Memes

[da1999]

I have a couple of questions on a theory of the mind I am working on. I would greatly appreciate any help.

-Technology is defined as an art, craft, and skill benefiting the individual organism.
-A Meme is a replicator (like a gene), which is a basic Idea or a unit of information
-A “meme-complex” is a web of interconnected ideas that we refer to consciousness or mind.
-Information is defined in Bateson’s words “a difference that makes a difference.”

There are 2 types of memes (ideas) Technology and Non-Technology Memes.

The memes of simple technology like tool making or weapons are the origin and structuring of consciousness and came about by chance in the mind of Home habilis. These memes are replicators and exist only to survive and copy itself. Through evolution and natural selection meme and gene formed a co-evolutionary relationship and both control each other.

The technology meme was and is selected through evolution because it is beneficial to the organism. The ability for an organism to make tools has a likelier survival rate than one that cannot make tools.


My question:
1) I define Non-technology memes as ideas of God, Philosophy, Evolution or questions of “what am I,” and “why do I exist.” Is this definition wrong?

2) The environment of our minds are limited in storage and capacity to process information and the energy used “to think” is limited as well so the idea or memes that are must be beneficial?

3) What benefit to the organism or the technology meme itself, does the non-technology meme have? Why does it continue to survive?

 

[Idle Mind]

The skills to make tools are not passed on through genes, they are taught by the one who possesses that knowledge to ones who don't. That is, however, the definition of meme

quoted from www.m-w.com
an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture

.
Or is that what you meant when you said that it replicates itself?

 

[da1999]

that is exactly what i meant, through imitation a meme is spread. I use the common meme/gene analogy in a general sense because they are both fundamentally replicators.

what do you think of the question?

 

[paulsamuel]

reply

good questions!

1st; I'm not convinced that memes are anything more than an invented term for use as a heuristic tool. As a heuristic tool, they are useful for their explicatory powers, and I've heard the meme concept is being used for development of AI.

2nd; Evolution does not belong in the same category of memes as god and philosophy, unless you are also lumping other natural phenomena like gravity.

This is probably a very useful thread. I know that I will learn a lot if you get some responses.

I'm pretty sure I saw a paper by John Maynard Smith on memes and evolutionary biology. I'll have a look around.

 

[paulsamuel]

here's a couple refs.

Artif Life 2000 Summer;6(3):227-35

On meme--gene coevolution.

Bull L, Holland O, Blackmore S.

Faculty of Computer Studies and Mathematics, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK. larry@ics.uwe.ac.uk

In this article we examine the effects of the emergence of a new replicator, memes, on the evolution of a pre-existing replicator, genes. Using a version of the NKCS model we examine the effects of increasing the rate of meme evolution in relation to the rate of gene evolution, for various degrees of interdependence between the two replicators. That is, the effects of memes' (suggested) more rapid rate of evolution in comparison to that of genes is investigated using a tunable model of coevolution. It is found that, for almost any degree of interdependence between the two replicators, as the rate of meme evolution increases, a phase transition-like dynamic occurs under which memes have a significantly detrimental effect on the evolution of genes, quickly resulting in the cessation of effective gene evolution. Conversely, the memes experience a sharp increase in benefit from increasing their rate of evolution. We then examine the effects of enabling genes to reduce the percentage of gene-detrimental evolutionary steps taken by memes. Here a critical region emerges as the comparative rate of meme evolution increases, such that if genes cannot effectively select memes a high percentage of the time, they suffer from meme evolution as if they had almost no selective capability.


AND

Biosystems 1999 Aug;51(2):101-19
Organisms, organizations and interactions: an information theory approach to biocultural evolution.

Wallace R, Wallace RG.

