to analyze the differential propagation
> of monotheism in pre-Christian Semites.)
>
> The principle of parsimony is subordinate to consistency with the data:
> given 2 theories that both explain the same data, you choose the more
> parsimonious one without regard to whether its features, elements, or
> dimensions are "new" or "old." In this case, the data strongly support the
> thesis of a recursive re-transmission advantage for monotheisms over
> polytheisms. (Present-day Islam is another good example). The memetic
> theory is also profoundly parsimonious if you already agree that religious
> inculcation happens and can happen at different rates for different
> faiths--no fundamentally new phenomena proposed.
>
> The "Queen of Science," namely mathematics, also overrules any impulse to
> avoid "new" (overlooked?) elements, dimensions, or features in the theory.
> If monotheism grows by 1.41-fold per decade, (+/-), then it WILL BE
> 1,000,000 (+/-) times more prevalent after 40 decades. And you MUST
> attribute the society's change somehow to those growth figures--there is no
> escaping it. The only matter left to debate if the numbers are well
> established is the question of WHY the growth differential. Your post seems
> like it might want to address this, but then it also seems to suggest a
> population of individuals simultaneously drifting toward monotheism as if
> all brains were linked by instantaneous communication.
>
> >>From Alex Brown:browna@tp.ac.sg
> >Date: 6th August 1997
> >
> >The current thread about 'explanatory coherence' has drawn out the
> >polytheism/monotheism issue. If we put these two things together within
> >an evolutionary context, we have a somewhat different version of how
> >monotheism could arise.
> >
> >But first: one of the main aspects of explanatory coherence - the
> >elegance of the theory - requires that if possible we do not add new
> >features, elements or dimensions to the theories we already have in
> >order to explain particular experiences. Parsimony or economy of
> >explanation is the key rule. The ideal being that we generate a coherent
> >explanation out of a judicious re-combination of the theories and data
> >we already have. Along these lines: Monotheism would NOT be a construct
> >'invented', inserted into and in competition with co-existing
> >polytheistic religions. It only looks that way if we do not take
> >developmental time (evolution) into account. If we reject the idea that
> >it is some way ADDED to an existing set of beliefs, we can pose the
> >question: how can we generate monotheism out of polytheism? How can we
> >get one out of the other? How can we turn a 'many' into a 'one'?
> >Further, how can we systematically and economically map the reduction in
> >number involved in the evolution of pantheism to polytheism to
> >monotheism?
> >
> >In pantheism, the gods or spirits are very numerous because they are
> >integral to the many natural elements of the environment: trees, water,
> >sky, etc. In polytheism, there are a fewer number of gods which 'stand
> >for' or include whole areas of life, not (numerous) individual elements.
> >In monotheism, there is one god who stands for and represents ALL
> >aspects of life. It is possible to imagine that what is involved here is
> >an evolutionary process of 1) articulation: where key characteristics
> >are identified. 2) fusion: where similar characteristics of the previous
> >set of gods are merged.
> >
> >Thus IN TIME, that is, in historical and social terms one could equally
> >imagine a group of societies in close geographical relationship to one
> >another, each having its own single god (formed out of previous sets of
> >gods). Their inescapable relationship and communication between each
> >other, through commerce, cultural exchange and war would, one might
> >surmise lead to a constant recognition of similarities between the
> >characteristics of their respective gods. The end result might be WHAT
> >SEEMED TO BE the formation of a new monotheistic religion. In fact, it
> >is the compressed characteristics of several contiguous religions. No
> >one in particular has to invent the new religion, it would have happened
> >anyway for purely systemic/co-evolutionary reasons. The religions of the
> >Middle East had numerous similarities of religious mythology before the
> >advent of the Judeo-Christian religion which contains elements of those
> >several orginal religions. The bottom line is the results of
> >communication between groups within an environment from which they
> >cannot escape.
> >
> >There is a point where the newly constituted meta-religion co-exists
> >with the residue of the poytheistic religions, but (assuming a stable
> >environment) this is a temporary situation. The meta-system will finally
> >substitute for the unique characteristics of its constituent systems.
> >>From many to one - produced by a process of communication and exchange.
> >We do not need to invent a monotheism or parachute such a meme into a
> >society, systemic processes - cultural evolution will do it for us -
> >over time.
> >
> >(There is a very interesting and equally systematic explanation for the
> >reversal of this convergence and the consequent fragmentation of
> >religions. Depending on the prevailing cultural state: the process is
> >reversible).
