The hypothesis for a single, simple, scientific explanation underlying the entire complex social phenomenon of CAGW
Guest essay by Andy West
Whatever is happening in the great outdoors regarding actual climate, inside, truly inside, in the minds of men that is, overwhelming evidence indicates that Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is a self-sustaining narrative that is living off our mental capacity, either in symbiosis or as an outright cultural parasite; a narrative that is very distanced from physical real-world events. The social phenomenon of CAGW possesses all the characteristics of a grand memetic alliance, like numerous similar structures before it stretching back beyond the reach of historic records, and no doubt many more cultural creatures that have yet to birth.
Having painted a picture of CAGW from a memetic perspective in fiction last December, see the post:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/15/wuwt-spawns-a-free-to-read-climate-sci-fi-novel/
I realized that many people instinctively sense the memetic characteristics of CAGW, and typically express this in blogs or articles as relatively casual comments that cite memes or religion. Yet these folks appear to have no real knowledge of how truly meaningful and fundamental their observations are. Hence I have provided a comprehensive essay which attempts to fill in this knowledge gap, and indeed proposes that the entire complex social phenomenon of CAGW is dominated by memetic action, i.e. CAGW is a memeplex.
Note: a ‘meme’ is a minimal cultural entity that is subject to selective pressures during replication between human minds, its main medium. A meme can be thought of as the cultural equivalent to a gene in biology; examples are a speech, a piece of writing (‘narratives’), a tune or a fashion. A memeplex is a co-adapted group of memes that replicate together and reinforce each other’s survival; cultural or political doctrines and systems, for instance a religion, are major alliances of self-replicating and co-evolving memes. Memetics101: memeplexes do not only find shelter in the mind of a new host, but they will change the perceptions and life of their new host.
Because the memetic explanation for CAGW rests upon social and evolutionary fundamentals (e.g. the differential selection of self-replicating narratives, narrative alliances, the penetration of memes into the psyche causing secondary phenomena like motivated reasoning, noble cause corruption and confirmation bias etc.) it is not dependent upon politics or philosophies of any stripe, which tend to strongly color most ‘explanations’ and typically rob them of objectivity. Critically, a memetic explanation also does not depend on anything happening in the climate (for better or for worse). CO2 worry acted as a catalyst only; sufficient real-world uncertainties at the outset (and indeed still) provided the degree of freedom that let a particular ‘ability’ of memeplexes take hold. That ability is to manipulate perceptions (e.g. of real-world uncertainty itself), values, and even morals, which means among other things that once birthed the CAGW memeplex rapidly insulated itself from actual climate events.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens has likely co-evolved with memeplexes essentially forever (Blackmore), therefore they are a fundamental part of us, and indeed no characteristic of CAGW appears to be in the slightest bit new, quite the contrary. Underlining this ancient origin, one class of memeplexes folks are familiar with is: ‘all religions’. Yet these fuzzy structures are by no means limited to religion; science has triggered memetic themes before and extreme politics frequently does so, and there have even been historic memeplexes centered on climate. This does not mean CAGW is precisely like a religion, but being similarly powered by self-replicating narratives creates the comparable characteristics that many have commented upon.
Using a great deal of circumstantial evidence from the climate blogosphere and support from various knowledge domains: neuroscience, (economic) game theory, law, corporate behavior, philosophy, biological evolution and of course memetics etc. the essay maps the primary characteristics of CAGW onto the expected behavior for a major memeplex, finding conformance. Along the way, contemporary and historic memeplexes (mainly religious) are explored as comparisons. The essay is long, book-sized, because the subject matter is large. I guess an essay describing all of climate science would be very long, so one exploring the entire memetic characteristics of CAGW plus I hope enough context for readers to make sense of that, is similarly so.
The context is extremely broad, ranging from why pyramid building evolved in Egypt to a passionate cry against kings, priests, and tyranny in a radical women’s journal of the early nineteenth century. From the impact of memeplexes on the modern judicial system courtesy of Duke Law, to the ancient purpose of story-telling and contemporary attempts to subvert this, along with a plot analysis of the film Avatar. From the long and curious tale of an incarnation of ‘the past is always better’ meme currently rampant on the internet, to the evolutionary selection of fuzzy populations in biology and the frankenplex multi-element cultural creature that is CAGW. From the conflict related death-rates in primitive tribes versus modern states, to analysis of corporate social responsibilities after the Enron and banking sector crises.
From memetic chain letters that stretch back to the hieroglyphs (Letters from Heaven), to the analysis of social cross-coalitions via game theory within the perspective of economics. From the concept of ‘the Social Mind’ courtesy of neuro-scientist Michael Gazzaniga, to pressure upon religions by aggressive atheism as promoted by Richard Dawkins. From modification of theistic memes in the Old to the New Testament, to notions of Gaia and telegraph wires and wing-nuts. Plus memetic sex, witchcraft, cults, Cathars, concepts of salvation, Communism, hi-jacking altruism, Lynsenkoism, lichen, psychologizers, National Socialism, de-darwinisation, that ugly term ‘denier’, and much more.
The reason for this huge breadth and depth is that memeplexes are deeply integrated into both our psyche and our societies; this level of vision and historical context is necessary to uncover the entities, to identify their actions with as much distancing from what remains of ‘ourselves’ as can be achieved.
In counter-weight to this very broad context the essay is richly laced throughout with quotes from many of the main players and commenters in the climate blogosphere (plus from newspapers and other publications too), much of which will be pretty familiar to followers of the climate debate. These quotes cover luke-warmers, skeptics and Consensus folks, plus politicians, philosophers, psychologists and others as regards their views on CAGW, yet all are chosen and brought together for their focus on the memetic aspects of the phenomenon. There are also plenty of deeper topics specific to the sociological aspects of CAGW that most denizens of the climate blogosphere will recognize and can get their teeth into, some contentious. For instance a look at Richard Dawkins’ immersion within a rampant memeplex (while this would seem to be both controversial and ironic, when one realizes that we’re all immersed to some extent in several memeplexes, irony tends to morph to introspection). A brief view of a different Stephan Lewandowski paper (i.e. NOT either of the ‘conspiracy ideation’ ones) in which he highlights the very type of inbuilt cultural bias that has then led him blindly to produce those very challenged and troubled works!
An exposé of memetically induced cultural bias in a recent paper on ‘Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change’, that in my opinion undermines the objectivity of the work and robs the conclusions of any real meaning. A very interesting take on Mike Hulme’s stance as revealed by the memetic perspective. A glimpse of the ‘shall-we shan’t-we dance’ tentative cross-coalition between the Christian and CAGW memeplexes. The constant references to grandchildren within CAGW advocacy texts. Both the laudable and the lurking memetic content in philosopher Pascal Bruckner’s essay ‘Against Environmental Panic’. Numerous views of sociological comment by atmospheric scientist Judith Curry or at her blog Climate Etc from a memetic perspective. Plus a delve into one of pointman’s very interesting climate related essays, strong language and classic climate quotes explained via memetics, and more…
While CAGW skeptics might at first blush celebrate the possibility of a single, non-climate related, non-partisan, science-based theory that explains the whole complex range of CAGW’s social characteristics, acceptance of this theory also requires acceptance of a couple of pretty uncomfortable truths, and the ditching of at least one touchstone used by many (but by no means all) climate change skeptics. These issues are all expounded in the essay, but I summarize here:
- Acceptance of the memeplex explanation requires us to rethink what ‘self’ means, and how our opinions, perceptions, and even morals are formed and maintained, with an implication that our ‘self’ is much more about the societal groups we’re immersed in than about what’s intrinsically inside our heads. The fact that we don’t really ‘own’ ourselves, is challenging.
- Acceptance of the memeplex explanation requires a rejection of the ‘scam’ or ‘hoax’ theory as a root cause of the CAGW phenomenon, and as a primary motivator for the vast majority of CAGW ‘adherents’. (Note this does not rule out the fact that scams / hoaxes and other negative social phenomena may be attached to the memeplex as secondary structures – this is in fact common for major memeplexes). The essay spends quite some length saying why this is so.
- Whatever downsides are observed to stem from the social phenomenon of CAGW, memeplexes in general often contribute major net advantages to their host societies, sometimes very major. The balance between positive and negative aspects of a major memeplex are not easy to determine except long in retrospect and with access to the ‘big picture’ (all attributes and all impacts across all of society). Hence we cannot yet know the balance of this equation for CAGW. The positive aspects are not typically intuitive.
- As already mentioned, the memetic explanation is virtually independent of actual climate events. Hence dangerous climate scenarios are not ruled out. It simply means that no scenarios are ruled out, from the very dangerous to the utterly benign, and it is very much in the memeplex’s interests to keep the situation that way. Memeplexes wallow in uncertainty and confusion.
Many commenters in the climate blogosphere have written to the effect that: ‘it isn’t and never was about the science’. I happen to agree, very little of the CAGW phenomenon is about the science. The memetic perspective reveals why this is; not in terms of political or financial motivations but in the objective terms of the underlying social mechanisms, which are independent of (and enable) all such motivations.
Despite the essay’s length, I hope you will take the journey to acquiring a memetic perspective. There is a very distilled summary of each section of the essay below this text, and below that the list of references, in which a few regular contributors might find their names. Please note that the work is not a ‘paper’, containing no proofs or supporting mathematics, excepting a couple of references to Game Theory and the Price Equation. And merely for convenience, I have written as though the memeplex hypothesis is true, i.e. that CAGW is a memeplex and that this characteristic dominates the social effects. It is just extremely cumbersome throughout hundreds of references to make them all conditional – so I haven’t. Yet by no means does that mean the hypothesis is true, or at least wholly true in the sense that the memetic effects are dominant. Readers must form their own opinions regarding that, no doubt which opinions will be colored by the memeplexes they’re already immersed in J. I think most folks will find it an interesting and enjoyable ride though. The essay is here: http://wearenarrative.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/cagw-memeplex-us-rev11.pdf (Note: this Post text doubles as the essay Foreword, so you can skip that J).
P.S. while I intend to issue further Revs of the essay with some extensions plus feedback / corrections applied, in practice this may only happen on a very long timescale, or possibly not at all as my time is extremely pressured. Please keep an eye on www.wearenarrative.wordpress.com for any up-Revs or additional information. Note: the novella Truth from the WUWT post above is now available (free) at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/273983 or within the anthology ‘Engines of Life’ also at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/334834, or at Amazon here.
Summary of Content for Essay ‘The Memeplex of CAGW’ : (find the essay here)
Foreword
Essentially a repeat of the above pointer-post text.