Public Interest Scientific Consulting Service, New York, NY 10027, USA. rdwall@ix.netcom.com

The language metaphor of theoretical biology, proposed by Waddington in 1972, provides a basis for the formal examination of how different self-reproducing structures interact in an extended evolutionary context. Such interactions have become central objects of study in fields ranging from human evolution-genes and culture-to economics-firms, markets and technology. Here we use the Shannon-McMillan Theorem, one of the fundamental asymptotic relations of probability theory, to study the 'weakest' and hence most universal, forms of interaction between generalized languages. We propose that the co-evolving gene-culture structure that permits human ultra-sociality emerged in a singular coagulation of genetic and cultural 'languages', in the general sense of the word. Human populations have since hosted series of culture-only speciations and coagulations, events that, in this formulation, do not become mired in the 'meme' concept.

 

[spookz]

Re: reply

Originally posted by paulsamuel
good questions!

1st; I'm not convinced that memes are anything more than an invented term for use as a heuristic tool. As a heuristic tool, they are useful for their explicatory powers, and I've heard the meme concept is being used for development of AI.

also used in social engineering. advertising could also benefit from the concept. it is a new tool used to create a science out of the propagation of ideas.

It is found that, for almost any degree of interdependence between the two replicators, as the rate of meme evolution increases, a phase transition-like dynamic occurs under which memes have a significantly detrimental effect on the evolution of genes, quickly resulting in the cessation of effective gene evolution. (Bull L, Holland O, Blackmore S.)

correct me if i am wrong, but are they inferring that ideas have effects on genes?

 

[da1999]

Not only do memes have an effect on genes, but at times they control them. For example Blackmore and a few other suggest that our “big brain” is the cause of a memetic drive, not genetic. I think the “leash” is pulled sometimes by the genes and other times by the memes.

It seems like there is a “memetic drive” for these replicators towards an environment which will allow them to be copied with “high fidelity, fecundity and longevity.” The mind does an ok job, but a digital world is far better to meet these 3 requirements of replicators to evolve. Yes, I think the meme will eventually select a digital world to live in, possibly the Internet of some kind.

Paulsamuel thank for those articles they are great. 1st – yes the memetics is not a science yet, but it is in its early stages, like genetics was before Watson and Crick. 2nd – I categorize evolution, god, philosophy, gravity, mathematics altogether because basically they are huge “memeplexes,” that replicate in minds. By putting them altogether does not mean I am making a moral judgment on the validity of the beliefs and theories of those ideas.

This is the great thing about meme theory, it is not about what idea is true, it is about the process of how these ideas replicate.

What do you think of the other two questions?

 

[paulsamuel]

reply

Here is the John Maynard Smith article that I saw
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1703


Just to make my perspective clear;

natural phenomena, like gravity or evolution, exist independently of humans, their minds, their beliefs, or their ideas.

Originally posted by da1999
2) The environment of our minds are limited in storage and capacity to process information and the energy used “to think” is limited as well so the idea or memes that are must be beneficial?

We don't know enough about the mind to suggest that they're limited in storage and capacity and I don't see how 'natural selection' can act on memes. You should perhaps expand upon your thesis.

Originally posted by da1999
3) What benefit to the organism or the technology meme itself, does the non-technology meme have? Why does it continue to survive?

I don't know enough about the logical validity of memes and meme theory to answer that. I'm hoping people here will expound a bit more, and I will try to sort out the validity.

 

[da1999]

paul thanks for the article, John Maynard Smith has got a good understanding of evolution and i am sure his views on memetics will be the same.

Memes are replicators, and take part in an evolutionary process and undergo Heredity, Variation and Selection.

i think i tend to agree with Susan Blackmore. She writes in the book "Darwinizing Culture"

“variation is introduced both by degradation due to failures of human memory and communication, and by the creative recombination of different memes” (p28)

“selection occurs because of the limitations on available communication channels, time, memory, and other sorts of storage space” (p28).

 

[paulsamuel]

Originally posted by da1999

Memes are replicators, and take part in an evolutionary process and undergo Heredity, Variation and Selection.

You'll have to convince me of that, cause I don't believe it, Dr. Blackmore's statements notwithstanding.