> >
> >regards
> >
> >Alex Brown
>
> - --
>
> --Aaron Lynch
>
> THOUGHT CONTAGION:
> How Belief Spreads Through Society
> The New Science of Memes
> Basic Books. Info and free sample:
> http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
>
> ------------------------------
>
> From: Bill Benzon <bbenzon@meta4inc.com>
> Date: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 16:44:11 -0400
> Subject: Re: re. explanatory coherence
>
> Aaron Lynch wrote:
>
> > Aaron Lynch responding to Alex Brown:
> >
> > Alex, consider reading THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY: A SOCIOLOGIST
> > RECONSIDERS
> > HISTORY, by Rodney Stark (Princeton University Press, 1996). There you
> > will
> > find considerable evidence of how the Roman Empire became
> > predominantly
> > monotheistic because of a monotheism that OUT-POPULATED polytheism. It
> > did
> > so by growing at 40% per decade, compounded over several hundred
> > years. The
> > extra babies and extra proselytizing of the Christians accounts for
> > this
> > growth.
>
> It is one thing to account for the spread of monotheism in a loose
> collection of polytheistic societies. But where did monotheism come
> from in the first place? The conceptual explanation Alex Brown proposes
> seems to me the sort of thing we need for that one.
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
>
> ------------------------------
>
> From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
> Date: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 17:04:47 -0500
> Subject: Re: re. explanatory coherence
>
> At 04:44 PM 8/6/97 -0400, you wrote:
> >Aaron Lynch wrote:
> >
> >> Aaron Lynch responding to Alex Brown:
> >>
> >> Alex, consider reading THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY: A SOCIOLOGIST
> >> RECONSIDERS
> >> HISTORY, by Rodney Stark (Princeton University Press, 1996). There you
> >> will
> >> find considerable evidence of how the Roman Empire became
> >> predominantly
> >> monotheistic because of a monotheism that OUT-POPULATED polytheism. It
> >> did
> >> so by growing at 40% per decade, compounded over several hundred
> >> years. The
> >> extra babies and extra proselytizing of the Christians accounts for
> >> this
> >> growth.
>
> >It is one thing to account for the spread of monotheism in a loose
> >collection of polytheistic societies. But where did monotheism come
> >from in the first place? The conceptual explanation Alex Brown proposes
> >seems to me the sort of thing we need for that one.
> >
> Aaron Lynch responding to Bill Benzon:
>
> Actually, the explanation is not merely about the spread of monotheism in a
> loose collection of polytheistic societies. It is also about how it spread
> in specific regions, such as the city of Rome itself.
>
> It would be interesting to know how Hebrew monotheism occurred in its first
> host or first few hosts, but I have not proposed a specific model of who
> did the creative thinking or how. A great deal of very ancient information
> seems to be lost here. But new religious movements and variants have sprung
> from creative thinking by specific individuals in recent centuries. Some,
> such as Mormonism, have exhibited strong recursive propagation numbers, and
> now have populations in the millions. There are now 10,000,000 Mormons, but
> this number arose from recursive propagation, not from 10,000,000 people
> making a long slow transition over the past 150 years. Alex seems to
> propose a model of transition on the societal level and historical time
> scales, but the population "mind" is demonstrably NOT merely a scaled-up
> version of the individual mind.
>
> - --
>
> --Aaron Lynch
>
> THOUGHT CONTAGION:
> How Belief Spreads Through Society
> The New Science of Memes
> Basic Books. Info and free sample:
> http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
>
> ------------------------------
>
> From: "Brown, Alex" <browna@tp.ac.sg>
> Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 15:40:16 +0800
> Subject: response:re.evolutionary coherence
>
> >From Alex Brown:browna@tp.ac.sg
> Date: 6ht July 1997
>
> Thanks to Aaron Lynch for his comments on my posting. Here are some of
> my responses:
>
> AL: "...Alex, consider reading THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY: A SOCIOLOGIST
> RECONSIDERS
> HISTORY, by Rodney Stark (Princeton University Press, 1996). There you
> will find considerable evidence of how the Roman Empire became
> predominantly monotheistic because of a monotheism that OUT-POPULATED
> polytheism. It did so by growing at 40% per decade, compounded over
> several hundred years. The extra babies and extra proselytizing of the
> Christians accounts for this growth. A monotheistic god allowed the
> faith to coherently command these retransmission behaviors in the
> service of just the one god-meme. (It would be nice if Stark had also
> been able to analyze the differential propagation of monotheism in
> pre-Christian Semites.)......"
