Ichneumonwasp
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Personally I don't like "catchphrase" and vogue. Overused!
Not quite as bad as "personally", though.
Not quite as bad as "personally", though.
RandFan
Mormon Atheist
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On the other hand only slightly better than "though".Not quite as bad as "personally", though.
Ichneumonwasp
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RandFan
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I like the concept of meme's. It's an effective means to understand information and the ability of information to persist. The Bible is an evolutionary fit set of memes. It will outlast all of us. When we understand what memes are we can understand why the Bible has survived for thousands of years and is the most printed book in history and the knowledge in it held by more people than any other.
As to the OP and the question, it's a good one. As a Mormon I gave much of my time and resources in furtherance of Mormon and Christian memes. Will memes take over? To the extent that they can they already have.
As to the OP and the question, it's a good one. As a Mormon I gave much of my time and resources in furtherance of Mormon and Christian memes. Will memes take over? To the extent that they can they already have.
RandFan
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Ichneumonwasp
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What do we do with repeated meme that we are able to talk about memes and change the way they affect us since we know that we are the ones replicating them?
bokonon
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Okay, that was a waste of 20 minutes.
Personifying ideas is just as silly as personifying genes. Slathering a dollop of doom and gloom on top of a silly personified idea is doubly silly.
The things being imitated are ideas. In the long run, the ones that survive are the ones that are useful. In the short run, "entertaining," "amusing," "unique," etc. can have a good run, but they're destined to dead end. "Using language" and "using fire" are older than the holy books. If we don't slide into another dark age, in a thousand years, the Bible and the Quran will be in the bargain bin with "The Odyssey". Science and technology are simply more useful.
Ichneumonwasp
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Just saw/heard the talk.
Seems to me that she mixes two levels of description. If "we" are going to speak about these ideas that replicate independently of "us", which they cannot do except in devices that we make, then who is this "us" that she was discussing?
Why discuss ideas at this level as acting in determined ways, but still speak of humans on a gross level where free will makes sense to discuss? It is either the case that we decide everything, or that the things we call "us" are conduits through which material and ideas pass and act in either determined or undetermined ways. To mix the level at which we speak of humans and the level at which we could speak of ideas is confused. It is similar to the confusion that arises when discussing evolution at the level of general allele change over time and individual animals trying to survive difficult environments and pretending that they can be described using the same language.
Seems to me that she mixes two levels of description. If "we" are going to speak about these ideas that replicate independently of "us", which they cannot do except in devices that we make, then who is this "us" that she was discussing?
Why discuss ideas at this level as acting in determined ways, but still speak of humans on a gross level where free will makes sense to discuss? It is either the case that we decide everything, or that the things we call "us" are conduits through which material and ideas pass and act in either determined or undetermined ways. To mix the level at which we speak of humans and the level at which we could speak of ideas is confused. It is similar to the confusion that arises when discussing evolution at the level of general allele change over time and individual animals trying to survive difficult environments and pretending that they can be described using the same language.
It seems to me that meme theory and the belief in memes are an inevitable consequence of Universal Darwinism being more widely accepted. Once the characteristics of the gene as replicator were clearly delineated, so eventual recognition of the meme as replicator looks to me inevitable.
Nick
Thanks, Shadron, for posting the link.
My understanding from the talk was there now may validly be considered to be a third replicator - a teme. Previously there were memes, which were dependent on humans to replicate, but with the rise in new technology this is no longer so. We have storage and transmission devices, such as computers or mp3 players, which can do what humans do.
Currently, temes appear to be driving humans to increasingly exploit the earth's resources to further their own replication, through designing and building more and more technology. In the future this technology may be able to improve its own design and construct these new designs without human input.
I take your point.
I think it is a valid way to interpret what is going on, when one considers things from the gene, meme, or teme's eye view. It could also, I think, be considered as an inflammatory perspective, which I would agree as excessive if it wasn't for the fact that it does seem to be happening and I think more attention does have to be paid to it. People need to consider how they identify themselves - as a biological self, as a narrative self, or as the temporary host for a new replicator until it can take over for itself.
It is confusing but I think arguably a justified approach to raising awareness of the issue.
Nick
Ichneumonwasp
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So, it's an overly complicated way of saying -- don't spend so much time on the computer, get back to nature, or guess what, Terminator is really gonna happen? The problem Bokonon (and I sort of agree) has with it is that there isn't anything new here. We've known that technology drives technology for as long as there has been technology.
If we want to discuss things at the level of the gene or meme, then we can't bring in higher levels of discourse and pretend that the higher level has free will that has been taken over by a replicating idea. That higher level simply is a bundle of those replicating ideas doing what they do in conjunction with replicating biological packets doing what they do.
We can't talk about them "taking over humans" when they are part of the bundle that "is humans".
bokonon
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"Orange is in this year" is definitely an idea. No stretch there.
The stretch comes in when one attempts to personify the "orange is in" idea, give it volition, and make statements like "This meme wants to reproduce. It's just using us to spread as widely as it can." That's when it's just silly.
Zippers? Useful idea. People are happy to make them and use them in a variety of situations. Velcro? Useful idea, with even wider usefulness. Orange pigments and dyes? Useful in a variety of situations, the ideas men have conceived for making and improving them will be preserved in the tiny sliver of humanity employed in doing such things, but those ideas will never gain a foothold in most minds. The color orange itself will be widely employed, from bags to labels to fashion to road cones. "Orange will propagate if it can" will remain a nonsense statement.
