Jamie,
Thanks for the book reference. I look forward to checking that out.
Here are a few thoughts from a ToK perspective: It is useful to differentiate “memes”, defined as theoretical units of socio-cultural evolution, into technology, practices, and justifications, although obviously they are intertwined. However, they are of different kinds of things, according to the prism of the ToK. A justification is a verbal/linguistic statement that legitimizes a claim or action. Justification systems reside in Cultural space and evolve via argumentation (competing justifications) and influence (power and social agreement). A practice is a behavioral investment that performs a function. Technologies are tools. Other animals have practices and basic technologies. But they do not have justifications.
I think about society as a whole as consisting of (a) justification systems; (b) behavioral investment practices; (c) technologies and (d) the biophysiological ecology in which the society resides (climate, resources, germs, etc).
Best,
Gregg
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Mathew Jamie Dunbaugh
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2018 12:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The End of Memes?
Mark and All,
I just want to put out there that the best book on cultural evolution I've discovered so far is "The Secret of Our Success" by Joseph Henrich. Henrich does one of the best jobs I've found describing the relationship between psychology and culture.
But about memes:
There is no straight analogy from genes, phenotypes, and organisms to culture. The word meme is a useful word for an individuated, reproducing "unit of culture" because it should be clear that there really are pragmatic, individuated, reproducing units of culture, such as "To be or not to be", or "how to build a campfire", or "the act of googling".
It's true there are unresolved problems about the ontology of memes, like how they are individuated or what they really "are", but I think working that out can help shed light on the nature of cultural evolution.
We don't have to know the formal structure of an "idea" to know that ideas exist and that the word "idea" is useful. And ideas are memes. Features of human character, like personas, are memes. Archetypes are memes. Memes are the cultural software structures that build the human psyche. Memes are born and reproduce by Aha! moments. Memes can be instantiated as symbols, computer code, neural patterns, or just observable behavior.
Is there a formal structure to money, or the story "The Little Red Riding Hood", or "Mark Stahlman" for that matter? ....My guess is no, nothing totally constant anyway. But it's probably little more than a kind of pattern. But that doesn't mean it isn't useful to have a word to point to them. Perhaps the most concrete formal structure of a meme is a kind of neural pattern that reproduces from brain to brain.
Henrich describes culture as "the large body of practices, techniques, heuristics, tools, motivations, values, and beliefs that we all acquire while growing up, mostly from other people", and I say that any individuated, reproducing unit of culture can "usefully" be called a meme.
Let's say you're trying to describe how a group of European explorers learned from indigenous populations how to survive in the Arctic. You want to say something about how the explorers learned how to build snow houses from the Inuit. What do you call that behavior/information that transferred from the Inuit to the explorers? Do you say that some "Inuit culture" transferred from the Inuit to the explorers? Sure, there's no problem with that. But you could just as well say that an Inuit meme transferred from the Inuit to the explorers. And I'd argue that it's helpful to do so, because then scientists have to think about the behavior of general "units of culture", and I think doing so forces us to create new models that will almost certainly shed light.
For instance, one general observation is that memes tend to be selected based on their pragmatic utility. Gregg describes the units of culture as justifications. But what is a justification? In my sense, something is justified by having use or value, and by helping us navigate the Moral Landscape. I believe the fitness landscape for memes is the "landscape of human problems", (the moral landscape) and memes are generally selected by their utility (along with many complications). A justification, like all memes, is a kind of solution to something. Most of all, memes are "ways" or behaviors composed of emergent patterns of information, selected by human consciousness, that doesn't exist in the genome and has so far been better for adapting us to our environment than natural selection, largely because humans aren't too bad at knowing what's good for them. (actually, it seems we're getting better at knowing what's good for us).
Memetics isn't perfect and has a lot of problems, but there's something to be uncovered by fully describing how units of cultural information spawn and reproduce from brain to brain, and working out the behavior of the whole system from genes to memes.
Jamie
On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 4:02 AM Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Jamie:
Good questions (so here are some others) . . . !!
As per Gregg's ToK, "Culture" is a "dimension of complexity" that
relies on "Psychology" (much as that dimension relies on "Life"), so
what are the features of human psychology at work with *memes* . . . ??
Or to put this in Aristotelian "formal causality" terms, what is the
"form" of a *meme* (i.e. what is its "internal structure") and what
form/structure does it generate in Cultures. Having read dozens of
accounts of this and spoken with many proponents of the "theory," all
I have ever gotten is hand-waves and blank-stares. I have yet to meet
a single "memester" with a clue about what they are talking about.
Every attempt at detailed inquiry quickly breaks down.
I'm quite familiar with the origin proposal for *memes* as the
"analog" for genes (which I know a bit about as a PhD candidate in
Molecular Biology) but that explanation doesn't help much.
Furthermore, as John has detailed for us, the "gene" is, in fact, not
the "unit of evolution" that Dawkins (a biologist who should have
known better) thought it was. He didn't even get his "Life" right --
so why would he have any clarity on "Culture"?