>
> AB: I haven't read this book but I have had to read several others on
> the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire and the foundation and
> explosive growth of Islam from the 7th century. In the year 313, the
> emperor, Constantine, trying to save a disintegrating empire, MADE
> Christianity the state religion of the (polytheistic) Roman Empire. To
> show just how bad things were at the time, eleven years later he moved
> the capital of the Roman empire to Constantinople. As I understand it,
> he had two alternative possible religions which could possibly have done
> the same job of ideologically unifying the empire: Mithras (Persian)
> and/or Osiris (Egypt). All three religions were very popular in the
> empire of the time. He had to make a politically pragmatic choice. The
> obscurities and complexities of the Osiris option probably ruled it out.
> How do you make a state and public religion out of some rather esoteric
> practices, popular or not? Mithras, which had a lot of mythology in
> common with Christianity and at the time was equally popular had one
> problem, it was Persian and Persia and Rome were not the best of
> friends. Roman emperors were not noted for their consensus approach to
> politics, so all things considered, in the end Christianity got the job.
> What this meant of course was no persecution of Christians, state
> finance to build churches and the PR value of being recognized as the
> imperial religion. What it also meant was a very rapid growth in
> popularity, probably as per your quoted figures.
>
> So what does this little potted version of history tell us about
> monotheisms per se or their relationship with polytheisms? The answer is
> very very little. According to the memetic reproduction theory, it could
> equally well have been a poytheistic religion which replaced a
> monotheism at that or any other time. It could even have been a
> pantheism. It apparently doesn't matter, nor apparently does the
> cultural context of the time. Babies and proselytising would seem to
> explain everything. The possibly interesting fact that Mithras, Osiris,
> Christianity, Judaism and Islam - all monotheisms have sprung up in
> roughly the same geographic area, while Buddhism, Hinduism and Daoism -
> non-monotheistic religions have arisen in Asia. Two different social and
> political environment - CONTEXTS - producing radically different types
> of religious philosophies. Or the interesting fact that Judaism,
> Mithras, Christianity and Islam are based on a seemingly common set of
> religious mythologies which go right back into the early religious
> beliefs of the Middle East. They are versions/variations or
> recombinations of a common set of religious forms. In other words, they
> are ideologically and mythologically related.
>
> Take the fact that chronologically, monotheisms seem to occur AFTER the
> development of a polytheistic religion. Why? This might suggest to me
> that there was a developmental relationship between the evolution of
> pantheisms and their seeming historical transformation into monotheisms.
> (From many answers to one as in the development of scientific theories
> and artistic styles). In other words it would seem to suggest an
> evolutionary or developmental THEORY which does not rely on individual
> heros or villains or number of babies born within the philosophy. It
> suggests a theory which is generalizable across different cultures and
> which driven by the dynamic of social interaction - the dynamic of the
> system.
>
> Thus, even with the growth statistics mentioned above, I have a problem
> with a statement like this: ".....the Roman Empire became predominantly
> monotheistic because of a monotheism that OUT-POPULATED polytheism....."
> At one level, this may well be a DESCRIPTION of what happened, but
> descriptions are not explanations. What exactly does it tell us that we
> can use as a general rule about the evolution of cultural forms? What
> does it explain? Monotheism? No. That success can be defined as that
> which succeeds? Was monotheism constructed or invented just like the
> lightbulb or the steam engine and marketed accordingly? Was the Theory
> of Evolution constructed in a similar manner? The answer is no. It was
> an evolutionary SYNTHESIS of theories circulating around at the time
> including that of Malthus and Adam Smith. What was Darwin's
> contribution? In my view the same as that of any avant-garde, including
> religious leaders: the brilliant synthesis of prevailing tendencies. Yet
> even that is not enough to assure the emergence (or numerically-defined
> success) of a religious (or any other) meta-system because one could ask
> why then and not before or after? The answer is of course the (cultural)
> environmental conditions which constrain (but do not dictate) the
> occurence of events. Cultural forms are not made and marketed. They
> evolve/emerge from prevailing forms and their development is constrained
> by the cumulative state of other cultural systems.
>
> Just to conclude this part of the reply: lets take a hypothetical
> situation where a society has a polytheistic religious system. Given the
> inevitable continuous (collective) interpretation and development of
> that religious state, what are the historical options? There are three:
> 1. It can remain polytheistic forever. 2. It can revert to a pantheistic
> state, or 3. It can evolve to a monotheistic state. In other words,
> given its current state, where can it go from there? What is the most
> likely option?
>
> regards
>
> Alex Brown
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of Memetics Digest V1 #69
> *****************************
>
> =====================================================
> For information about the list mechanics (e.g. unsubscribing)
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-- What must we do to create the greatest good for an optimum number of people over the long run? "Good fences make good neighbors" ANY CAUSE IS A LOST CAUSE WITHOUT A REDUCTION IN POPULATION=============================================================== 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