The significant theoretical objections that have been raised against memetics have not received adequate defense, even though there is ongoing empirical research in this field. In this paper I identify the key objections to memetics as a viable explanatory tool in studies of cultural evolution. I attempt to defuse these objections by arguing that they fail to show the absence of replication, high-fidelity copying, or lineages in the cultural domain. I further respond to meme critics by arguing that, despite competing (...) explanations of cultural evolution, memetics has unique explanatory power. This is largely founded upon the increasing likelihood of formulating a workable fitness measure for memes, a memetic index. I conclude that memes must be integrated with psychological bias and population-dynamic approaches to cultural evolution. (shrink)
Archaeology, of all the human sciences, can dodge this problem the least, and the great virtue of Shennan’s Genes, Memes and Human History is that he confronts it directly. For though humans are now both cultural and ecological beings, it was not always so. Once our hominid ancestors had a social organisation and a material culture roughly equivalent to that of today’s chimpanzees. Chimps are not encultured in the sense that we are encultured: their social life and their ecology (...) does not depend on the accurate and extensive transmission of information from parents to offspring. It falls to archaeology to document and explain the transition from merely social hominids to encultured hominids. Archaeologists cannot escape our dual nature, for they must explain its coming into being. Thus for an evolutionary archaeologist like Shennan, the evolutionary facet of human nature and human history must be geneologically primary. For our enculturation is the product of a continuing evolutionary process grafted onto the top of a pre-existing set of ecological and social relations. (shrink)
In this paper, I argue that the adaptive fit between human cultures and their environment is persuasive evidence that some form of evolutionary mechanism has been important in driving human cultural change. I distinguish three mechanisms of cultural evolution: niche construction leading to cultural group selection; the vertical flow of cultural information from parents to their children, and the replication and spread of memes. I further argue that both cultural group selection and the vertical flow of cultural information have (...) been important. More conjecturally, I identify a potential role for meme-based cultural evolution in the explanation of the ‘human revolution’ of the last 100 000 or so years, and defuse an important objection to that explanation. Introduction Cultural groups The cultural invention of adaptive complexes Niche construction models Dual inheritance MemesMemes or minds? Conclusion. (shrink)
The dissertation criticizes two analogical applications of Darwinism to the spheres of mind and culture: the Darwinian approach to creativity and memetics. These theories rely on three basic analogies: the ontological analogy states that the basic ontological units of culture are so-called memes, which are replicators like genes; the origination analogy states that novelty in human creativity emerges in a "blind" Darwinian manner; and the explanatory units of selection analogy states that memes are "egoistic" and that they can (...) spread independently of our mind. The detailed philosophical analysis offered in the dissertation shows that these three analogies rely on either wrong or trivial statements: they provide either wrong or no new descriptions or explanations of the phenomena at hand. In Chapter One, I introduce the diverse ways, in which contemporary Darwinism is used today outside of evolutionary biology. Chapter Two explains what it means to claim that something evolves in a Darwinian manner. Chapter Three to Five address each of the three analogies separately. Darwinism applied to culture and mind, at least in the way discussed in this study, is not a dangerous idea. It leads either to wrong claims or to a re-telling in Darwinian terms of what we have already known. (shrink)
Darwinian theories of culture need to show that they improve upon the commonsense view that cultural change is explained by humans? skillful pursuit of their conscious goals. In order for meme theory to pull its weight, it is not enough to show that the development and spread of an idea is, broadly speaking, Darwinian, in the sense that it proceeds by the accumulation of change through the differential survival and transmission of varying elements. It could still be the case that (...) the best explanation of why the idea has developed and spread is the conscious pursuit of human goals. Meme theory has the potential to do explanatory work in diverse ways. It can challenge the goal-based account of cultural change directly. Other possibilities for meme theory include explaining the acquisition of our goals and showing that memes and genes evolve together, each affecting the selective forces acting on the other. Raising the question of meme theory?s explanatory payoff brings out the importance of the ?selfish-meme? idea and the idea of non-content biases. Both have the potential to challenge the claim that our goals are in the driver?s seat. In order to show that a Darwinian theory of culture is more than an idle redescription, however, it is necessary to make the case that it offers explanatory gain over its competitors, in particular over the common sense goal-based account. (shrink)
