Do the two “human” replicators memes and genes
cooperate as they evolve or do they compete?
Are human emotions, “reactions” to the physical
environment information, or to memetic information?
Does the emotion of “envy”, lead to “ascetic”
religious organizations? Example—Christianity?
Is “egualitarianism” an idealistic meme complex
that gives “hope” to people that experience the
pain of envy?
Do genes have a “leash” on memes, or do memes
have a “leash” on genes.
For a good article on memes, pull up “the power
of memes” by Susan Blackmore in Scientific American,
Vol 283 no 4, october 2000, p52-61 under google.com
read the selfish gene by dawkins and almost like a whale ( origin updated ).
genes / memes are selfish, they co-operate for selfish reasons, in general.
Do not forget that sometimes in evolution you will get ‘spill over’ i.e. completely non selfish action, which , if benign, may carry on.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by dude *
**read the selfish gene by dawkins and almost like a whale ( origin updated ).
Thanks dude,
I’ve read the selfish gene a couple of times, and a
couple of dawkins’ other books. I have a hard time
with his writing style for some reason.
I am ordering “like a whale” today. So many darwinian
books out now, hard to read them all.
Have you read “the mating mind” by Geoffrey Miller?
It is about darwins other theory—Sexual Selection?
I have written a play based on Dr. Miller’s book.
The title of my play (taken from his book) is
“I’M FIT, MY GENES ARE GOOD, MATE WITH ME”.
1: They both cooperate and compete, for purely “selfish” reasons.
2: Again, both. As an extreme example, a person could be conditioned, Pavlov-style, with electric shocks coupled with a tone. Soon enough, when that tone gets played, a fear reaction will occur. The mechanisms that support that kind of reaction are purely biological–similar experiments are done with mice and such, who aren’t exactly big on memes. Likewise, a person could grow up consistently being told that a person of race X is always a murderer, thief, etc.; one day that person is walking down the street, and sees someone of race X, and he’s likely to have another fear reaction–that would seem to me to be rather more memetic in nature.
3: At first and second glance, that seems to be an overly-simplistic reduction. The neurology of the brain supports religious experience, and so the basis of the religious experience is at least partially genetic. On the meme side of things, religions are a complex web of them–Blackmore termed them “memeplexes”, and I don’t think they reduce down to “envy” very well. To the human drive for meaning, more likely, coupled with brains that have evolved to cling to a convincing narrative–which is to say, to a convincing meme or ten.
4: Again, not so much a simple yes or no. I would call egalitarianism an idealistic memeplex, sure, but it takes root for more complex reasons–empathy and compassion looming rather larger than envy among them.
5: Both leash the other. It’s more of a cat’s cradle.
6: Book-wise, I like Susan Blackmore’s The Meme Machine.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Drastic *
**My take on the points:
4: Again I would call egalitarianism an idealistic memeplex, sure, but it takes root for more complex reasons–empathy and compassion looming rather larger than envy among them.
Thanks Drastic,
Susan Blackmore, Geoffrey Miller, Lynn Margulis, and
Randy Thornhill are at the top of my list for
researchers/writers and popularizers of science.
4: My take—The “desire” for egualitarianism is
directly proportional to an individuals envy.
Personal experience—I do not experience empathy and
compassion towards other individuals inwhich I am the
“loser”. Since I do not think/feel that I can compare
myself to another individual, I have to get my
information from third party "observers that compare
me to a competitor. If I am the winner, then it may
be possible for me to feel empathy and compassion
towards the loser. If I am the loser, then I feel
envy. Empathy and compassion gives me that fuzzy good
feeling, envy causes me pain. To decrease this pain,
I used to ask my ex-wife if she had heard of anything
bad happening to my/our male friends, of who she was
particularly fond of.
No I haven’t read that thing on sexual selection but their is a section in ‘like a whale’, its an ace book… updates darwins work with the original chapter summaries.
Pop down the nightclub and watch ‘sexual selection’ in action, i think beauty seems highly prized because it indicates health.
I do doubt if evolutionary theory has taken into account disease as much as required, I know we compete against other animals but if you think about it disease is another ‘threat’ as well.
Without modern medicine the population would be a lot smaller.
At its worst? I dunno about that–if I had to pick a candidate for worst off the top of my head, I’d say the eugenics movement at its height. Meme theory’s pretty harmless in comparison.
I find memes to be more of an interesting philosophical saw, rather than anything particularly scientific. Interesting for metaphorical use, mostly, a framework of looking at things.