Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19971219141259.00ca0810@popmail.mcs.net>
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 14:12:59 -0600
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
Subject: Re: H Bloom on memes 2
Here is some further discussion regarding Howard Bloom's post that was
originally made under the subject heading "testing memetics." It comes from
the hbe-l list, which is one of the lists to which Howard posted his
chapter THE EMBRYONIC MEME from HISTORY OF THE GLOBAL BRAIN, PART IV. The
material begins with Howard's reply to a posting that I duplicated on the
JOM memetics list on December 11. [Philosophy of science note: Occam's
Razor is also known as the Principle of Parsimony.]
Howard Bloom responding to Aaron Lynch:
Aaron--I'd reply to your thoughts on fundamental forces and their relationship
to attraction (one form of communication) and repulsion (yet another
communicative form), however I am a bit ill and de-energized right now. Let's
just say the two of us are looking at different parts of the same elephant.
Everything you say about subatomic forces is correct. And all of it shows a
mechanism by which the inherent sociality and communicative nature of quarks,
protons, electrons, molecules with incompleteness in their electron shells,
etc. are communicative and hence social entities. Communicative even by
Shannon's laws of informational exchange. The forces you refer to play a
vital role in this fundamental entanglemement of all things spilled from the
Big Bang's cornucopia. Even "solitary particles" play a social role, binding
through the force of dark matter, etc. I suspect we will come to understand
this better as the murkier particles like neutrinos prove to either exist or
not exist and then are further known for both their properties and their role
in the larger web of entity. And, yes, living beings from the git-go are, in
my opinion, children of the integrative and disintegrative forces--the
conformity enforcers and diversity generators--which work in tandem to produce
the evolutionary unfolding of this universe.
The harsh but loving choreography of evolution through variation and selection
can be shown at work even in the first flash that generated the universe.
Living things have taken autopoesis and natural selection a few strides up the
staircase of emergent properties. Yet this process is a universal one, a
basic two-step of the cosmos. This sounds mystical and spiritual. It is not.
No more than field theory is one of soul and auras, though the two metaphoric
languages may be partially isometric--the language of shamans and the language
of physicists. You may find the following posting to the paleopsych list of
interest, since it impinges on the concept of memetic evolution:
A quick note. In one of your papers, Bill [Benzon], you point out quite
persuasively that the usual Linnaean-style taxonomic models with which some
attempt to understand the evolution of culture aren't exactly working out. In
his thesis, John Wilkins makes precisely such an effort, building on the
foundations provided by David Hull. Alas, as your paper predicted, I suspect
John's efforts, heroic as they are, demonstrate the futility of a speciation-
based model of cultural evolution.
May I suggest another evolutionary approach. Bacterial evolution is radically
different from the rather crippled processes experienced by creatures like
ourselves, clumsily attempting to overcome the inflexibilities imposed by the
genetic shielding necessary to multicellularity. Bacteria have no such
problems and don't have to worry about strict speciation and linear lines of
descent. They simply swap whatever genetic fragments seem useful. Ideas
(memes) operate in much the same way. Fragments can easily peel off, float
around, be altered by the hosts who pick them up, and ignore the strictures of
Linnaean structures. As you say about your own use of ideas--forget the
philosophers' insistence on narrow differentiations. Mix and match. Do
whatever works.
Frankly, bacteria are evolutionarily far more sucessful than are we poor
multicellulars, making our noble but still inadequate efffort to regain the
flexibility and "what-the-hell, if-it-works-it works" approach of our
unicellular bacterial and viral relatives.
So how about applying the bacterial evolution model to cultural evolution and
to memetic development? Then we can toss out such klutzy and unworkable
notions as "units of selection" since almost any scrap of flotsam or jetsam
can be a unit, whether it fits an obsessive-compulsive's classificatory scheme
or not. Howard
In a message dated 97-12-12 17:46:40 EST, aaron@mcs.net writes:
Aaron Lynch responding to Howard Bloom:
Howard,
Thank you for responding, despite an enervating illness. Hopefully I will
not take too much energy here.
