X-Message-Number: 4949
From: 
Subject: Re Refutation of Memetics.
Date: Sat,  7 Oct 95 01:16:01 PDT

Peter Merel () writes (re memetics):

>It seems plain that the meaning of any information depends upon the
>context within which it is considered. This is to say that meaning is
>fleeting, relative and inherent to the action of intelligence, rather
>than constituting some necessary and absolute attribute of each piece
>of information.

As far as I understand it, memetics is not deeply concerned with 
"meaning."  That's three doors down the hall, in semiotics.  (Try _A 
Theory of Semiotics_ by Umberto Eco if you are not already up on 
semiotics.  Unfortunately the parts of semiotics which are not obvious 
tend to be really deep.) 

>Memes, therefore, can not be held to exist consistently across their
>hosts. Information patterns can not code for any particular meaning or
>interpretation, and so one host's internal representation of a meme
>need not coincide in any particular with the internal representation 
>of that meme in another host.

Like many others in my line of work (engineering) I don't do so well 
with arguments which are abstract-deep.  I certainly can agree with 
you that the internal representation of the information which makes up 
a meme may be (and likely is at some level) different from person to 
person.  But the same can be said of the way different computers 
internally represent the same information.  I consider information in 
a text file the same when it is encoded in ASCII or EBDIC, or on 
cards, paper tape, or magnetic spots on a disk.  For what it is worth, 
I suspect that humans are a lot more alike in the way the represent 
information internally than most people think.  My reason is that all 
of us tend to make very similar perceptual and reasoning errors.  See 
_Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcoming of Social Judgement_ by 
Nisbett and Ross, and _The Social Brain_ by Michael Gazzaniga. 

>It seems plain therefore that memes are not inherent attributes of
>pieces of information, but that they are particular instances of
>information; memes can be considered as the patterns of information
>that are replicated by their hosts, but not as any internal
>representation of those patterns within a host. This definition
>suggests that internal representations or meanings might be thought
>of as serving as "phenotypes" to a purely external meme's "genotype".

I think you are trying to make memetics more complicated than is 
justified.

It might help to introduce some simple examples of memes.  Take the 
game of cricket as an example.  (I usually use baseball, but will 
defer to the .au on your email.)  Anyone who can teach a recognizable 
game of cricket to a group of children is a carrier of the 
game-of-cricket meme.  I don't carry that meme (in spite of having 
read Douglas Adams) and would not know where to start without 
meme-reduced-to-paper written directions.  I *could* teach a group of 
kids to play baseball from memory--though I have not played it myself 
for many years (and it was the softball variation).  Now, there is 
"meaning" associated with either of these games, and with the relation 
of humans to games, but I don't think of memetics as getting into 
those areas.  There is a historical context (the two games are 
somewhat related) and memetics may be of value in considering how they 
evolved, and how the evolution of games is slowed by written rules. 
 
Another example.  There are many pottery markers in the archeological 
record.  Some of those were cases where one group displaced another, 
but some were where the pottery designs just spread among the makers 
of pots.  Third example:  About 30k years back there was a widespread 
change in the tool kit of many groups of people.  It seem likely that 
this was the results of memes for how to make these new tool spreading 
among the people.  Memes of new ways to chip rock.  I should note 
that the vast majority of memes are of this type.  Within memetics I 
don't know how to apply "meaning" to a shoe or to the information 
coding for the actions needed to construct that shoe.  

>This still would appear to constitute a concrete definition. However,
>when we observe that one piece of information is replicated by another,
>this is only to say is that, from our own preferred context, one piece
>of information is similar to another. Since there is no absolute
>context within which meaning can be determined, such an identity can 
>only be a value judgement on the part of a memeticist.

You lost me.  "one piece of information is replicated by another" does 
not compute.  Information is replicated by hardware (counting the 
proteins which copy DNA as hardware), and must at some level be 
contained in patterns in matter (counting electromagnetic waves as 
"matter").  Arel (my wife) who has also contributed to this field 
understood what you said better than I, but she agreed that you left 
out a level or two.  You might want to look at the work of John Von 
Neumann or Chris Langton or some of the other artificial life/ 
cellular automata folks. 

>Memes, therefore, can not be demonstrated to exist except within the
>mind of a memeticist. If this is the case, then it seems that memetics
>is only a method of rationalization whereby "hosts" and "memes" are
>dismissed in terms of value judgements. And if that is the case, then
>memetics does not actually pertain to the analysis of psychology or
>social dynamics, but only serves to highlight internal distinctions
>and biases within its adherents.