1) Introduction. (~900 words)
The short introduction punts out to the Internet and Appendices regarding background material on memes and the definition of a memeplex, plus other terms / concepts in memetics. It then moves on to an initial look at the very many comparisons in blogs and articles of CAGW with religion, which arise because both are memetically driven.
2) Religious memeplexes. (~1200 words)
Religions are a class of memeplexes that have long been studied by memeticists. A list of 12 characteristics of religions is briefly examined regarding commonality with CAGW. To understand the similarities and differences, we have to know more about what a memeplex is and what it does. The section provides tasters regarding explanation at the widest scope, before moving on to the rest of the essay for detail.
3) Collective-personal duality. (~3500 words)
This section and the following two provide a first-pass characterization of memeplexes. The most perplexing area is covered first, that of a memeplex as an ‘entity’ and its constraints upon the free will and action of its adherents.
Introduces the collective-personal duality model and a symbiotic relationship with interlocking collective and personal elements. Uses this to enlighten regarding both the religious list above and CAGW, especially on self-identification with the memeplex, and cites circumstantial evidence including the actions of Peter Gleick and Michael Tobis. Looks at the fractious peace between the Christian and CAGW memeplexes. Backs the collective-personal duality model via the concept of The Social Mind from neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga (see refs).
4) What memeplexes are not. (~2800 words)
This section explains why CAGW (and any memeplex) is not a conspiracy or a delusion, which notions are themselves are memetic replicators. The section draws on evidence from other memeplexes both religious and secular, plus statements from David Holland, Richard Lindzen, and from the climate blogosphere, plus the anomalous position of Richard Dawkins wrt CAGW and his aggression towards religions. Section quote: The very act of separating out religious memeplexes for special treatment betrays the principle of objectivity. This gets way too close to ‘I favor my memeplexes and not yours’, which while no doubt completely inadvertent, also amounts to calling out your [memetic] bias, but hiding my [memetic] bias.
5) What memeplexes might be. (~2600 words)
An examination of the link between (religious) memeplexes and the catalyzing of civilization, plus the spawning of major construction projects within cultures driven by a major memeplex. Evidence from ancient Egypt and Sumeria. Memeplexes as emergent (naturally selected) and hugely (net) beneficial phenomena promoting co-operation. Despite sometimes severe downsides, are memeplexes the conveyor belts of civilization? This has huge implications for a dominant modern memeplex like CAGW.
6) Memetic-north. (~1500 words)
A useful model to visualize how memeplexes perform an alignment of societies, and “…alignment will tend to converge onto certain ‘attractors’. Or in other words a memetic-north can’t be arbitrary, it must fulfill certain psychologically attractive criteria.”
7) Salvation substitutes within CAGW. (~3700 words)
Religious memeplexes almost always feature a salvation schema (e.g. the pious go to heaven), highly useful for attracting and keeping adherents and thereby sustaining the memeplex. Secular memeplexes, especially those that are spawned by science, may not have a sufficient degree of freedom to blatantly offer salvation for adherents, yet typically they have one or more substitute schemas, which offer the nearest alternatives to direct salvation that each memeplex is able to sustain. This section examines two salvation substitutes within CAGW, one weak and one strong, using quotes from many scientists writers and politicians (see refs below for all these) within the social domain of climate change, which is practically filled to bursting with memes propagating these substitutes.
8) A memetic explanation of CAGW uncertainty issues. (~2200 words)
The apparent paradox of strong consensus against a backdrop of multiple major uncertainties (both real and imagined), is a classic fingerprint of a memeplex, and results from the entity’s engineering of society. But how and why does a memeplex ‘engineer society’? As to the ‘why’, those social narratives that create conditions more beneficial to their own survival will prosper more, and rampant uncertainty forms an ideal medium in which a memeplex most easily achieves maximal replication within daunted and confused minds. This section goes on to explain the ‘how’, which involves the great weight of memetically created orthodoxy keeping the ‘uncertainty monster’ trapped out of sight beneath, resulting not only in little work on real uncertainties but a tacit acceptance (orthodoxy prevents scientists from saying “we don’t know”) of all sorts of highly unlikely disaster scenarios loosely underwritten by ‘the science is settled’. Many of these scenarios are vague and conflicted, with disputed timeframes, and some require major spending. So from a policy and planning point-of-view this amounts to a nightmare level of fantasy uncertainty with a consequent flood of public insecurity, a mud-wallow that the memeplex must just love, and actively attempts to maintain. Martin Brumby (quoted) commenting at Bishop Hill is one of many skeptics who has perceived this switcheroo of uncertainties.
9) ‘Differential belief’ and self-awareness. (~4600 words)
Memes lodge in the psyche as a permanent phenomenon, retransmitting by pushing hot buttons in our minds. They also restrict an individual’s world-view and make taboo certain types of argumentation / development, plus block normal negotiations, eventually causing ‘encapsulation’ (Valenčík and Budinský, see refs), and a differential belief system (a super-set term covering a range of phenomena such as motivated reasoning). Examples of differential belief and comment upon it are legion in the social sphere of climate change, and many such are quoted (see refs). It is even noted from within the climate community (Professor Hans von Storch is quoted, and he also acknowledges memetic content via the invocation of religious metaphors). Differential belief can miscue skeptics into the false explanation of a scam or hoax, itself a memetic form; this is briefly explained. The surprising fact that people can be fully aware of the holistic cultural nature of CAGW and yet simultaneously still fully immersed in it and exhibiting differential belief, is examined, with Mike Hulme as the main example looked at in detail. The section finishes with a warning that differential belief cannot be spotted without relevant context, and this is a major problem for those who don’t possess the context.
10) Trusting ‘The System’. (~600 words)
This section is largely a placeholder to be expanded later. It does have a little starting material with short quotes by James Annan, Judith Curry, ‘pokerguy’ and ‘sunshinehours1’.
11) Personal Responsibility. (~4500 words)
This section deals with the issue of what level of personal responsibility and potential punishment is applicable to those who have engaged in dubious behavior in the name of CAGW, getting there via the broader topic of ‘The Law as a defense against invasive memes’, and also covering Corporate behavior in the name of CAGW or other environmental concerns.
Part 1 draws heavily on a Duke Law paper: The Implications of Memetics for the Cultural Defense by Neal A. Gordon, and concludes that the law must be used to help determine memetic fitness, i.e. to encourage the cultural traits we want and discourage those we don’t want. Gordon recommends we deal firmly with the wrong-doing influenced, albeit the emphasis should be on deterrence and rehabilitation rather than retribution, else the power of the law is undermined. So the ‘culture’ of CAGW is not an excuse for arbitrary breaking of the law, and folks attempting this must be responsible for their actions. However, to correctly defend regarding the memeplex of CAGW one must regard this entity as an invasive memetic culture in the first place, and not just a ‘science subject’ or an environmental program. Right now the public, or the law, or governments either come to that, do not recognize CAGW as a ‘culture’ in and of itself. This is despite some of the immersed themselves (e.g. Mike Hulme) heavily advertise the holistic cultural aspects. Hence the law is blind to any potential threat, and longer term once a memeplex takes hold it can in any case cause the law to change in its favor (examples are given).
Part 2 draws on the paper The Psychology of Corporate Dishonesty by Kath Hall of the Australian National University, plus a view from the inside of climate science by Lennar Bentsen (see refs). Given that the memetic cultural drive and aligned personal motives behind CAGW are more ‘idealistic’ and as strong or stronger than the profit motive, the conclusion is that similar techniques used to combat corporate dishonesty in say, our banks, need to be implemented within organizations working on Climate Change issues. Otherwise, negative cultural evolution in such organizations will spiral out of control and cause dramatic failures of responsibility.
12) The ultimate ménage. (~4000 words)
The intelligent and accidental modification of memes, a look at some ancient baseline memes: the past is always better (with ancient and modern examples), we are special and our times are special. The modification of theistic memes in the Christian canon. A brief comparison of memes with primeval genes. ‘Silent acknowledgements’ of memetic action by modern participants in the debate about CAGW (economist Rupert Darwall and psychologist Daniel Kahneman).
13)They and Us and Arguments against Memetic Tyranny. (~3500 words)
Although skeptics do not belong to a uniting major memeplex, many of their arguments also have memetic content, some which is very obvious and avoidable (liberal conspiracy, it’s all about tax, they’re all lying, etc), but some of which is more subtle. Philosopher Pascal Bruckner’s short essay at The Chronicle of Higher Education is examined in detail for memetic content, finding the classic memetic device of the ‘mysterious they’ (who are likely us in fact), as is evidence of common memes such as our times are special and we are special. Despite the presence of such memetic forms, a useful cry against the tyranny of a major memeplex (CAGW / Ecologism) is made, and it is noted that there is commonality of such cries against other memeplexes down the ages. An example from 1832 in which the Editress of The Isis rails against the religious memeplex of the era is given. However, a common problem with such apparently reasoned protests is that the authors are generally semi-immersed themselves, resulting in an attack on the agents of the memeplex (e.g. depending on the memeplex: priests, judges, politicians, NGOs, media, consensus police, liberal elite or just the ‘mysterious they’ – which means ‘fill in your own imagined baddies’), and not the (unrecognized) process, which is the ultimate ‘enemy’. Professor Curry’s similar rail against memetic tyranny (with the same issue), is noted (see refs).
14) Defense mechanisms in memeplexes. (~7400 words)
Starting with a list of standard defense systems (or ‘vaccimes’) for memeplexes, i.e. conservatism, orthodoxy, radicalism, ‘new age’ etc. it is shown that most of this list is deployed by the CAGW memeplex, but that different defenses are deployed by different component parts of the memeplex, yet at the same time a common core narrative ties the entire memetic creature together, the whole evolving together in a manner similar to complex colony creatures (loose biological parallels are drawn). Some length is spent explaining which organizations (IPCC, NGOs, academia etc) deploy which components, the tension between the different defense messages and the common-core messaging, and comparisons are drawn with religious bodies historically deploying similar defenses and subject to the same tensioning (e.g. the Jesuits). Along the way it is noted that flat facts and therefore ‘true’ science harms the replicative ability of memeplexes, yet co-opted or ‘immersed’ science may assist. Support is drawn from quotes by Rupert Darwall, David Deming and others (see refs). A defense scenario involving the CAGW memeplex versus Christopher Monckton is explored, as is the memetic power of the ‘denier’ word, the inadvisability of the skeptics’ ‘scam’ tactic, and the fact that the whole cultural landscape is shifted for the heavily ‘immersed’. Further support and synergy is noted within Craig Loehle’s article on WUWT about Categorical Thinking in the climate debate. It is noted that the root motivation within CAGW belongs to the memeplex and not to any of its adherents. However, it is an emergent agenda resulting from selection and so not agential. In exploring the ‘straw-man delusion’ defense, the skeptics who unwittingly play to this defense, and positions outside of the memeplex, there is consolidation and more detail on earlier material, plus various further quotes (see refs).
