Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 13:12:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Valla Pishva <vpishva@emerald.tufts.edu>
Subject: Re: Replicators, was Non Homuncular Memetics
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
To Aaron Lynch,
On Mon, 6 Oct 1997, Aaron Lynch wrote:
>
> I agree with your points about systems built upon systems. Infants, for
> instance, generally learn the basic phonemes from their parents in order to
> proceed to further levels of language learning. Some of babbling phonemes
> they make are reinforced while other babblings are not. Language learning,
> in turn, opens the door for all sorts of other learning.
A good point; this brings up the issue of a "backlash effect"
between systems as a result of environmental issues. So while parents are
passing on their specific language meme (or two) to their child, they are
actively excluding, or limiting the future scope of, other language memes,
since, once the child is past a certain age, it is much more difficult to
pass on other language memes. This is sort of an innoculation against
other language memes based directly on the "lower" genetic system. The
line blurs, though, when we look items such as religion; is there a
certain age after which it would be highly unlikely, or destructive, to
make someone disavow religious conviction? If it's not based on a
physical barrier, then the relative activeness of a meme should be based
on a conceptual system when promoting (1) the meme and (2) innoculation
against other memes. Genes might be seen as active/passive in the same
way if we take it that memes "know" the "information constant" underlying
physical development and use that to their advantage occasionally, while
genes "know" the "information constant" underlying the environment that
facilitates them, and use that info to their advantage. Suppression
genes and green beard effects (something which I independently theorized
before learning of, Aaron :) ) might be examples, but I guess this might
be stretching it.
>
> The idea that replication happens only with respect to an abstraction is
> actually a correlary to a more general principle that the "sameness" of two
> entities exists only with respect to an abstraction. If its any comfort,
> recall that physicists have long ago adjusted to the idea that the
> "simultaneity" of events exists only with respect to a coordinate system, a
> framework of time/location abstractions. (I normally cringe at using the
> word "relativity" in connection to culture, but it might be appropriate in
> this context.)
>
I like this alot. The epistemeological issues it brings up seem very
relevant to consciousness issues, computer or otherwise.
> Different classes of replicators are generally not isomorphic to
>each other. The lack of isomorphism between genes and memes, for
>instance, is a good reason to avoid too much dependence on analogy and
>metaphor.
Isnt the fact that they lack isomorphisms between them almost a
definitional in differentiating different classes of replicators? Or can
different classes be represented as subsets of other classes, but
different in that they create contextually easier concepts to work with in
understanding specific domains?
>
> --Aaron Lynch
>
> http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html
>
> ===============================================================
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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