Jamie,
Let me quickly address your question about culture (and Culture) and society and the concept of memes. I then need to head out for the day and will be back tomorrow or Monday at the latest.
The short issue with memes is that there are many things that people would label a “meme” that is not a justification. Indeed, many people argue that what defines culture at large are learned practices that are repeated. Consider the
classic example of monkeys washing potatoes. This was a “cultural invention,” if you use the term broadly (I argue it is “proto-culture, not culture with a Capital C, which refers to the systems of justification).
And it would be a meme in most definitions. But it surely is not a justification. There are many other examples. Going back to the basketball example. Kareem Abdul Jabar’s skyhook could be a meme (if others started copying it), but the act of a skyhook is
not a justification.
Justifications exist in the medium of human language. Culture is the shared systems of meanings that people have. Societal evolution is broader than that,
although they are intimately related. Consider all the stuff Mark writes about in terms of his techno-constructivist perspective. The iPhone was a major innovation that influenced the evolution of society, but an iPhone is not a justification per se.
Justifications are the explicit intersubjective worlds that people create to form a narrative about what is happening and why. Memes (as they were conceived by Dawkins) are units in groups that get replicated, the evolution of which provides a frame for human
society in general.
Bottom line, I do believe that the concept of meme can be applied to justifications in an interesting way. However, I don’t think one could effectively classify all memes as justifications proper. I also see that Culture as justification
systems are arguably the central defining feature of human society, but they are not all of human societies (they are not the actions of humans, nor the buildings that humans live in). Behavioral investment practices (washing potatoes, skyhooks) may well evolve
or operate differently than systems of justification.
More on the evolution of truth coming.
Hope you are well.
G
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]>
On Behalf Of Mathew Jamie Dunbaugh
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2018 1:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Culture is intentional
I would add to my argument that culture evolves towards the pragmatic truth this:
The reason I'm using the term "the pragmatic truth" is because I think that it's the combination of reality and our values that select for memes.
The environment (just like biology)_plays a part in selecting memes, but a more abstract, meta reality also plays a huge part, and it's how the intentions and values of culture (fundamentally laid down in the domain of Mind) shape us according to the constraints
of reality that the fitness landscape of memes is formed.
The constraints of reality and the intentions laid down in the domain of Mind (behavioral investment theory) are the fitness landscape.
And I would argue that culture, even on the large scale, is like a super-organism in the process of learning about reality and figuring out what its intentions should be according to its basic intentions of survival
and well-being.
So we try to acquire the descriptive (correspondence and coherent) truth in order to achieve our intentions.
Am I correct in using the term "pragmatic truth" as the fitness landscape for memes, because it's where reality meets our goals?
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