15) Macro Social Leverage. (~2700 words)
Inhomogeneities in society and the evolution of social cross-coalitions allows a few memeplexes to spread rapidly and achieve global dominance. Discussion of this draws upon an article from the domain of economic game theory: Redistribution Systems, Cross-Coalitions among them and Complexes of Memes Securing their Robustness, by Radim Valenčík and Petr Budinský. The article also emphasizes the penetration of memes into the psyche, which is consistent with an ultimate root for noble cause corruption, confirmation bias, and motivated reasoning; the last of these is briefly examined. The historic persistence of memetic systems that deploy consensus cultures and amplify the perception of social problems, is noted, as is the convergence of parts of the climate blogosphere and academia on memetic issues, which despite misunderstanding and blindness in cases, is I think progress.
Their quote below written by the above authors before Climategate, and from a field of study not directly related to climate science (i.e. economic theory, specifically redistribution systems analyzed via game theory), characterizes with uncanny accuracy what was and still is going on regarding CAGW, which is essentially a social and memetically driven cross-coalition (a memeplex).
“The typical signs of memes active during the formation of cross-coalitions are: the formation of a picture of the enemy, non-critical adoration of some authority, tendency towards solutions based on strength, the consideration of some statements as all-explaining or indisputable, the granting of a right to something for only a few chosen ones, a catastrophic vision of the world, expectation of brighter tomorrows [Andy West: conditional on catastrophe avoidance!], relativization of morality as well as rationality, use of double standards, creation of a feeling of being threatened by something, etc.”
16) Material alignment. (~2000 words)
The taxation demand of memeplexes is briefly explored: ‘The demand that the host contribute time, energy, or money to the meme complex and its organization. These resources are needed by the organization for the purpose of competition against rival meme complexes.’ Material alignment (financial / infra-structure) to CAGW or indeed to memeplexes in general, is not about group conspiracy to extort or the rampant self-interest of individuals.
17) Summary and Recommendations. (~7800 words)
In addition to briefly summarizing the material thus far, this section adds topics I couldn’t fit elsewhere, including: The ‘sense of urgency’ memeplexes promote to maximize their replication. Psychologists who seem to have been completely co-opted by the type of invasive (memetic) culture that they themselves warn about, i.e. CAGW, with a paper by Stephan Lewandowsky cited as a specific example (NOT the ‘conspiracy ideation’ ones). The memetic entity of ‘belief in witches’, which caused the death of 35,000 innocent citizens and was leveraged to exterminate ~1 million Cathars. Modern quotes comparing belief in CAGW to belief in witchcraft and magic (see refs). The line between a ‘responsible’ wrong-doer and a gullible victim re the memetically influenced. The sweeping aside of law and a brief comparison with similar effects in the grand-memetic-alliance of fascism, anti-Semitism and eugenics in the 1930s.
Amid modest recommendations to tame an out-of-control memetic entity are ‘counter-narratives’: It is perhaps unfortunate, but we need a wolfhound to defend ourselves from the wolf.
18) Postscript: The Big Picture. (~9000 words)
Memetic characterization of CAGW in an essay by regular commenter ‘pointman’ (see refs); Rousseau, Avatar, the false back-to-nature meme and narrative breakouts, all revealing the age and psychic penetration of memeplexes. The endless war of narratives: Memeplexes as an expression of the communal ego, ‘heroes’ and the ancient story-telling defense against rampant memeplexes. Memetic commonality in historic climate scares and CAGW. Speculation on the future of memeplexes in the context of social de-darwinisation. Memetic hi-jacking of major attempts to ‘consciously’ steer society. Left-right political oscillation as an evolved control-mechanism for less conscious steering that utilizes memes. CAGW as a fully recorded modern memeplex, and a call for memeticists to take up the challenge of analysis.
Appendix 1) Definitions of a memeplex.
From multiple sources. Memeplex structure and a link to a compact reference site regarding memes and memetics.
Appendix 2) Critique of memetics.
Short, but for balance links to some critique from a reference source, and leads into the following Appendix as partial offset to that critique and a wider evolutionary context.
Appendix 3) The evolutionary process in genetic and memetic domains.
This Appendix and the following one provide a modern perspective on biological evolution (i.e. in the genetic domain) that demonstrates support and overlap with similar principles in cultural evolution (i.e. in the memetic domain). Until the sheer scope of biological evolution is appreciated, along with its fuzzy boundaries and plethora of overlapping simultaneous processes, parallels between the two domains (and therefore support for cultural evolution / memetics) are not generally appreciated either. Support for group and multi-level evolution, essentially required for the theory of memeplexes.
Appendix 4) Background on the ‘Editress’ of The Isis.
Section quote: In her fight for women’s rights and place of women, Sharples took on memetic giants (‘superstition’ and ‘the church-state monopoly’), yet at the same time fought from within the boundaries of the Christian memeplex (radical Christianity). When memeplexes are very dominant, as CAGW is within the environmental domain, it is extremely hard to see out of them, and those completely outside (in the case of CAGW, skeptics) often have no power-base from which to fight. Hence the ‘enlightened immersed’ from within the memeplex often carry the main fight.
Appendix 5) Religious characteristics list reframed as memeplex benefits.
The list from Section 2 reframed as benefits to the memeplex, plus mapped to the structure list in Appendix 1.
Appendix 6) Tables of theistic meme selection, Old to New Testament.
Concerning the virgin birth and Joseph as the father of Jesus. Short backup to section 12.
Appendix 7) Pre-disposition to religion.
Short backup to sections 5 & 6 via an Oxford University media release (see refs). Pre-disposition to religion implies pre-disposition to generic memeplexes, including those like CAGW.
Appendix 8) A detailed example of ‘The Past is Always Better’ meme.
The novella ‘Meme’ is fiction, but explores in intricate detail the workings of a real and specific branch of ‘the past is always better’ meme that is currently rampant on the Internet. The story is highly informative about how such apparently simple structures can be so powerful, can fool us so easily, and have such a long history and such complex effects that in fact challenge our understanding of evolution in this domain (and the fiction format makes it enjoyable too J). A grasp of memetic action at this level is extremely helpful to understanding the incredible power of a major memetic alliance like CAGW. Pay and free links to the novella are provided. At the time I wrote the story (2006), there were about 25,000 hits on Google for the featured meme; there are now 427,000.
Appendix 9) Videos of Immersion.
Immersion in the CAGW memeplex, that is. Curious and interesting, but with a health warning.
Appendix 10) An example of memetically induced cultural bias in academia.
And pretty fatal bias at that. An examination of the paper Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change by Lianne M. Lefsrud and Renate E. Meyer. Section quote: So, by isolating a narrow (climate-change ‘resistive’) sector completely from the context of the wider narrative competition, the authors have thus succeeded in changing a relatively firm metric that surely we all knew about anyhow (i.e. older males dominate org leaderships), and one that is neutral wrt climate narratives, into a storyline that is not neutral wrt climate narratives, and is deployed within their CAGW supportive frame to try and morally undermine those who are leaders in the petro-chemical sector (so the implied storyline is: ‘those bad old dudes are harming the climate for self-interest; dudettes and younger dudes are way cooler than those stuffy old types anyway’). This storyline is a recurrent meme within the CAGW memeplex, and indeed within other memeplexes that foster radicalism and seek a change to the current regime, sometimes attempting to frame that regime in terms of an ‘Ancien Régime’.
Appendix 11) Andy West on the web.
Including my home site: www.wearenarrative.wordpress.com
and Amazon US page: http://www.amazon.com/Andy-West/e/B004TSI73G
and Greyhart Press publication Engines of Life at Smashwords , and at Amazon for Kindle (an anthology containing the skeptical cli-fi / sci-fi novelette Truth, and the novella Meme).