>Aaron--I'd reply to your thoughts on fundamental forces and their
relationship
>to attraction (one form of communication) and repulsion (yet another
>communicative form), however I am a bit ill and de-energized right now.
Let's
>just say the two of us are looking at different parts of the same elephant.
>Everything you say about subatomic forces is correct. And all of it shows a
>mechanism by which the inherent sociality and communicative nature of quarks,
>protons, electrons, molecules with incompleteness in their electron shells,
>etc. are communicative and hence social entities. Communicative even by
>Shannon's laws of informational exchange. The forces you refer to play a
>vital role in this fundamental entanglemement of all things spilled from the
>Big Bang's cornucopia. Even "solitary particles" play a social role, binding
>through the force of dark matter, etc. I suspect we will come to understand
>this better as the murkier particles like neutrinos prove to either exist or
>not exist and then are further known for both their properties and their role
>in the larger web of entity. And, yes, living beings from the git-go are, in
>my opinion, children of the integrative and disintegrative forces--the
>conformity enforcers and diversity generators--which work in tandem to
produce
>the evolutionary unfolding of this universe.
I do have some more points to make. One is that the existence of neutrinos
is considered to be at least as well established as the existence of quarks
by particle physicists. The proof of their existence is considered quite
solid. Back at Fermilab, the high energy particle accelerator near Batavia,
Illinios where I once worked as an engineering physicist, we had a neutrino
lab area that used neutrinos as the starting material for initiating events
under study. The beam of neutrinos passed through several kilometers of
earth and steel before going into a giant bubble chamber, where they were
undeflected by huge magnetic fields. On they went through a neighboring
suburb, into the atmosphere, and out into space.
I have never met a physicist who attempted to understand quarks, neutrinos,
or other elementary particles in terms of sociality. Theories based on a
very few fundamental forces such as gravitation, electromagnetism, nuclear
weak, and nuclear strong forces (and unifications thereof) are sufficient
to explain all the observations of particles coming together or flying
apart. Most physicists would therefore consider "sociality" to be an
unnecessary theoretical construct in relation to elementary particles. By
Occam's Razor, they thereby exclude sociality or integrative/disintegrative
"forces" from their theory. Sociality makes a great unifying theme for a
book, but not a great unifying theory of particle physics.
>The harsh but loving choreography of evolution through variation and
selection
>can be shown at work even in the first flash that generated the universe.
>Living things have taken autopoesis and natural selection a few strides up
the
>staircase of emergent properties. Yet this process is a universal one, a
>basic two-step of the cosmos. This sounds mystical and spiritual. It is
not.
>No more than field theory is one of soul and auras, though the two metaphoric
>languages may be partially isometric--the language of shamans and the
language
>of physicists. You may find the following posting to the paleopsych list of
>interest, since it impinges on the concept of memetic evolution:
The departure from Occam's Razor is probably what brings up the lurking
impressions of mysticism and spirituality to one trained in modern physics.
It may seem as though physics is just another arbitrary language, and
little better than shamanism. (It would be interesting to invite Alan Sokal
in on this discussion, too!) Yet the theoretical constructs of shamans and
physicists are vastly different in their explanatory power. The physicist
can explain, for instance, not only what powers the sun, but also why a
cleverly crafted artifact containing Uranium, Lithium, and Hydrogen could
bring an end to Brooklyn as we know it. Vastly different phenomena
explained by enormously unifying theory. I doubt that nuclear energy would
ever have been harnessed if the theory required physicists to think about
the sociality of elementary particles. (This only hints at the philosophy
of science reasons for Occam's Razor.)
>A quick note. In one of your papers, Bill [Benzon], you point out quite
>persuasively that the usual Linnaean-style taxonomic models with which some
>attempt to understand the evolution of culture aren't exactly working out.
