Message-Id: <v02140b0bb33419bd4b39@[128.103.96.185]>
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 17:54:47 -0400
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: konsler@ascat.harvard.edu (Reed Konsler)
Subject: The Extended Memeotype
Maybe it would be better not to think of brains as seperate from the
environment at all?
In _The Extended Phenotype_ Dawkins asks us to imagine the world
as a force field. Each "gene" is located in space and waves of phenotypic
force radiate outwards. We might think that they end at the skin of
the organism containing the genes, but Dawkins shows us a number
of counterexamples, the most convincing to me being the dams built
by beavers.
The image allows the distinction between "inside/outside" to fall away
and reveal, instead, a continious gene force field. Each individual probably
looks like a shining star, and between them vast voids of unilluminated
space. These shining stars of gene force move across the unenlightend
landscape, leaving glowing footprints which fade sometimes rapidly,
sometimes not. They caper to an unimaginably complex dance, consuming
and spawning one another in an autocatalytic spiraling explosion something
like the universe itself. Only much much faster.
Dawkins might say:
"The Individuals are an illusion, there are only Genes"
Now, is that true? Of course not...not in any final and absolute sense.
The beauty and the brilliance of the idea is that it helps us to look
at a world we thought we knew with fresh eyes. Those eyes reveal
little worms infecting snails and making them do all kinds of strange
things. We see beavers building dams. We catch a glimpse of whole
pulsating ecologies where before we saw a collection of animals and
plants. And the whole taxonomy of confusion is united according to
the one paradigm...evolution by natural selection.
Dawkins introduces us the the Necker Cube in the preface to
the revised edition of_The Selfish Gene_. He says: "just try looking
at the world this way, and you'll see how much simpler everything
looks, and how much more coherent."
It might not be *absolutely* true, but it IS pretty damn elegant.
But to fully understand it, you have to give up the idea that "genes"
are made of DNA and located in the nucleus of cells. Genes are
pure information embodied by DNA, RNA, proteins, and organic
trash of all sorts. Genes are "replicators" in the abstract. Their
force is greatest in the vicinity of the nucleus, powerful across
the range of the cell, illuminating throughout the organism and
radiating outward into the void of the environment.
Dawkins described his comprehension of natural selection as a
"Road to Damascus" experience. _The Extended Phenotype_
did that for me.
What we should try to do, if we are interested in making the
gene=meme analogy is imagine an analogy:
"The Self is an illusion, there are only Memes"
Now, is that true? Of course not...not in any final and absolute sense.
The beauty and the brilliance of the idea is that it helps us to look
at a world we thought we knew with fresh eyes. Those eyes reveal
little worms infecting our minds and making us do all kinds of strange
things. We see people building dams. We catch a glimpse of whole
pulsating cultures where before we saw a collection of people and
ideas. And the whole taxonomy of confusion is united according to
the one paradigm...evolution by natural selection.
Richard, I've got to agree with Bill on this one. Where a star begins
and ends is entirely an arbitrary matter...such things have no surface.
Where even a single atom of hydrogen begins and ends is entirely
probablistic. Where a mind begins and ends is similarly diffuse.
I think to confine it to the dimensions of the brain is clearly wrong,
becuase a lot of what minds do is through the nervous system. Where
does the nervous system end?
"Media are the extentions of Man."
Marshall McLuhan
It might be useful, eventually, for empirical scientists to create a
taxonomy of how and where memes are embodied. But the image
I hold in my head is one in which a line drawn between brains
and their environment is not a useful distinction. Thus, there isn't
any reason to insist that "memes" are in brains.
Do you understand the image in my head? Dawkins gives us one
word: Gene. Gene explains everything from viruses to ecologies
according to his model. That simplicity is attractive
I want us to have one word which explains everything from
what goes on in brains to what goes on in e-mail chain letters.
The word I use in my own mind is: Meme. That simplicity
is attractive, where a taxonomy is not.
That taxonomy...it almost strikes me as, well, academic. Richard,
you of all people should understand that multiplying terminology
is lethal to transmission.
Reed
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Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
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