Essay References
Section 1: Memes at theumwelt.net, Memetics 101, UK MP Peter Lilley at The Huffington Post, and commenters John Bell and ‘Justice4Rinka’ (the latter citing Michael Crichton), both at Bishop Hill. Section2: Cultural Selection by Agner Fog. Section 3: commenter ‘BetaPlug’ at Watts Up With That, Resisting the Green Dragon, Paul Krugman at the New York Times, Katherine Hayhoe at the blog climatebites.org, Michael Tobis at planet3 blog, MP Peter Lilley in a letter to Prof. Kevin Anderson at Bishop Hill, and psychologist Michael S. Gazzaniger’s book Who’s in Charge. Section 4: David Holland at the Times Higher Educational Supplement, commenter ‘karmatic’ at The Huffington Post, professor Richard Lindzen at the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Michael Tobis at Planet3blog, commenter ‘lolwot’ at Climate Etc. and then The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Section 5: A Short History of War by Richard A. Gabriel and Karen S. Metz, Peter Turchin, Vice President of the Evolution Institute. Section 6: Cultural Selection by Agner Fog, Daily Express, WUWT, Forbes, Discover. Section 7: Blurb on James Hansen’s book at Amazon, Professor Micha Tomkiewicz and ‘Eli Rabett’ at the former’s blog Climate Change Fork, Amy Huva at the Vancouver Observer, from a letter sent by Dr Willis to journalist James Delingpole and published in the latter’s Daily Telegraph blog, Bob Inglis via an adaptation of his words by the blog Boomerang Warrior, Greg Laden at Before It’s News and Anthony Watts in answer to Greg at Watts Up With That. Section 8: Judith Curry’s testimony to Congress 26th April 13, Tommy Wills of Swansea University, via Climategate email 1682, and Martin Brumby at Bishop Hill commenting on the Royal Academy of Engineering’s report Generating the Future. Section 9: R. Valenčík and P. Budinský paper on Redistribution Systems, Cross-Coalitions & Meme Complexes Securing Robustness, Cultural Selection by Agner Fog, commenter John Shade at Bishop Hill, the Greenfyre blog regarding a Michael Tobis post, Professor Hans von Storch and cultural scientist Werner Krauss regarding their book launch (via Bishop Hill), Stephen Schneider and Mike Hulme. Section 10: James Annan, plus Judith Curry, ‘pokerguy’ and ‘sunshinehours1’ on Marcott and Shakun. Section 11: The Implications of Memetics for the Cultural Defense by Neal A. Gordon, via Duke Law Library, The Psychology of Corporate Dishonesty by Kath Hall of the Australian National University, Bishop Hill regarding questions about statistical significance raised in the UK parliament, and an essay by Lennart Bengtsson in Die Klimazwiebel. Section 12: Anonymous writer, Kish, 3500BC, Paradox verses by Bob Moorehouse, Donna Laframboise, Bill McKibben and Van Jones via nofrakkingconsensus, Mutation, Selection, And Vertical Transmission Of Theistic Memes In Religious Canons by John D. Gottsch and published in The Journal of Memetics, Daniel W. Van Arsdale on chain letters, Rupert Darwall, Daniel Kahneman. Section 13: Pascal Bruckner’s essay at The Chronicle of Higher Education, from Bishop Hill regarding Pascal Bruckner’s book The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse: Save the Earth, Punish Human Beings, and the Editress of The Isis, Number 19 Volume 1, Saturday 16th June 1832. Section 14: Rupert Darwall (from his speech to the Global Warming Policy Foundation), Tony Press (University of Tasmania) and Joanne Nova regarding Christopher Monckton’s antipodean tour, Bishop Hill (aka Andrew Mountford) regarding sociologists Dunlap and Jacques, Piers Corbyn of Weather Action at the Daily Telegraph blog, Craig Loehle’s article at Watts Up With That entitled Categorical Thinking in the Climate Debate. Section 15: R. Valenčík and P. Budinský paper on Redistribution Systems, Cross-Coalitions & Meme Complexes Securing Robustness. Section 16: Paul Driessen’s essay at Watts Up With That entitled: Our real manmade climate-crisis, US Secretary of State John Kerry. Section 17: Piers Corbyn and commenter ‘rw’ at the Daily Telegraph blog, Brumberg and Brumberg’s essay on The Paradox of Consensus at Watts Up With That, commenters ‘dbstealey’, ‘jbird’, and John West at Watts Up With That, Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. regarding errors in Marcott et al, Donna Laframboise regarding the ‘urgency’ pushed by Greenpeace, the Biased BBC blog, Tim Black at Spiked Online regarding the non-scientific origins of CAGW, and reference to the controversy about and papers by psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky. Section 18: An essay by ‘pointman’ entitled Some thoughts about policy for the aftermath of the climate wars, at his blog, ‘Agouts’ and Mike Jackson at Bishop Hill , The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker, plus Darwin and International Relations by Bradley A. Thyer. Appendix 1: the lexicon and definition of memes from an ex-page at the reduced site http://intraspec.ca. Appendix 2: Critique of memetics at theumwelt.net. Appendix 3: Introduction to Evolutionary Biology by Chris Colby at the TalkOrigins Archive, Stephen Jay Gould, wiki on Group Selection, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection by Peter Godfrey-Smith, frozenevolution.com, Cultural selection, by Agner Fog, Susan Blackmore. Appendix 4: PhD thesis: ‘POETESSES AND POLITICIANS: GENDER, KNOWLEDGE AND POWER IN RADICAL CULTURE, 1830-1870’ by Helen Rogers. Appendix 6: Tables from Mutation, Selection, And Vertical Transmission Of Theistic Memes In Religious Canons by John D. Gottsch. Appendix 7: An Oxford University media release: Humans ‘predisposed’ to believe in gods and the afterlife. 13 May 11. Appendix 8:‘Meme’ by Andy West in Engines of Life from Greyhart Press and originally published at Bewildering Stories. Appendix 9: Video links from Bishop Hill and Watts Up With That. Appendix 10: Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change by Lianne M. Lefsrud and Renate E. Meyer, and from Stephen Mosher at Climate Etc. Appendix 11: Andy West links including home site: www.wearenarrative.wordpress.com.
Andy West, It is a wonderful bit of work and thankyou very much.
David Archibald says:
November 4, 2013 at 2:19 pm
Thanks, David, your feedback very much appreciated. (The wheels of industry pulled me back, no time for more than a few words here or at JCs, may be able to drop back in at the weekend).
@ur momisugly milo
While I find much to agree with in your last post, I am still bewildered when you provide no references for your assertions regarding the use of the term Darwinism. I have provided references where your distinctions are not made. Certainly in the punk-eek chapter of Gould’s book he is using Darwinism in a way similar to what you have earlier ascribed to me. To characterise this as “similar to creationist” is clearly insulting. To me and to Gould. You may well disagree with Gould’s Marxism, but this, even though it coloured his ideas, should not detract from the excellence of much of his writing. Disclaimer: I am not a Marxist. I am an anti-stereotypist.
Apropos Judson, she stated “evolutionary success can now be measured in terms of the number of genes an individual contributes to the next generation”, a statement that I believe is prima facie ludicrous. Tasmanian Devils are breeding themselves into oblivion with facial tumours. However, they do pass on ever so many genes such that Ms Judson can count them and declare them evolutionarily successful. I would argue that it is the information content of genes, rather than their number that is important here. A single gene imparting resistance to the facial tumours would reverse the Devils’ current decline in numbers. However, this is neither the time, nor the place for discussing facial tumours.
The elimination of the terms Darwinian, neo-Darwinian and Darwinist from the literature would orphan a great deal of excellent work performed by biologists over the last few decades. Bad work too of course. If the words are expunged from use, then the work is rendered unintelligible unless translated. This is of course the very purpose of rewriting history. Only the approved material is translated. Perhaps you would even advocate the changing of Lenz’s law, Coulomb’s Law, Biot-Savart law, Ohm’s law, Kirchhoff’s laws, Joule’s law, Fermat’s principle, Sturm function (of which the Git as a fully paid-up Sturm is naturally fond), Hubble’s Law, Kepler’s laws, Newton’s laws and so on. You never know who might be offended.
As I explained regarding Carey’s expanding earth hypothesis, I did not attend the proffered lecture because I had another commitment. Not to put too fine a point on this, it was earning money that we require in these parts whenever we go shopping for instance. Had I been able to attend the lecture, and I very much would have liked to, I would no doubt have formed an opinion, or been led to make further investigation. In the event, there was no incentive to do the latter because the lecture was extra-curricular. I do not make a habit of forming opinions on matters about which I have insufficient information. Therefore, quite properly IMO, I remain agnostic. I note that Nature published Carey’s work and that was when the journal was under John Maddox’s excellent editorship. I should want at the very least to read some of Carey’s work.
The course organiser, Andrew Tunks, was a working field geologist who had only just taken up academe. He won an award for excellence in teaching; well-deserved IMHO. He has since returned to field geology. Ask yourself this question: “If there is no evidence for Carey’s ideas, as you state, why on Earth would a hands-on field geologist want to expose his students to them?” Another question: “Why did John Maddox publish Carey’s work?”
Now I have a memeplex complex!
Wrecktafire is about right, except for one thing – there is no such thing as a ‘meme’. A ‘meme’ seems to be a concept invented to describe why people behave in a certain way – they were driven by a ‘meme’. It is of the same order as the ‘rain god’ or the ‘thunder god’ or, in Western terms, ‘Mother Nature’, or ‘Global Warming’. The late and much lamented Margaret Thatcher got it right when she said “Society? There is no such thing as ‘Society’.” Society is an idea, with no physical existence. A ‘meme’ is an idea with no physical existence.
The Pompous Git says:
November 4, 2013 at 4:13 pm
The meaning of “Darwinism”, as I noted, has changed over the years. Much of Gould’s work discusses the 19th & early 20th centuries, before the onslaught of the past few decades of militant fundamentalist creationism.
I’ve provided lots of examples of biologists using “darwinian” in precisely the way I indicated it is now employed, to include both Gould & Dawkins. There is not to my knowledge any directive from an Academy of Biological Nomenclature ruling on these usages. I’m just reporting on how biologists publishing in journals & writing books now use the terms. Don’t believe me if you don’t want to.
Doing away with even darwinian would not in any way invalidate prior usages. As noted, “gene” means something very different now from what it did in 1909, but nobody is unable to read & understand scientific literature from the past century. For that matter, Darwin didn’t use the word “evolution” in On the Origin of Species, but instead called it “descent with modification” (the last word of his conclusion, added as an afterthought to the first edition, is however “evolved”). Terminology changes. Stopping calling directional evolution darwinian would hardly render older work unintelligible. I know for instance what Newton’s fluxions are, despite having grown up with the term differential calculus.
If biologists want to continue calling natural selection the Darwin-Wallace Process or something like that, then fine with me. But associating natural selection, so self-evident now, with certain people gives creationists more ground than they ought to have. The concept of gravity existed before Newton’s inverse square “law”, just as the concept of evolution (although not called that) existed before Darwin & Wallace “discovered” natural & sexual selection. I actually prefer “darwinian” to refer specifically to “directional” evolution by means of natural selection, as it’s used in the literature today, but Judson’s suggestion is at least worthy of consideration, IMO.
As long as Tasmanian devils are living long enough to reproduce, they’re successful in evolutionary terms. If the tumors cause them to go extinct, then they failed. I don’t see how this negates Judson’s view of evolution, which is actually pretty standard.
Surely your being agnostic between an expanding earth & seafloor spreading can’t be blamed upon a lecture you didn’t attend. Either the evidence is there for one or the other hypothesis or it isn’t, & you’ve been free all these decades to look into both explanations for continental drift or plate tectonics. That Nature in 1961 published Carey’s paper, when the American Association for the Advancement of Science had only printed Hess’ conference presentation on seafloor spreading the year before, is hardly an excuse, IMO, for continuing to consider an expanding earth a plausible hypothesis today. The paleomagnetic evidence supports seafloor spreading, not an expanding earth, although paleomagnetism was the subject of Carey’s Nature article.
@ur momisugly milodonharlani
I’m not attempting to argue that Darwinian/Darwinist/Darwinism [delete whichever is inapplicable] have not changed over the years. I am arguing that they are a shorthand way of expressing concepts. Also that it is very common in the sciences and mathematics to use the name of a person associated with the development of a law, theory, or theorem. To deprecate the use of the Darwins’ name because someone whose ideas you disapprove use the term seems at the very least odd. This is especially so since you also disapprove of the alternative “evolutionist”. One could I suppose use the term :”holder of the Received View/modern synthesis” instead of neo-Darwinist, but I suspect that would leave the average layman totally perplexed, but then that might just be the real reason for this “need” to expunge Darwin’s name from biology.
