Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 10:33:08 +1000
From: John Wilkins <wilkins@wehi.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Memes and Things
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
In-Reply-To: <199901310907.JAA14428@alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk>
Hans-Cees Speel <hanss@sepa.tudelft.nl> wrote in reply to me:
>> So, I think that there is a sense in which a type is low fidelity but
>> transmitted without a replicator, and that this is still within the
>> evolutionary paradigm, so construed. I also think that there is an
>> operational issue: we can best investigate the high fidelity replicators=
,
>> and that is where we should start, as I argue in my forthcoming JoM-EMIT
>> reply to Gatherer.
>
>transmitted without a replicator? Do you mean that there is no geno-pheno
>distinction, or something else?
No, this is a claim about necessity. I think that Darwinian evolution occur=
s
on reproduced types (what Griesemer calls "reproducers"), while neo-Darwini=
an
selection occurs over replicators. The latter certainly applies in most cas=
es,
but that does not exhaust the range of Darwinian process.
>Buty you are right that *I adhere to the Hull school of what
>evolutionary means.
David has admitted privately to me that this sort of non-replicative evolut=
ion
occurred at the origins of life, but thinks that is the only case. This is =
all
the admission I require to pick up the memetic ball and run with it. If it
*can* happen under the "orthodox" Hull-Dawkins-Williams model, then it can
happen - with different frequencies - in culture as well. In fact, I think
that quite a lot of ordinary biological evolution does not require replicat=
or
fidelity, but don't push me on that as I have no nice knock-down examples t=
o
give you.
>
>In my thoughts i see memetics as a mix of systems where there
>are evolutionary feed-back loops (learning and evolutionary
>selection leading to adaptation) and transmission where there is
>just spread, and perhaps struggle for survival without adaptations.
Analogous to selection and adaptation, and drift and neutral variation, but=
I
cannot make sense of the third option. If system S struggles to survive, th=
en
it needs some processes of acquiring and utilising resources, even in the
absence of competition with conspecifics or allospecifics. If these work, t=
hen
I cannot think they aren't adaptations in at least one sense. Especially si=
nce
variations will drive a refining in progeny of those traits and mechanisms.
And Mark Mills <mmills@fastlane.net> also replied:
>I wonder if this doesn't touch on the ability of 'things' to be both
>genotype and phenotype in special situations. I guess I could claim that
>all things are 'code', most simply have low fecundity and reproductive
>fidelity. I could also claim that all things are the result of
>antecedent processes and thus phenotype.
>
>Would you agree?
I would rather say that what is reproduced is [physical] structure which, i=
n a
given context, has some [physical] properties that can interact in some
[physical] processes. "Phenotype" is one location in the
<obligate-facultative, low-high fidelity, hi-lo energy-efficiency> space,
"genotype" is another. The rest is a matter of semantic convention.
The notion of a "code" (as opposed to a mapping of prior to subsequent stat=
es
in a set of processes) is an analytic tool that says as much about us as
cognisers as it does about the systems being studied. IMNSHO.
Tsch=FC=DF
John
--John Wilkins, Head, Graphic Production The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Melbourne, Australia <mailto:wilkins@WEHI.EDU.AU><http://www.wehi.edu.au/~wilkins> Homo homini aut deus aut lupus - Erasmus of Rotterdam
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