The meme is an evolutionary replicator, defined as information copied from person to person by imitation. I suggest that taking memes into account may provide a better understanding of human evolution in the following way. Memes appeared in human evolution when our ancestors became capable of imitation. From this time on two replicators, memes and genes, coevolved. Successful memes changed the selective environment, favouring genes for the ability to copy them. I have called this process memetic (...) drive. Meme-gene coevolution produced a big brain that is especially good at copying certain kinds of memes. This is an example of the more general process in which a replicator and its replication machinery evolve together. The human brain has been designed not just for the benefit of human genes, but for the replication of memes. It is a selective imitation device. (shrink)
Dennett's Consciousness Explained presents, but does not demonstrate, a fully naturalized account of consciousness that manages to leave out the very consciousness he purports to explain. If he were correct, realism and methodological individualism would collapse, as would the very enterprise of giving reasons. The metaphors he deploys actually testify to the power of metaphoric imagination that can no more be identified with the metaphors it creates than minds can be identified with memes. That latter equation, of minds with (...) meme?complexes, rests for its meaning on the existence of real minds, which are not to be equated with the thoughts they have. (shrink)
The idea of cultural evolution, coined by Daniel Dennett, suggests we might be able to formulate a Darwinian type of explanation for the adaptive 'tricks' we learn as human beings. The proposed explanation makes use of the idea of memes. That idea is examined and related to semantic units linked to the terms in a natural language. It is agreed with Dennett that these are of pivotal significance in understanding the structure of human cognition. The alternative is then explored (...) to the chaos of worddemons that Dennett appeals to in explaining why and how we think and enter into discursive relations. Beginning with certain thoughts about language games the essay moves on to consider the relations of power and knowledge that shape discursive reality and explain our subjectivities and actions. This leads to a sketch of Foucaultian theory as an advance in the philosophy of mind required to move beyond fairly gestural accounts of psychological explanation to be found in the standard biologically motivated approaches. (shrink)
Dennett (1995) argues that memes or cultural replicators are largely autonomous of genes, and that they are fairly efficacious in determining who we are and what we do. I argue that Dennett's arguments are wrong in several aspects, which we can see by analyzing processes at appropriate levels. Specifically, I argue that it is not true that we as persons are created largely by memes, that our memes are not largely independent of our genes, and that we (...) can use the universality of memes to make inferences about genetic predispositions. Finally, by suggesting an innate psychological mechanism for morality, I argue that morality may be largely the effect of genetic predispositions rather than autonomous. (shrink)
Cultural transmission in non-literate societies (including that of Homer) is first discussed, partly to test some theories of Dan Sperber, and partly to consider thetheory of memes, which is sometimes held applicable to Homeric formulae, and is considered next. After discussing Sperber's criticism of memeticism, I turn toSperber's susceptibility theory of culture, and his discussions of religion and of music. Further examples drawn from Homeric religion are found to be in tension with aspects of this theory. Two diverse interpretations (...) of susceptibility present in Sperber's text are elicited and contrasted, of which one is criticised and the other welcomed as consistent with the role of reflection, artifice and rationality in the development of culture, activities that theories of culture cannot afford to disregard. (shrink)
This commentary stresses the importance of Atran's work for the development of a new cognitive anthropology, but questions both his particular use of Dawkins's “meme” model and the general usefulness of the meme model for understanding folk-taxonomies as cultural phenomena.