I would have taken your concerns in this more seriously if:
1. “Professor” Stinkjet hadn’t made the same assertion with the same lack of evidence several years ago. NB Stinkjet subscribed to David Wojic’s Climate Change Debate List in order to discredit me. He accused me of drinking several bottles of wine per night etc, etc. I ended up unsubbing from the list as the hate messages were quite disturbing and certainly disruptive. He still creates new email addresses from time to time in order to harass me.
2. I had found supporting evidence in Keywords in Evolutionary Biology, The Structure Of Evolutionary Theory, the Oxford Dictionary of Earth Sciences, or Webster’s..
3. I wasn’t so fond of Darwin.
A better example of why I believe that the number of genes is a silly way to calculate evolutionary success. Wheat passes on many more genes to the next generation, both in absolute terms and per individual organism/seed. Therefore, according to Judson, wheat is evolutionarily more successful than humans. Or planarians that have been around since the Cambrian. I’m not buying it. It’s a really silly idea!
I did not come across Carey’s ideas until I undertook first year geology at UTas in 2005. It never occurred to me to pursue Carey’s ideas at the time; I was quite busy with a half-time job, as well as studying history and philosophy, keeping up with the farm and Carey’s ideas were irrelevant within the context of the course. I had chosen geology as the required science unit in the philosophy of science course as it was the science I knew least.
Yesterday, I checked how much it would cost to purchase a couple of Carey’s books. A new copy of his second book was selling for over $US1,000 and a second-hand copy of Expanding Earth (paperback) in only fair condition was $US170. The State Library does not appear to have a copy of the latter, though they do have the former: Theories of the earth and universe : a history of dogma in the earth sciences. Sadly, it is not in the lending library, nor can I place a hold on it. Should someone else happen to be reading it when I arrive, I will have wasted the hour’s journey to the city.
For reasons that should be obvious, reading Carey is still not very high on my list of priorities. The book I am currently writing/researching is about gardening and I’m certain that Carey had nothing useful to say about plant pathology.
@AndyWest2012
Let me commend you on your persistent, gracious responses to the criticism your essay has received. Also, please accept my apology for saying that explaining someone’s position as meme-driven was “vicious” — that is probably untrue, in your case.
But I think my philosophical objection to memes as agents could use some elaboration. Such elaboration will show how even the concept of “good” memes, such as “being evidence-driven” or the various memes which supposedly encode moral rules are still problematic.
Pompous Git hits this theme on the head when he states that for the meme/memeplex to possess agency is to make the human person a puppet, negating his free will.
In case this dead horse needs any more kicking, I offer the following. ( 😉 )
There is an entrenched phenomenology and anthropology in the Western world which goes like this:
* the world is real, and contains causes and effects. Causation is real. We are real.
* man has the capacity to understand the world, and to understand it, under some conditions (i.e., he can know truth)
* man has free will (i.e., if he is healthy, his choices are not physically determined)
* if he is healthy, he hungers for truth–knowledge of causes and effects–and pursues it
As a Westerner, I believe these things, above, are not just successful ideas (or memes) or dominant thought patterns, but are actually TRUE; i.e., a mind which agrees with these concepts is in conformance with reality. Minds which doubt these things are in doubt of reality.
It is not only I who believe this, but it is enshrined in every sane culture. In any culture which looks at man and truth this way, society can trust that a sane man will do certain things: respond appropriately to obvious threats to himself and his community, understand the consequences of lawbreaking, understand how to relate peaceably with others, and responsibly perform important tasks for himself and others. Because a man has these attributes, he is accorded a certain amount of dignity, and that dignity demands a commensurate amount of freedom. (These powers do not constitute his dignity, but make a substantial contribution to it.) These are foundational concepts of our many cultures.
Thousands of years of Western law and culture have assumed as true this description of reality, man’s ability to know it, and his freedom to conform his understanding to it. They have also brought us to a key understanding, acted upon every day in our courtrooms, bars, and mental hospitals: if a particular man’s thoughts and beliefs are thought to be physically (or mechanistically) determined, we (correctly) judge that person to be operating with reduced mental and moral capacity, and reduced culpability for wrongdoing. A few moments of reflection about everyday life will confirm this, I think. We cannot and do not trust those whose brains we think are not operating freely, and not under the full control of the will of that person. Depending on the degree to which this happens, societies then deprive that man of responsibility, authority, and/or freedom, because they can no longer trust that it is reality that is driving his beliefs and actions. He no longer merits full trust, or full freedom, because his beliefs bear no causal relation to the pertinent reality of the situation.
In short, having a mind that accurately perceives reality and whose content is not determined by physical influences is a precondition for freedom and full dignity.
So, when you wrote this, a few days ago:
“One of your very commendable essays mentions the madness of crowds, the ‘The political monstrosity environmentalism mutated into’. Memetics sheds a mechanistic light on that madness, on that mutation, ”
you can imagine the difficulty this creates for human freedom and dignity.
In that statement, I read an annihilating deprecation of the dignity of those individuals you are describing. Why should we entrust them with anything? They are mad, after all. Why shouldn’t we concoct powerful lies to counteract the lies which they have been bathed in, since, after all, persons with reduced capacity can’t handle reality but must be given some altered version of it which is appropriate to the type and degree of their “madness”. That is what I see in the suggestion that CAGW believers should be opposed by means of “counter-memes”.
Your attempt to make memes sound neutral by pointing up “good” memes may have some validity within meme theory, but because even the good meme is still the master of the person, the person can no longer be a moral agent, and can no longer merit full freedom. It is, therefore, dehumanizing.
Treating the CAGW crowd with counter-memes is to treat them as children or imbeciles.
Apologies for the length and somewhat rambling, repetitive character of this post. I am being distracted by a sex-comedy meme.
Dudley Horscroft said November 6, 2013 at 7:37 pm
“Society: The state or condition of living in association, company, or intercourse with others of the same species; the system or mode of life adopted by a body of individuals for the purpose of harmonious co-existence or for mutual benefit, defence, etc.:”
We are just like flies, pinetrees and cod I suppose. No hospitals, no armies, no police force, no monasteries and convents. Neo-Darwinism says so :-))))
wrecktafire says:
November 5, 2013 at 10:45 pm
Hi wrecktafire, I don’t get much time during the week and likely I still have outstanding queries upthread. But thought I’d pop in and thank you for your apology, accepted, and for your thoughtful and reasoned responses; always a pleasure to exchange views in this manner.
Despite your distraction by a sex-comedy meme (I hope it was fun ), your excellent questions go quite to the heart of the memetic approach, although I don’t think I’m saying what you think I’m saying.
If I take your four bullet points as a starting point: I fully agree with the first, the second and the fourth, and see no impact on these by the memetic perspective. On the third, I only agree conditionally, in the sense that there are limits to how ‘free’ the free will is. In practice it has constraints that I think we are surely already well aware of without needing to take any account of memetics, which just informs us more about how those constraints operate. (and in fact regarding 2, I believe memetics is a useful tool to understand social phenomena, which must in the long run be understandable just like anything else, and regarding 4, my essay plus post was my attempt to pursue cause and effect within the social phenomenon of CAGW).
Perhaps I should step next to the points I think you are making about ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, I guess ‘facts’ if you will, and maybe scientific facts especially. I’m not at all clear why you think that memes have any impact on matters of reality or fact. In my mind, they certainly don’t, nor in the literature I’ve read. So for instance I specifically make the point that the memeplex hypothesis is about the *social* phenomenon of CAGW, and *excludes* any actual climate events (which are factual). I also exclude any ‘real’ or genuine (for want of better words) climate science, precisely because any science that sticks to the proper scientific method will always be very closely allied to facts. Hard reality or ‘flat facts’ (i.e. not ambiguously transmitted or over-extrapolated or exaggerated) deny a memeplex the narrative space in which to arbitrarily evolve, short-circuiting its effects (or mainly so) and keeping to a minimum the speculation that is good fuel for memetic processes. However, science that has been biassed or corrupted (for whatever reason), i.e. ‘science’ that has left reality behind for too long or by too far, is by definition no longer fact, no longer aligned to reality. Hence it can get sucked into a memeplex and can potentially undergo rampant evolution, often ending up merely as a vehicle to support the relevant memeplex (e.g. Lysenkoism in the Communist memeplex). Added to which even facts which *are* established and remain true, can inadvertantly or deliberately be mistransmitted as half-truths, kicking off chains of evolution that can move further and further from the truth. Even though that original truth is still there for all to read (unless the memeplex becomes so powerful that this is suppressed), a flood of evolved memes might vastly ‘outweigh’ it, so to speak, thus it is often next to impossible for the truth to actually be heard against a vast and ’emotionally active’ array of memes that a particular memeplex has built up.
I believe CAGW is a case in point where biassed science and mistransmitted fact have so evolved along emotive vectors as to dwarf any original truth or facts and whatever genuine science is still be going on in that domain. It is the agenda of the memeplex that dominates over reality. None of this means the reality doesn’t exist, or even that genuine science *freely practised* won’t once again uncover that reality in the normal way. But once a memeplex gets big enough it can obscure our perception of reality with a vast smokescreen of memes, and corrupt our means of probing reality further (i.e. real science), and apply an overwhelming consensus to shout down any genuine (contradictory) facts that might still have a chance of seeing the light.
As to removing the diginity of CAGW adherents (or worse), absolutely not! Richard Dawkins argues that religions are delusions, which indeed removes dignity and even worse has an implication of medical dysfunction. But this position is hardly mainstream (although I guess htat’s not an argument in itself), and I argue very strongly in the essay that this is not the case. We are all immersed in some memeplex or other, maybe several. I still feel a shiver down my spine sometimes when I hear nationalistic works by Elgar, after long association in childhood. The vast majority of the world is immersed in religions still. Pretty much by definition, the whole world cannot be medically dysfunctional, nor are they children or in any other way subject to loss of diginity. I’m immersed in memeplexes, but don’t view this as a problem for my own dignity. The ‘madness of crowds’ may be an extreme end of the spectrum that has been observed long before memetics emerged (and I figure limited to only very specific circumstances), but the fact that memetics may help explain it doesn’t make the phenomena any different (with or without loss of diginity) to what it was before memetics came along. I think Dawkins’ position is anomolous. He essentially labels one set of memepelxes (religions) as a delusion, while being completely absorbed in a least one himself (CAGW). It should be one rule for all, and I believe that rul is that no memeplexes are delusions, they are part of the normal fabric of society, although can have downsides that would be best to be manage. I have great respect for the Archbishop of Canterbury, to pick an example, and in no way would I say anything to undermine his dignity, least of all that he is’ deluded’. Same goes for the vast majoruty of CAGW believers; they are passionate, hard-working folks who truly believe that they are doing good, and are not mad or bad in any way. My essay argues this at several places (in fact it’s key, the ermergent agenda of a memeplex explains how good folks can sometimes be steered down an unproductive path). A very few folks are in it for conscious gain or power or whatever – but there are some such in any large human enterprise.
