Re: Underestimating long-term consequences of cryptoanarchy
At 09:47 AM 5/17/03 -0700, Tim May wrote:
The general theme is purpose "the purpose of life." The purpose of any lifeform, or at least the outcome after competition and selection, is furtherance of life.
Genes exist to copy genes; genes cooperate to this end. Growing metazoans such as ourselves is a means to that end.
Likewise, the purpose of Congress as a generalized lifeform is to perpetuate itself, to grow, to become more dominant. ... I hesitate to call this a "bionomic interpretation," especially as I never really bothered to learn what "bionomics" was all about, but it's
a kind of biological interpretation.
You mention Darwin but not Richard Dawkins author of _Selfish Gene_ and later meme theories. Memes are basically ideas. They can replicate, compete, cooperate, etc. Brains are the medium in which they grow. Memes like "believe me or believers kill you" are particularly cancerous. If you haven't read Dawkins, you should, and he's quite an enjoyable read. ---- Language is an RPC call. Sheeple give it root access.
On Saturday, May 17, 2003, at 12:31 PM, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
At 09:47 AM 5/17/03 -0700, Tim May wrote: You mention Darwin but not Richard Dawkins author of _Selfish Gene_ and later meme theories. Memes are basically ideas. They can replicate, compete, cooperate, etc. Brains are the medium in which they grow.
Memes like "believe me or believers kill you" are particularly cancerous.
If you haven't read Dawkins, you should, and he's quite an enjoyable read.
I first met Dawkins at the Artificial Life Conference in 1987 in Los Alamos. I had of course already read "The Selfish Gene" and, as I recall, "The Extended Phenotype" (at or around that time). (That was just about the best conference I ever attended. Only about 100-125 of us, and a lot of interesting people. I hear the followup conferences, which I never attended, were much larger and with fewer of the interesting luminaries.) As for who I mentioned, I didn't mention a _lot_ of related names. I'm not as convinced as some that Dawkins has rewritten our understanding of things. The ideas of replication of things, companies, sets of ideas, empires, etc. has been around for a long time. "The Nature of the Firm" said much the same thing several decades ago. A friend of mine, Keith Henson, takes "memetics" much more seriously, though. --Tim May "You don't expect governments to obey the law because of some higher moral development. You expect them to obey the law because they know that if they don't, those who aren't shot will be hanged." - -Michael Shirley
On Sat, 17 May 2003, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
You mention Darwin but not Richard Dawkins author of _Selfish Gene_ and later meme theories. Memes are basically ideas. They can replicate, compete, cooperate, etc. Brains are the medium in which they grow.
Allow me to suggest this article (or rather, a response to an article): http://www.edge.org/discourse/evolutionofculture.html to anyone wishing to read a contrarian position as relates to "memes" and their various interpretations. The original article is here: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dennett/dennett_p2.html ----- John Kozubik - john@kozubik.com - http://www.kozubik.com
On Sat, 17 May 2003, John Kozubik wrote:
Allow me to suggest this article (or rather, a response to an article):
http://www.edge.org/discourse/evolutionofculture.html
to anyone wishing to read a contrarian position as relates to "memes" and their various interpretations.
It should be easy to create a test for memes. The cave dweller experiment to find natural circadian rythm could be done with a group of people. In the control group, don't introduce anything new, and in the experimental group, introduce a specific meme. If meme theory is correct, you'd be able to predict how the experimental group does compared to the control group. If it's true there are not possible predictions, that would put an end to meme theory once and for all. Any psycologists doing this kind of thing? Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
<Groan> not this tripe...again... On Sun, 18 May 2003, Mike Rosing wrote:
On Sat, 17 May 2003, John Kozubik wrote:
Allow me to suggest this article (or rather, a response to an article):
http://www.edge.org/discourse/evolutionofculture.html
to anyone wishing to read a contrarian position as relates to "memes" and their various interpretations.
To answer the question as posed by Jaron Lanier as to how the various sorts of music are the same expression, easy. People have a common brain morphology. Don't confuse means and ends.
It should be easy to create a test for memes.
Meme's are their own test, as used in your context. The bottom line, the theory of 'meme' is -nothing- more than the expression of the human desire to simplify and reduce. To absurdity if given the chance, ala Dawkin's selfish gene gibberish. -- ____________________________________________________________________ We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" ravage@ssz.com jchoate@open-forge.org www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------
participants (5)
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Jim Choate -
John Kozubik -
Major Variola (ret) -
Mike Rosing -
Tim May