BTW, Dr. Blackmore's credentials are pretty sketchy; if I may:

Research interests:

I am no longer doing research on out-of-body and near-death experiences, parapsychology, and alien abductions, but see below for publications on these topics.

Parapsychology
Blackmore,S.J. 1987 The elusive open mind: Ten years of negative research in parapsychology The Skeptical Inquirer 11 244-255

Lucid Dreams
Blackmore,S.J. 1991 Lucid Dreams Skeptical Inquirer 15 362-370

Near-Death Experiences
Blackmore,S.J. 1991 Near-Death Experiences: In or out of the body? Skeptical Inquirer 16 34-45

Out-of-body Experiences NEW !!!! See my own 1970 experience at http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/tart/taste/

Paranormal belief
Blackmore,S.J. 1992 Psychic Experiences: Psychic Illusions Skeptical Inquirer 16 367-376

Alien abductions
Blackmore,S.J. 1994 Alien abduction. New Scientist, 19 November, 29-31. (Cover Story)
Blackmore,S.J. 1998 Abduction by aliens or sleep paralysis? Skeptical Inquirer, 22, 23-28

Ê

 

[da1999]

javascript:smilie('') thats funny, point taken.

ok what about:
F.T. Cloak (1973) -
The first to associate culture evolves by a Darwinian mechanism

Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene", page 192:
A meme is a replicator, a unit of cultural transmission, and unit of imitation.
Memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via imitation.
Fidelity, fecundity, longevity are the ways in which a meme is defined as successful.

Dennett - "Consciousness Explained"
Evolution occurs when Variation, Heredity and differential fitness conditions exist (p200).
"The gene, the DNA molecule, happens to be the replicating entity which prevails . . . There may be other . . . These new replicators are, roughly ideas . . . the sort of complex ideas that form themselves into distinct memorable units" (p201).
"Meme evolution is not just analogous to biological or genetic evolution, not just a process that can be metaphorically described in these evolutionary idioms, but a phenomenon that obeys the laws of natural selection exactly" (p202).

Aaron Lynch "Thought Contagion"
“Much as biological evolution keeps viruses renewed and infectious, so too does Memetic evolution keep certain beliefs current and contagious” (12)

Henry Plotkin, "Darwin Machines" page 251:
The unit of cultural heredity analogous to the gene.

Henry Plotkin, "Evolution in Mind"
What is transmitted between individuals in a social group, equivalent to genes. (p159)
Essential units of a social group's common cultural currency (pages 252-3)
Cultural entities, descent with modification

F Heylighen “The Structure of Memes”
-http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MEMSTRUC.html

”Indeed, Darwinian models of genetic evolution have certainly proven their usefulness, even though it is in practice impossible to specify the exact DNA codons that determine the gene for, say, blue eyes or altruism towards siblings. The same applies to memes."


OK, to be fair there is the other side:

Robert Aunger - "Darwinizing Culture"

“No one knows what a meme is” (p20).
“just because biological evolution happens to be based on a replicator does not mean all evolutionary processes have to be” (p23).
“people and other clever creatures, in this view, have just evolved the ability to send and receive messages as a strategy for improving their biological fitness” (p23).

 

[paulsamuel]

reply

good job on research.

my take on your refs.

don't know about Cloak;

Dawkins I plan on re-reading when I finish current book, but I know I didn't agree with many of his premises first time I read him

Dennett: it is certain that memes do not "obey the laws of natural selection exactly" (emphasis added).

as far as F Heylighen, when he says "Indeed, Darwinian models of genetic evolution have certainly proven their usefulness, even though it is in practice impossible to specify the exact DNA codons that determine the gene for, say, blue eyes or altruism towards siblings," just plain doesn't know what he's talking about regarding evolution. (Jeez, usefullness??!!!!, what an understatement)

 

[da1999]

Most of these authors especially Dawkins would say that alsonf as there is Heredity, Variation and Selection, evolution happens. Within cultural transmisiion these three variables happen.

Please direct me to the information you have that makes it otherwise. Admittedly, biology and genetics is not my expertise.

thanks