Regarding the limits on free will, again long before memetics we’ve know that free will can only be expressed within the limits of the culture an individual was brought up in. So if you as a baby had been kidnapped and brought up in a different land inside a strictly religious and obscure cult, although you’d be the same biological unit and able to take your own decisiosn, those decisions would be entirely bounded by the framework you gre up in, and would bear little resemblance to the decisions you now take. Outside such an obvious example (which just sets the basic premise), the culture we’re immersed in constantly changes, and hence the frame within which we take our free will decisions also changes, sometimes fast sometimes slow, but outside our personal control. In half a century I’ve seen a lot of change indeed in my own society, the rise and rise of a passionate but also kind of aggressive environmentalism being just one. It has never required memetics to understand that we can’t always remain independent of such changes. But memetics sheds much more light on the how and why these changes spread.
It has puzzled me before why some folks seem to think that the concept of memes clashes with facts or reality; in all the works I’ve read on these critters I don’t recall ever seeing that as an implication. Perhaps a way of expressing the situation is this: ideas related to reality are memes, just like those that are not (i.e. regarding speculation, exaggeration, presumption, those related to raw emotions etc). But the scientific method is a way of winnowing out by experiment those memes within the super-set that are most relevant to reality, and then preventing their evolution in any other direction than the improved description of reality. It’s a method that woks great; given I obtained a degree in physics many years ago and experienced the method directly, my confidence in the method is personal not just aquired . There are similar systems that repress unwanted evolution; the system within our bodies for instance that stops cells following their normal evolutionary path and makes them conform (plus improve) only in the context of the needs of the higher unit. When the constraint system occasionally breaks down and cells mutpliply as they would ‘in the wild’, so to speak, then conditons like cancer result. Science can break down too, and once constrained memes can then evolve wildly out of control. If it goes far enough and they connnect up in a major co-evolutionary alliance ( a memeplex), the discconnect from reality can be actively increased / enforced.
Okay this answer is even longer than yours 0:
Maybe I should stop here. In summary I can’t see that any of the values you’ve stated are in conflict with a memetic perspective.
Once more into the breech 🙂
Andy, your post (a meme) consists of paragraphs (memes), each paragraph consists of sentences (memes), each sentence consists of clauses (memes) that consist of words (memes), which are made up of letters (memes), all of which are intended to express abstract ideas (also memes).
In biology the units of heredity (alleles/genes) are conceived of in a distinct manner from their products (proteins, traits, and organisms). Memetics blurs this distinction; the hypothetical units of heredity (memes) are the same as their products (memes), and can broken down into effectively-limitless combinations (words, letters, notes, songs, speeches, cultures, etc). If the definition of a meme can be applied to accommodate almost anything, it adds nothing to our understanding of ideas.
Popper’s point that a “theory that explains everything explains nothing” seems relevant here.
The Pompous Git says:
November 7, 2013 at 10:28 am
Hi PG. Not being neatly packetised doesn’t change the basic properties required for evolution; heritability, variation, and selection. In your biology example, you quote only one level of selection. In multi-level selection (which theory at last making it to the big time after decades in the shade 🙂 , there is simultaneous selection going on at gene, cell, individual and populational level; what happens in the end is the outcome of all, though in some situations some can be discounted. The ‘packetisation’ is only a result of the biological mechanisms. In memetics there is simply a super-set of this situation; there’s theoretically a lot more levels that essentially form a continuum. However, by applying statistical techniques, one can winnow out the particular levels at which any useful selection is occuring for the issue one is examining, and frequently (for say competeing heresies inside a religion or somesuch) one level will suffice. In fact biology isn’t always so neat and packetised either; symbiotes like lichen evolve, depsite they are made of 2 completely different species. Viruses and prions can transfer dna sideways rather than just making full copies downward as generations. The neat DNA an RNA we know had a very long time to come to its current state; before they won out, it is speculated that there was a huge mixture of different replicators and allied groups of replicators with differing mechanisms, which despite the limits of chemistry that offer less options that narrative, still look rather more like the continuum of memetics. Can’t recall where I saw it now, but it’s been said that memes are still in the primeval stage within the evolutionary space of human minds.
Andy. I will try again. There’s a meme for the first four notes of Beethoven’s ninth symphony (as well as the whole of the ninth, symphonies in general, composers of symphonies etc, etc). There’s also a meme for beating one’s wife to death with a cudgel for adultery, another meme for shooting one’s wife with a hand gun for adultery, another meme for shooting her in the left eye with a bow and arrow, ditto for the right eye, a meme for killing her for refusing to engage in a menage a trois etc, etc. How does the concept of memes assist me in understanding killing one’s wife in the light of the first four notes of Beethoven’s ninth? Apart from an assertion that they are really, deep-down, exactly the same thing, I am, frankly, nonplussed. Arguments about the (real) complexities of genetic inheritance don’t cut it. Sorry…
BTW, Baudrillard has managed to write clearly on hyper-reality without any apparent need to resort to memes.
The Pompous Git says:
November 7, 2013 at 12:06 pm
Hi PG. Well you did bring up genetic inheritance 😉 As it’s in play… there’s a large amount of genetic material that has no selective value (per the ‘neutral theory’), and therefore it’s not normally relevant in any particular selective circumstance. Likewise, the method of killing one’s wife has no selective value, but the act of doing so is a big deal and hence there will likely be selective factors for/against that meme in different cultures. Within a particular genome, say, there is a gene for a protein to do with liver function, and a set of genes for sexuality. Does the theory of genetics tell us anything about the liver function gene “in the light of” the first four genes of the sexuality group? No, except for the obvious thing that really we already knew, they are independent functions. Likewise, all that memetics can tell you about killing wives “in the light of” the first four notes of Beethoven’s ninth, is what we already knew, i.e. they are also independent.
A corollary to this is that occasionally, when for some reason a genetic population is very small (e.g. a natural disaster or whatever), but survives to found a much larger population, random genes that would have been selectively neutral (statistically speaking over a large population) can get locked in from the time when there were very few individuals (the ‘founder effect’). Lock-in can happen with memes too, again with founder populations or founder cultures (which occur more often as culture moves faster). In poor societies with very little metal or other weapons, in arid regions especially, stones are a handy and communal weapon. In some modern populations that are now vastly bigger and have access to all sorts of weapons (not to mention more humane policies that the local memeplex resists), the stoning of women who are deemed to have done wrong still clings on as a prefered method of punishment. In this case prior constraints did cause selective value, and just like for genetics, this can get locked in.
P.S. Darwin wrote what most people conside a pretty passable theory of evolution, without any knowledge of genes, which therefore he coudn’t resort to 🙂
andywest2012 said @ur momisugly November 7, 2013 at 2:33 pm
True, but evolution by common descent relies upon exact replication. OK, an error rate one 1/1,000,000 replications which is almost exact. Have you ever played Chinese Whispers (in the USA it is usually called Telephone or Gossip)?
More here:
http://www.hygienecentral.org.uk/pdf/Aunger%20Dunbar%20vol.pdf
@The Pompous Git: thanks for doing that fine bit of expositional legwork. After reading andyWest2012’s most recent response to me, I thought I should learn more about what “memeticicists” say to justify taking a phrase such as “population X was a fertile ground for idea Y to grow” and changing it from being a metaphor to being a reference to a real thing, a thing which exploits its host in a parasitical way, as if it (the meme) were alive and striving to preserve itself. To me, that change in meaning (from metaphorical to literal) is breathtaking.
From what you quote, it appears that the theoretical foundations are thin, and the genetic analogy appear tenuous. However, I am open to hearing from Mr. West better justification for the “realization”, I just referred to.
@ur momisugly wrecktafire
No problemo. It was all quite fortuitous, really. My spectacles fell apart at the nosepiece (again — expensive crap!) and my wife had them replaced. However, that meant I needed to go to the city to have the replacement frames adjusted. So, I went to the State Library and had a look at what was on the shelves memewise. That was when I recalled Aunger’s name from the debate we had in the Philosophy of Biology class several years ago…
@ur momisugly Lewis P Buckingham
Your recollection of Shakespeare/Shakespear/Shakspere/Shakspeare [delete whichever is inapplicable] is obviously better than mine 🙂 But I do stand in awe at his creativity…
Also this by Jesse Marczyk:
Marczyk’s successful biological replicators becoming more numerous has an interesting consequence if individual letters of the alphabet are indeed biological replicators. The letter “e” is already the most numerous letter of the alphabet in English, the world’s most spoken language. In the future then we can expect to see fewer and fewer letters of the alphabet and considerably more occurrences of “e”s. It won’t just be Yorkshiremen saying: “Eee bah gum” and “Eee up!” I have now recalled far more about memetics than I expected and find my bewilderments reinforced.
The Pompous Git says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:59 pm
Well this is quite a swerve from above, and seems from my perspective to be much more positive ground than the first four notes of Beethoven 🙂 . And from your little note to wrecktafire, hurrah for libraries as well (they are closing a whole bunch here ):
Your quote looked vaguely familiar, and the name Aunger rang a bell with me as well. So scanning the books on the shelf near my terminal, I see ‘Darwinizing Culture’, an overview of the field of memetics (with chapters from different researchers in the field) that is edited by Aunger. I read this some years ago, and think that even if your exact quote is not in there, very similar stuff from Aunger is.
The book is very well balanced imho, and has both advocacy for a memetic approach, plus the pointing out of significant difficulties and limitations (currently, at least) for the field. In the conclusion Aunger does not come down on one side or another, essentially saying we must wait and see. In just one example of the work’s laudable balance, the Foreword is by Dennet, whom Aunger argues against in your quote. Dennet points out here that even the weaker notions of Darwinian theory in cultural change (the absolute minimum being consistency with the natural selection of Homo Sapiens), are attacked with ‘ferocity’ from the humanities and social sciences and hence are not yet accepted as a basic constraint. He says that fear of ‘the thin end of the wedge’ misleads many who hate the strong notions of Darwinian theory as applied to cultural evolution, which includes among others, memetics. An interesting context. The contribution by Maurice Bloch points out that memeticists have exasperated anthropologists by stating what the latter have known about for decades before the term ‘meme’ was ever coined; while a stab at memeticists for not adequately researching the knowledge of other disciplines, it is otoh an implicit acknowledgement that the field is onto the right thing.