I have previously stated that memes are like microorganisms; the vast 
majority are either harmless or helpful.  We could not live without E. 
Coli for example.  The harmful few have focused our attention on the 
entire class, and forced us to understand that part of our 
environment.  I have used harmful memes as examples for the dramatic 
focusing they provide, but always given credit for the shoe-making, 
rock-chipping, farming, etc. ones which we could not live without.  
Our meme-kit *is* our culture.  I don't understand how, given this 
context, that you can say that we do not use value judgements, 
helpful, harmless, harmful, on memes.  Memes are helpful, harmless or 
harmful in terms of what they do to genes or to the minds shaped by 
genes and memes.  An example in the clearly harmful class would be a 
meme "teach me to two others and then commit suicide."  I suppose the 
math which describes such exponential growth is judgement free because 
it describes the spread of memes and other replicators independent of 
what they do. 

While memetics may help understand social dynamics, psychology feeds 
the other direction.  Memetics asks of psychology *why* certain memes 
tend to be selected--i.e., accepted by human minds.  For example, why 
did at least three memetically unconnected peoples build monoliths 
when they became farmers?  (And had the resources.)  So far, 
psychology answers not.  

>Memetics might then be viewed with the same distaste that we apply to
>racism. Its terminology, though couched in pseudo-clinical language, is
>quite ugly and derogatory. The memeticist dismisses people of differing
>cultures, religions and politics as "bots" or "oids" or "infected" or
>one of a dozen other disdainful epithets.

For a tiny area of study which has received little academic interest, 
it sure has generated strong feelings in at least one person. I 
certainly have used, in fact invented, the term "memeoid" to describe 
people so taken with a meme (call it belief if you wish) that they 
will blow up themselves and others to "further" the meme. If the term 
is distasteful, are not the acts of people who do such things even 
more distasteful? As long as you are using a medical analogy, would a 
memeticist be any more inclined to "dismiss" people "infected" or 
strongly influenced/motivated by memes any more than a doctor would 
be inclined to "dismiss" people with tuberculosis?  (That is when and 
if there *is* such a thing as a "memeticist.") 

>                                           Memetics treats competing
>philosophies in obstructionist terms, as memes that "immunize" their
>hosts against "The Meta-Meme" or ultimate truth of memetics, or as
>"toxic" information that endangers its hosts and/or other people.

Until I read your words, I had never considered memetics as a 
philosophy.  It is a rather small result which comes out of Darwinian 
(evolutionary) biology as a result of recognizing that animals can 
learn behaviors (and more complex things) from each other.  The things 
they learn to some extent compete with each other (few people have the 
time to learn both cricket and baseball, especially when only one is 
played in your area.)  Thus the conditions are set up for Darwinian 
evolution, sometimes in a very complicated feedback with other 
replicators.  If memetics is a philosophy, it is a part of the whole 
Darwinian "philosophy" about how the complex living world came about. 

>This sort of obstructionist dogma is similar to the terms favored by
>cults, and this suggest to me that memetics might itself support
>cult-style activities among some of its adherents.  

Some of us (particularly me) might be a bit enthusiastic about sharing 
new knowledge which we think helps us understand what is going on 
around us, but I am not aware of "cult-style activities" among any of 
the people who are up on memes.  If you or anyone else notices such 
activities, I would be quite interested.  Off hand I would think that 
knowledge about memetics would make people somewhat resistant to 
cults.  (With an exception for the Sub Genius cult of J.R "Bob" Dobbs.) 

>                                                    For that reason I
>fear that some readers might view this article with acrimony, since it
>challenges attitudes that some may regard as being sacrosanct. If
>that occurs then I can only point out that my purpose is not to cause
>anyone any anguish, but only to contribute my opinion, so any flames
>that result will be cheerfully ignored. All rational responses will be 
>well appreciated.

The only thing I can think of is that I must have done a really poor 
job of explaining memes some years ago.  I do hope you have gone to 
the source (_Selfish Gene_ by Richard Dawkins, now in the Second Ed.) 
and read what he has to say about memes.  

Keith Henson 

PS, It might be a good idea to take this discussion out of the mail 
list and sci.cryonics and put it in alt.memetics if it goes to any 
length. (On the other hand, if the cryonics folks want it here, we can 
certainly keep it here and/or crosspost.  Let us know if you consider 
memetics relevant.)


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4949