In
>his thesis, John Wilkins makes precisely such an effort, building on the
>foundations provided by David Hull. Alas, as your paper predicted, I suspect
>John's efforts, heroic as they are, demonstrate the futility of a speciation-
>based model of cultural evolution.
>
>May I suggest another evolutionary approach. Bacterial evolution is
radically
>different from the rather crippled processes experienced by creatures like
>ourselves, clumsily attempting to overcome the inflexibilities imposed by the
>genetic shielding necessary to multicellularity. Bacteria have no such
>problems and don't have to worry about strict speciation and linear lines of
>descent. They simply swap whatever genetic fragments seem useful. Ideas
>(memes) operate in much the same way. Fragments can easily peel off, float
>around, be altered by the hosts who pick them up, and ignore the
strictures of
>Linnaean structures. As you say about your own use of ideas--forget the
>philosophers' insistence on narrow differentiations. Mix and match. Do
>whatever works.
>
>Frankly, bacteria are evolutionarily far more sucessful than are we poor
>multicellulars, making our noble but still inadequate efffort to regain the
>flexibility and "what-the-hell, if-it-works-it works" approach of our
>unicellular bacterial and viral relatives.
>
>So how about applying the bacterial evolution model to cultural evolution and
>to memetic development? Then we can toss out such klutzy and unworkable
>notions as "units of selection" since almost any scrap of flotsam or jetsam
>can be a unit, whether it fits an obsessive-compulsive's classificatory
scheme
>or not. Howard
This reminds me of my own comparisons of cultural evolution to plasmid
evolution in bacteria. However, instead of calling the "units" idea klutzy
and unworkable, I have called for formal recognition that we are doing
science with "units" that are no more fundamental to culture than the
"meter" is fundamental to physics. Working with "units" and coordinate
systems can be useful, just as long as we recognize that the meter (for
instance) could have been defined as 11.5 inches. (More about this in my
paper.)
Warren Sarle responding to Aaron Lynch
"Mystical" and "spiritual" aren't quite the words I would have chosen.
I hoped Aaron would say something about Howard's apparent claim that
subatomic particles evolve, but since Aaron didn't:
What are the replicators?
What are the sources of variation?
What are the mechanisms of selection?
Aaron Lynch responding to Warren Sarle:
Warren,
I mainly meant to take up the idea that groupishness, sociality, or
integration/disintegration are fundamental cosmic forces.
But I did not take up Howard's use of the word evolution in respect to
particles and cosmology for several reasons. First, the word does have
non-Darwinian meanings that pertain to the first usage above. Various
cosmic and particle processes can be viewed as evolutionary replicator
phenomena, though I personally do not see these applications of Darwinian
theory to be quite as necessary as in the case of genes and memes.
Exploding stars can send off shock waves that cause the formation of other
unstable stars, for instance. And in the bang-second, unstable heavy
particles would have disintegrated very quickly into a variety of energetic
lighter particles (including photons). But the lighter particles would have
been so densely packed as to quickly collide and form new heavy quarks by
the reverse of E = mc^2. Formation rates and decay half-lives (under
various conditions) can be seen as generalized selection parameters.* I'm
not sure if I foresee any new predictions about the cosmic background
radiation emerging from this perspective, but the idea can be
philosophically interesting. I remain much more scientifically excited
about using Darwinian ideas in genetic and memetic evolution.
*Specific events do not always involve direct replication. When a neutron
decays into a proton, electron, and a neutrino, (accounting for many of
today’s particles), the event itself is not a replication event. But one
can still go looking for ways in which the occurrence of this event
depended causally upon the existence of particles formed earlier by
previous instances of the same event. It can seem rather forced and
unnecessary, though. Another reason why I do not, in general, invoke
evolutionary recursive replicator theory as a method of understanding
subatomic particles.
----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
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