However, I for one think there are very valid questions raised by your quote, and these are only a tiny snippet of a whole chorus of questions, and of course just as many responses that not only suggest possible answers within the strict boundaries of memetics, but other potential solutions within alternative strong notions of Darwinian cultural change (e.g. ‘transformative transmission’ and ‘neuronal group selection’, I know very little about these and I think some theories include mixtures of these and ‘mainstream’ memetics). Out of this huge literature, which I for one am never going to live long enough to read, I could for instance against your argument of copying fidelity, raise you the below from Henry Plotkin:
“The fourth error is the assumption that universal Darwinism always requires high copying fidelity in the same way that biological evolution does. However, other biological systems, like the vertebrate immune system and certain forms of learning, are transformed in time by the same process of variation, selection and conservation, and propagation of selected variants. Yet copying fidelity, as with longevity and fecundity, varies across these systems. There is no reason why such variation should not also extend to memetics.”
To which I might add a quote that I embedded in my essay.
“DNA’s cellular copying machinery is now so accurate and reliable that we tend to forget it must have evolved from something simpler. Memes have not had this long history behind them. The new replicator is, as Dawkins (1976 p 192) puts it, “still drifting clumsily about in its primeval soup … the soup of human culture”. Nevertheless we see the same general process happening as we may assume once happened with genes. That is, memes and the machinery for copying them are improving together.” [Blackmore]. (Augner also gives Blackmore space in his book mentioned above, for a pro-memetic stance). Part of my earlier reference to biology was to point this angle out. Primitive replicators alone or in co-evolutionary couplings can have poor rates of fidelity, but still evolve, and indeed sidewise transfer of dna segments by modern viruses and prions also escape the normal rules yet are still part of the evolutionary advance.
I think the point of all this literature is that one cannot simply put up a couple of quotes and say ‘memes are therefore dead’, or indeed ‘memes triumph’. Memetics is a new tool whose worth is not yet fully proven, it has clearly led to insights already, but in its current form is weak both on experimental backup and convergence of definitions, while also overlapping various other cultural evolutionary tools both old and new, many of which have also long included Darwinian evolutionary concepts. The biggest unknown in all these theories seems to be core psychology; we just don’t know what happens deep down in there. A critical part of memetics is the influencing of the psyche, but in terms of exactly *how* this happens it doesn’t seem to have produced any more insight than the other theories. The best one can say (from my reading at any rate) is that they’re all equally in the dark on that front.
SO, this is why in the Introduction to the essay I mention critique of memetics and punt out to Appendix 2 for that. While the Appendix is short it mentions the “fact that the expectations of a one-to-one comparison with biology appear not to have been fulfilled, and also that memetics is ‘too reductionist’”, which overlaps with the Aunger quote you give. I then guide readers to the critique section of theumwelt.net , which is also short but rather blunter than Aungner’s nuanced treatment. And of course I also finish off the pointer post with this:
“And merely for convenience, I have written as though the memeplex hypothesis *is* true, i.e. that… …Yet by no means does that mean the hypothesis *is* true, or at least wholly true in the sense that the memetic effects are dominant. Readers must form their own opinions regarding that…”
Memetics is a tool, and like any tool must be used appropriately. A positive side to memetics that a number of contributors have highlighted is its emphasis on the populational approach and explanatory power at that level. (From your other comments on this thread you probably know more about this than me, but Darwin’s inclusion of populational concepts fell by the wayside for a long time on the biological side, thankfully to be restored in modern times). This is where the concept of a memeplex plays well, and the basis for my essay is that CAGW displays the expected characteristics of a memeplex. I note that more and more folks, whether the public, the media, or climate notables, are comparing CAGW to a religion. For instance even since my own post here at WUWT and also at Climate Etc, Judith Curry has a major post on that very issue, not to mention the shall-we-shan’t-we dance between CAGW and Christianity, which my essay also covers. Yet this insight regarding the similarity to religion is rather limited if we don’t really know what a religion is either, I mean in objective terms, what drives it, what is its taxonomy, why does that taxonomy share aspects with CAGW yet also have differences. The tool of memetics sheds light on this, as it has shed light on other cultural phenomena, even while the mechanisms are *not* yet worked out (and neither really are those of any cultural evolutionary theory). To quote Stephen Shennen from ‘Genes, Memes, and Human History’, there is precedent for using tools is this way:
“This is what biologists did before they understood genetics. They could still measure the heritability of particular traits from one generation to the next without knowing the mechanisms involved. Indeed, it is well known that Darwin came up with his theory of natural selection while holding a completely erroneous view about how genetic transmission worked.”
Darwin’s theory is 150 years old or so. Yet fundamental issues are still unresolved. I doubt it would be hard to pull a dozen quotes from the recent era attacking group selection and promoting a selfish gene approach. No doubt I could just as easily pull a dozen quotes that do precisely the opposite. On a decadal timescale, the balance of opinion is moving from the latter to the former (with group selection in the context of multi-level selection), but by no means would anyone be able to claim a definitive ‘answer’. Cultural evolution is younger, and various branches of it like memetics are much younger still. Don’t know how old you are, but I’m not thinking there will be a resolution of questions for / against memetics or on the alternatives / overlaps, in my lifetime. I certainly don’t mean to be rude, but as I hope you will see from my response to it, I think your example of Beethoven and the wife-beating above is somewhat like using a pitchfork to move water. In looking at the *social* phenomenon of CAGW in the light of memetics, I think the tool is much more useful.
In the end, if you read the essay and believe the CAGW touch-points I’ve mapped DO match the characteristics of a memeplex, yet still can’t accept some form of underlying memes, then you have a problem resolving why the hell this structure fits. If you DON’T believe the touch-points match in the first place, then you are off the hook anyhow and don’t have to accept any such concept of memes 😉
If you read the whole post you may have noticed Appendix 2 in the summary of all sections. Whether or not that’s the case, I have waited until now to mention this part in which I essentially acknowledged the critiques of memetics (despite I also offset them in the following Appendix), simply because I figure if one is going to argue against something, having the right armory is good. I don’t think your pitch-forking of water, or any implied impact on the scientific method or values that wrecktafire posted, are in any way valid arguments. But your Augner post is. I’ve been involved in real life rather than intellectual musings, so apologies I am out of time. But I’ll add a note on your other post when I get time, plus wrecktafire if you’re reading I’ll respond to you also (don’t worry, both answers much shorter!)
wrecktafire says:
November 8, 2013 at 6:18 pm
Hi wrecktafire. Regarding the ‘realization’ you want me to consider, I’m not sure whether the statement you quote is a particular one you came across, or whether you’re speaking generically about texts you have read by memeticicsts, or indeed more generically still about stuff you’ve read in say public forums or populist books or media about memes. However, I think this is largely a language problem, and I don’t think the jump you (very understandably) assume, is in any way actually being made by memeticists, or at least not in anything I have read.
Anyhow, first a biological aside. While literal biological comparisons need to be taken with caution, memes or meme-groups have similar characteristics to say prions or viruses, and yet as memeplexes they may also be part of a much larger co-evolving conglomeration, in a similar fashion to very primitive cellular colonies. There isn’t a one-to-one equivalence of features, but more similar biological equivalents may well have existed in the soup of primitive replicators and replicator alliances that preceded the dominance of RNA/DNA, which of course has had 3 billion years or so to consolidate itself and optimise into a highly packetised and accurate replicating machine (from precursors which were more fuzzy and less accurate).
The biological boundaries of ‘life’ are more a matter of arbitrary definition than self-evident fact. Some consider the boundary to be between prions and viruses, because prions replicate (and also cause diseases in mammals plus other hosts), but don’t contain their own nucleic acids (RNA or DNA). Viruses do contain nucleic acids, and this is the basis on which many say they must therefore be alive. However, neither prions nor viruses contain their own replicative machinery: they hi-jack this from the host they infect. Hence some don’t consider viruses to be life either. Wiki: ‘Viruses are considered by some to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce, and evolve through natural selection. However they lack key characteristics (such as cell structure) that are generally considered necessary to count as life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as “organisms at the edge of life”’. Yet ‘cell structure’ is also recognised as an arbitrary biological distinction, and in systems where more of a continuum is supported (e.g. concepts in computers or brains), the equivalent steps from prion to virus to cell are just single points on an upward slope of complexity.
I do not think anyone would consider that any of the above biological types, and including say bacteria too which no-one disputes is life, can be said to be ‘striving to preserve itself’ in anything like the same way, for instance, as a mammal strives to preserve itself. They are all just ‘blind replicators’, which is a good way to view memes and meme groups too, i.e. somewhere in the grey priony / virusy equivalent area for the environment of cultural entities. All them will have (naturally selected) tricks to increase their replication, but this does not imply ‘striving’ and it does not even imply ‘life’.
As a biological example, ‘mad cow disease’ or BSE is caused by infectious prions. It would not raise an eyebrow to see a sentence saying BSE is a parasitical form exploiting a host (cows); after all we already admitted BSE was a disease. Yet per the definition above, prions are NOT alive, and it is in this sort of sense that you might see language of that sort also used in describing memes. However it also depends where you saw it, and the *precise* language, because as I mentioned above, there is a language problem here. In describing entities that possess *some* of the properties of life, it is very hard to describe their features and impact while avoiding the ‘language of life’ that may imply more than is intended. Certain phrases can come across as too ‘agential’, i.e. they imply the entity is a causal agent, or worse still, sentient, when this was not intended. And our language is so soaked in implications of this sort, it is extremely cumbersome to avoid them. For instance I already fell into the trap right here because I used the word ‘entity’, which is sometimes used for living systems. Though it just means ‘separate thing’ and so my useage is not wrong, it hints at the living and is open to interpretation. The word ‘exploiting’ in the BSE example is understood NOT to mean ‘exploiting within a single generation by an agent that has some capability to do so’, but ‘exploiting over many generations purely via the means of natural selection’. Yet when folks see mention of ‘a thing which exploits its host’ in connection with memes, they don’t generally preserve that meaning if they are not already familiar with the field, and (understandably) conclude some kind of agent is at work, or even worse a sentient agent. Yet neither an active agent, or indeed ‘life’, is in play.