A better "cultural" explanation was given by Kenneth Boulding in his
1956 "The Image" (derived from sociologist Fred Polak's 1953 "Image of
the Future") but, as an economist, Boulding also failed to provide the
psychological underpinning for his notions. By skipping psychology
and operating at the "dimension" above, he was arguably just as unable
to understand what is going on as was Dawkins.
None of these people have a clear grasp of how "Culture" operates.
Why would "Culture" function in this way at all? Why would there be a
"language" process which allows this to happen? How can *memes* be
explained in terms of Gregg's TOK?
From my standpoint (and perhaps Gregg's), there is another
"dimension" based on technology that has taken over -- defining the
"Culture" and "Psychology" dimensions. This approach is *not*
comprehended by Dawkins (or Boulding.) Dawkins has over-stretched his
understanding of "Life" and there is no reason to listen to anything
he says about "Culture," since he has no comprehension of "Technology"
(or the "fifth joint point.")
Ultimately, which technology generates *memes* and, since they clearly
function "pre-consciously" in terms of our psychology (i.e. are
uniformly nonsense when examined consciously, just like the
advertisements they emulate), what are the psychological processes
involved . . . ??
Mark
Quoting Mathew Jamie Dunbaugh <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>:
> Hi All,
>
> I just read Mark's blog on the end of memes and I'm totally confused. I'm
> sure Mark is on to something, but I don't get it.
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__medium.com_rally-2Dpoint-2Dperspectives_the-2Dend-2Dof-2Dmemes-2Dor-2Dmcluhan-2D101-2D2095ae3cad02&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=domXX4cM9l8YQ9aGFqwWjJNXGU8us9coRUzxtOd7JOY&s=NMZGF-3oAvZyz3tYfNF09qYh6IdXRAA1IFNi41pjVsE&e=
>
> Memes are reproducing units of culture, so they include anything learned
> from parent to child, or from peer to peer. They don't necessarily have to
> be in the media. A tribe in Africa with no contact with television or the
> web still has memes because it still has culture. There is no piece of
> culture that is not a meme because memes are the stuff of culture! The
> human psyche, even the personality, is largely memetic in that it's
> composed of cultural software that's not found in the genome.
>
> So what are the memes Mark is talking about? They seem to be a certain kind
> of meme that only exists on the media. And Mark claims they're dying out,
> or dead already because.... these memes aren't effective when there is more
> memory around??
>
> *"It is this ability to remember (which computer do to us when we
> habitually use them), as opposed to the ability to suspend belief over the
> make-believe of television and similar types of media that marks the end of
> the effectiveness of memes under digital conditions. " *
>
> I get that some kind of meme had to die out with television, but I'm having
> a hard time pinning down exactly what that is. The ability for more
> cultural memory to be stored around the web has allowed memes to flourish.
> Mark can't be talking about the famed "internet meme" because that would
> make no sense.
>
> Every post on Facebook is a meme, (the entire internet is a memeplex made
> of memes!) ... but I just went on facebook for about 30 seconds to find a
> quintessential internet meme and here is the first one I found:
> [image: image.png]
>
> You can even see on the bottom right that the place it came from is called
> *meme*generator.net<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__generator.net&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=89Alf9KLvv9IRBdDM_qYP9vYA399rpkPTynH377wfa0&s=ciMzwGGwUyCp6jqRKAivP-bFSYTDVLjCUkz2OTZ_EIc&e=>
>
> The enhanced external memory all around us has allowed for the
> hyper-evolution of memes. Memes are both reproducing AND being processed
> (evolving) by larger and larger populations as more people pay attention to
> the same things. The "cognitive surplus" (Clay Shirky) is allowing more
> attention to go into processing more memes on the media.
>
> So what is Mark talking about here?:
>
> *"Memes were very much a part of the television “revolution” that McLuhan
> wrote about — perfect for television advertising. Memes are “democratic”
> and psychographically weaponized: Unlike one-size-fits-all propaganda, you
> get to choose between Coke or Pepsi. Memes are meaningless and you can’t
> argue with them. Just like television. Just do it! (Don’t think about
> it.) "*
>
> *“We shape our tools and, thereafter, they shape us.” McLuhan himself often
> summarized this understanding in terms of a
> Gestalt: figure and ground. Without this basic concept, McLuhan cannot be
> grasped. This is McLuhan 101. *
>
> *"In modern terms, formal cause is roughly analogous to “structure” or
> “environment” or “paradigm.” In psychological terms, formal cause means
> those technological influences that condition the early-stages of learning,
> which substantially define the “wiring” of our initially plastic brains."*
>
> *"Digital technology is all about remembering. Thus, digital technology
> sounded the death knell for make-believe memes "*
>
> Why? *Why is remembering a problem for memes?*
>
> *"With our new digital environment, this process of remembering has now
> become the ground of our daily experiences."*
>
> I can't find a straightforward explanation in the article or anywhere on
> the web, of 1) what is the meme Mark's talking about, and 2) why this meme
> is dead or dying. I'm sure Mark is saying something significant because I
> can tell there is a real difference between the television era and the
> internet era and the way the media "programs" society in each era.
>
> -Jamie
>
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