It becomes doubly silly when one attempts to introduce a new buzzword, "temes," to personify the technology we use to store and distribute ideas.
Stretching the metaphor to suggest that humanity may just be a transitional species in danger of being subjugated by our new teme overlords is the kind of idea that only deserves to be seriously discussed by freshmen at 3 AM in the fanciful philosophy dorm. I can't believe that woman got invited to TED.
Yes, genes and memes are what make up humans, what create and define humans. There is meme-gene co-operation and there is meme-gene antagonism. This is one story. However, a certain branch of memes, temes, have the possibility to create their own hosting arrangements. They don't necessarily require humans to provide an environment for them to be stored in and to replicate. Their governing algorithm can drive them in another direction, away from needing these flesh and blood hosts, us, and on to developing their own environment in which to breed and flourish.
The question I see Blackmore wanting to be investigated is whether, mathematically, they could do this to the exclusion of human beings, whether the end result of the teme algorithm could be no more humans.
It is not that there exists some "techno teme God" somewhere, seeking to take over or obliterate humans. It is rather that the mathematical possibilities here require investigation. I imagine she hopes that presenting the issue in this manner might encourage this to happen.
Nick
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Can you explain exactly why you find the idea ridiculous? Memes, through meme-gene co-operation appear to have driven the development of the human brain, over the last 2 million years or so, to create an ideal environment for their propogation. We have brains that are very large, use a vast amount of valuable energy, and which create constant problems in childbirth. This is not likely to be the result of purely genetic selection. It is much more likely meme-gene co-operation.
Thus, it can already be said that memes have driven much of the later part of human evolutionary development. Who is to say that the algorithm that has caused this will not also lead to the human host being dumped somewhere along the way?
Nick
Susan Blackmore's thesis only makes any sense if it is posited that humans have no control over the so-called "memes" and "temes" that supposedly so control humans.
That seems more than dubious as a proposition; while Susan Blackmore does indeed always advocate the corollary thesis of there being no limited free will at all, there are two huge glaring problems in her whole stance that should be very obvious:
I'ld say her thesis is dead in the water.
That seems more than dubious as a proposition; while Susan Blackmore does indeed always advocate the corollary thesis of there being no limited free will at all, there are two huge glaring problems in her whole stance that should be very obvious:
- one, how she pleads for something or other she can't quite specify, when actually pleading should make no sense at all if her whole thesis was in fact correct
´.
(that one above goes together with the ridiculousness of passionately advocating psychological determinism, a ludicrous happenstance that never gets tackled by those who so act as missionaries for psych determinism)
. - and two, her thesis about temes would only be provably correct if it could be shown that humans were in fact creating machines only for the sake of other machines, not for the sake of humans.
I'ld say her thesis is dead in the water.
I think Blackmore is simply arguing for greater recognition of the potential issue and for more investigation into it. She herself states, as quoted in the OP, that "maybe it's a load of garbage" but that there needs to be more investigation in order to assess a potential problem.
I haven't seen anyone on this thread yet create a meaningful statement to counter her concerns.
Nick
Beerina
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Any skeptic can tell you memes have been around for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, and have been in control.
The most common example is religion. However, we now have variants on secular "religions" called politics.
My current working theory, and I have no idea if it matches this "memosphere", is the memes are an idea, to be sure, but ideas serve the purpose of getting the real, biological organisms to behave in particular ways. Hence they can be more akin to a parasite than a symbiote. More akin to a virus than a real life form, which is why the organism analogy may be stretched beyond its breaking point at this point.
They are what they are, which is to say, ideas designed to get people to behave in such and such a way.
Successful reproduction of said memes occurs when more and more people adopt them, regardless of how "true" they are. Which is to say, regardless of whether the mental model they build up in your mind accurately reflects reality.
Religion is very successful, even though no gods or supernatural things exist. They have mechanisms to spread. Seductive messages that are pleasing. Coercion or even murder if it isn't. Oh how nice, helping the poor. I'll join! Oh my god, those people are waving their hands at God in the wrong way, kill them!
Evolutionary biologist-psychologist-sociologists are barking up the wrong tree if they presume said things must be beneficial to the organism. Hardly. A parasite need only spread faster than it destroys to be successful. To not kill off its host organisms faster than they reproduce and spread. To spread to the "uninfected" faster than it kills the infected.
It is what it is, which isn't a real organism per se. Once the current older gen of biologist who choke on the "organism" concept die off, the meme concept will become a central idea and be more fully explored.
And back to "religion". Note that the modern, secular "religion" of democratic politics (little d). Most meme variants include Vox Populi Vox Dei, if you control the legislature, you can pass any law you want, with no restrictions. Note how memes with that concept are more powerful than those without, i.e. a constution, say, that forces supermajority for large changes -- if those memes can successfully overcome barriers in their way, which they have.
"(Sob story) and therefore we'll nationalize the coal mines, medicine, trains, what the hell ever." Narrative builds: "The Supreme Court in the 1930's almost got in the way of the building of a modern state that everybody agrees is the way to live."
And so on.
Wowbagger
The Infinitely Prolonged
I wonder if it makes sense to develop a Relativity-like theory for meme and temes:
Whether iPods are created for the benefit of music's replication, or for the benefit of humans to just listen to music, depends on your frame of reference.
Whether iPods are created for the benefit of music's replication, or for the benefit of humans to just listen to music, depends on your frame of reference.