Long before the term ‘meme’ was coined, anthropologists and others were aware of cultural entities (damn, that word again!) which display Darwinian evolutionary properties. Various theories arose to support a whole genre, ‘cultural evolution’, of which memetics is hence a subset. To use your X,Y example, not only may religion X grow in fertile ground Y (oops, ‘grow’ is a ‘life’ word 😉 , religions typically have a clear developmental trajectory resulting in evolving modes and taxonomy that can span millions of people over very many generations (thousands of years). These characteristics are such that they encourage deeper penetration of the population at Y and also a spread to adjacent populations. Not only that, but the characteristics tend to have recognisable commonalities between religions of different lands and eras. This is unlikely to be a coincidence, and cannot be purely the agenda of any of the individuals involved, because none of them are long-lived enough, and some of the cultures supporting the different religions will never have met. So, one can speak in terms of ‘an emergent agenda’ if you will that is related to the evolutionary tendencies of religions, where the ‘emergent’ is meant to tell you that it is not agential and most certainly not sentient either. Casting a religion as a memeplex would grant this emergent agenda to the memeplex. But ‘agenda’ is another life word, and easily misinterpreted to conclude that something ‘more alive’ than in the sense of blind replicators is manipulating us. Yet in reality it is just the same kind of language problem as the prion example. These things are very difficult to convey without accidentally anthropomorphising the described entity, because that is what all our language does, and just like for prions or viruses, there may also be *some* properties that *are* common to what we understand as life.
This is why I mentioned where it was you saw the quotes. Within the relevant fields it is generally understood what is meant, so folks decode. Same is true in biology, even in the term ‘the selfish gene’, Dawkins admits he didn’t mean selfish in the agential sense. Sometimes there is some language caveats in the introduction of a book or paper, or at any parts that are particularly awkward. In my own essay there is stuff like this:
About the memetic process: “Suffice to say for now that it is not agential, not the result of a conscious process but the result of a continuous selection of competing social narratives, each of which has different fitness within society and forcing functions upon society.”
When discussing a characteristic of a memeplex: ‘In addition to being a useful reserve the memeplex can call upon in hard times (although that’s an over-anthropomorphic phrase – the memeplex is of course not agential or sentient) the…”
When talking about memeplex features that aid its survival: “In fact the word ‘selfish’ is itself too agential here, yet it is hard to get the concepts across without some anthropomorphic usage”.
However, if your quotes were from popular science books, the language can get looser and the caveats lost, so it’s far easier to misinterpret. And further out still, to public forums or mass media where misunderstanding may be rampant, or even (for dramatic effect) it is sometimes in the interests of the communicator to over-emphasise the ‘life’ implications, then one has little chance of divining the right context (which is after all, far less controversial and therefore perhaps duller). This is why I think your breathlessness is highly understandable, but nevertheless I feel also unnecessary, and I think you can likely breathe normally again 🙂
Hi, AndyWest2012,
Just a quick note to say I appreciate your attempts to clarify terminology, so as to improve my understanding. Your most recent post was very helpful, especially where you point out some disclaimers on terminology, such as where it starts to become anthropomorphic.
It may help you to know that I have encountered the word “meme” only in the following contexts:
* blog posts of progressives describing conservative claims as “memes” and therefore not worthy of any serious discussion (i.e., a synonym for “myth”)
* a magazine article about what may have been the first memetics conference, which seemed to focus heavily on things like the cat that wants a “cheezeburger” and other, mostly inconsequential things that “go viral”.
I’d like to revisit some of my earlier comments and address your questions about them in the near future.
Thanks, again.
The Pompous Git says:
November 8, 2013 at 8:32 pm
Hi PG. All the first part of Marczyk’s quote is an incorrect assumption. Replicators started by replicating spontaneously (in very simple forms), and continued to simply and ‘blindly’ replicate for eons before, via natural selection, their complexity and design slowly improved such that they eventually became ‘adaptive’. I.e. they had changed so many times, those that were better and faster at change itself, survived better. No special adaptive problems ‘have to be solved’ for replication to occur. The ultimate expression of this advance to adaptiveness is intelligence, but there are still plenty of blind replicators in the world, even if most are now based on the product of the huge improvements from unimaginable numbers of generations stretching over 3 billion years, i.e. sophisticated modern DNA. There is no ‘special design’ required to replicate, and come to that there is arguably no ‘special design’ in modern higher life-forms either, in the sense that it is in fact all ‘natural design’, though I guess that is semantics. Memes are still at the very primitive stage, like the long, long, long ago ancestors of DNA, although they certainly still have some design features.
I note that on his ‘pop psychology’ site, Marczyk himself invokes the concept of memes when expounding upon psychological topics. Check this:
“For those of you not in the know, the above meme is known as the ‘Critical Feminist Corgi’. The sentiment expressed by it – if you believe in equal rights, then you’re a feminist – has been routinely expressed by many others. Perhaps the most notable instance of the expression is the ever-quotable ‘feminism is the radical notion that women are people’, but it comes in more than one flavor.”
This is handy, because I can use his own quote to show an important point which is missed in your quote from him. The point is that the ‘Critical Feminist Corgi’ meme has ‘more than one flavor’. In these flavours, the *words are different*, revealing that it is *not* the precise words that are important. The critical ‘essence’ of this meme is the psychological hot button that it presses, and the main design criteria is that whatever words evolve, via many generations of accident or design, they must still push this hot button. The *psychological effectiveness* is what is being selected for, *not* the words. A higher score with the former is ultimately what will cause more replication by human hosts.
This point is shown in my essay too. One of the oldest pieces of deciphered writing we have is from 3500BC, found at Kish (ancient Sumerian city). It is a form of the very ancient ‘the past is always better’ meme, one that pushes a mild psychological hot-button in us, yet can still cause some negative consequences. A very modern version of the same meme, with several verses and completely different words that are aligned to modern minds, circulates the Internet (and at last count Google claimed 420,000 sites with this meme over the 15 years or so it’s been on the Internet). It’s also been in newspapers, speeches, circulars etc. Other than delivering it’s message to the psyche to give a mild reward of pleasant brain chemicals that makes people send it on elsewhere (achieving replication), the meme has absolutely no meaning whatsoever (and it is patently obvious anyhow that the past is *not* always better). Yet about 95% of the above sites think it’s amazing and wonderful and wise, and can’t wait to pass it on to their friends, causing replication. There’s a fascinating back-story and evolved meta-data and such in the essay, but the point here is that the words are completely different, in each case aligned to the host culture in a way that will achieve the desired result. The criteria for selection, to which the words align, is that it still pushes *the same hot button*, and maybe pushes it better.
Regarding the last part of your Marczyk quote, and your own addition, this kind of alphabet soup variation generally has extremely low or zero selective value in its own right, and changes will only tend to get taken up if they *do* happen to align to something more meaningful within the culture they are embedded in. This is back to where you were above and I point out the same biological equivalence; there is no selective value for a vast amount of DNA either, so looking for structure in this constantly but *randomly* changing DNA, is vain. If there’s no selective value, no structure will emerge. Added to which in the short term at least, the necessary constraints to keep language coherent will easily wipe out such low or non-existent selective pressures. So you can sleep easy, English isn’t about to be swamped by ‘e’s. (By the way, I’m from Yorkshire 🙂
Over a very long period of time however, some apparently trivial mistakes that *do* happen to have selective value (and are often scattered between a series of deliberate changes made by many hands too), can end up as major parts of memetic orthodoxy. When St. Matthew copied a mistranslation of the Greek ‘young woman’ to the Hebrew ‘virgin’, into his Gospel, an act that is thought to be a simple accident (or rather two accidents) this ended up being a pretty highly selective feature, considering he was writing about the mother of Jesus.
wrecktafire says:
November 12, 2013 at 6:58 am
Hi wrecktafire. No problemo on further exchange, but I’m on travel soon and getting groundrush already, plus when away may not have much access. Will be hit and miss for a few weeks.
“When St. Matthew copied a mistranslation of the Greek ‘young woman’ to the Hebrew ‘virgin’, into his Gospel,”
Are you certain on this? What was the original language of the gospel we now know as “St Matthew’s Gospel.” Given that the common language of the day in Palestine, and that spoken by the disciples was Aramaic, one would suggest that the original language was Aramaic, not Greek or Hebrew.
Later writers would have translated this to Greek, after SS Peter and Paul shifted the early Church from a Jewish sect into a church desirous of bringing the good news to non-Jews. As Greek was the lingua franca, this would have been necessary for widespread dissemination of the Gospels.
For confirmation of this, I refer you to:
http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/was-matthews-gospel-first-written-in-aramaic-or-hebrew
Support for your view may be given by a single sentence in the Wikipaedia text: “The Greek-speaking author of Matthew, however, used the Greek translation of Isaiah, in which the word is given as “παρθένος”, parthenos, meaning a virgin.” See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_birth_of_Jesus
I suggest you look at it this way – The relevant text is Isaiah 7 14, which is translated in the New International Version as:
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
The original Hebrew text used the word ‘almah’ which would normally be translated into English as “young woman”. To specifically denote a female virgin the Hebrew text should have used “betulah”. In the context of Isaiah’s prophecy (especially concerning the Jewish rules relating to young ladies and chastity), however, I think one could argue that “young woman” would have officially been synonymous with “virgin”. There would have been little point in thinking that there was anything special about a young woman, not a virgin, conceiving and bearing a son and calling him “Immanuel”. In the context of Chapter 7, Isaiah was prophesying a disaster which would hit Israel, not from the coalition of Ephraim and Syria, but from Assyria, which we know happened.
I would therefore argue that the Greeks were correct in translating “almah” into “parthenos” = “virgin” in the Septuagint. And hence when the translator of St Matthew’s Gospel turned the story he had received from Aramaic into Greek, he was correct in using “virgin”.
The question really is whether or not Matthew was correct in relating the birth of Jesus to the ancient prophecy of Isaiah to the birth of Immanuel. “All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).” Quotation from NIV, spelling corrected.
Dudley Horscroft says:
November 12, 2013 at 6:46 pm
“Are you certain on this?”
Of course not. I doubt anyone could be certain of such matters when using sparse and sometimes contradictory documentation to peer back a couple of millennia. So that’s why I say above: “an act that *is thought* to be a simple accident.”
I rely completely on others for religious data. In ‘Mutation, Selection, And Vertical Transmission Of Theistic Memes In Religious Canons’ by John D. Gottsch, Table 5, section ‘Virgin Birth’, row 2 column 5, it says: ‘Matthew did not realize that he had copied from a Greek translation that had improperly used “virgin” for “young woman” .’ In the accompanying text somewhere it actually moderates this to acknowledge that he might have ignored the original mistranslation, although from a memetic point of view, either way it produces a mutation with high selective value. The table derives from Spong (1996). See the Gottsch document here: http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/2001/vol5/gottsch_jd.html