The general issue to be addressed in a Mandel Lecture is how (or whether) art promotes human evolution or development. I shall understand the term "art" in its broadest connotations--perhaps broader than the American Society for Aesthetics would normally recognize: I shall understand art to include all artifice, all human invention. What I shall say will a fortiori include art in the narrower sense, but I don't intend to draw particular attention to the way my thesis applies to it.
The book examines how Darwinism has been used to explain novelty and change in culture through the Darwinian approach to creativity and the theory of memes. The first claims that creativity is based on a Darwinian process of blind variation and selection, while the latter claims that culture is based on and explained by units - memes - that are similar to genes. Both theories try to describe and explain mind and culture by applying Darwinism by way of (...) analogies. Kronfeldner shows that the analogies involved in these theories lead to claims that give either wrong or at least no new descriptions or explanations of the phenomena at issue. Whereas the two approaches are usually defended or criticized on the basis that they are dangerous for our vision of ourselves, this book takes a different perspective: it questions the acuteness of these approaches. Darwinian theory is not like a dangerous wolf, hunting for our self image. Far from it, in the case of the two analogical applications addressed in this book, Darwinian theory is shown to behave more like a disoriented sheep in wolf's clothing. - A revised and much shortened version of a dissertation (2007, Darwinism, Memes and Creativity: A Critique of Analogical Reasoning from Nature to Culture). (shrink)
When one says that cultures evolve, this can be taken as a truism, or as asserting one or another controversial, speculative, unconfirmed theory. Consider a cultural inventory at time t: it includes all the languages, practices, ceremonies, edifices, methods, tools, myths, music, art, and so forth, that compose a culture. Over time, the inventory changes. Some items disappear, some multiply, some merge, some change. (When I say some change, I mean to be neutral at this point about whether this amounts (...) to their being replaced by similar items, or their undergoing a transformation.) A verbatim record of this history would not be science; it would be a data base. That is the truism: cultures evolve over time. Now the question remains: how are we to explain the patterns found in that data base? Are there any good theories or models of cultural evolution? (shrink)
The target article contains a number of distinct but interrelated claims about the cognitive nature of folk biology based in part on cross-cultural work with urbanized Americans and forest-dwelling Maya Indians. Folk biology consists universally of a ranked taxonomy centered on essence-based generic species. This taxonomy is domain-specific, perhaps an innately determined evolutionary adaptation. Folk biology also plays a special role in cultural evolution in general, and in the development of Western biological science in particular. Even in our culture, however, (...) it retains an autonomy from other domains of thought and from science. These claims are questioned and clarified. (shrink)
Among the many vivid metaphors in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, one stands out. The understanding of how cumulative natural selection gives rise to adaptations is, Dennett says, like a “universal acid”—an idea so powerful and corrosive of conventional wisdom that it dissolves all attempts to contain it within biology. Like most good ideas, this one is very simple: Once replicators (material objects that are faithfully copied) come to exist, some will replicate more rapidly than others, leading to adaptation by natural selection. (...) The great power of the idea is that the resulting adaptations can be understood by asking what leads to efficient, rapid replication. Given that ideas seem to replicate, it is natural that Dawkins (1976, 1982), Dennett (1992), and others have explored the possibility of using this idea to explain cultural evolution. (shrink)
This essay [by Boone and Smith] brings into sharp relief a ubiquitous confusion that has dogged discussions of cultural evolution, deriving, I suspect, from a subtle misreading of Darwin's original use of artificial selection (deliberate animal breeding) and "unconscious" selection (the unwitting promotion of favored offspring of domesticated animals) as bridges to his concept of natural selection. While it is true that Darwin wished to contrast the utter lack of foresight or intention in natural selection with the deliberate goal-seeking of (...) the artificial selectors, in order to show how the natural process could in principle proceed without any mentality at all, he did not thereby establish (as many seem to have supposed) that deliberate, goal-directed, intentional selection is not a subvariety of natural selection! The short legs of dachshunds, and the huge udders of Holsteins are just as much products of natural selection as the wings of the eagle; they just evolved in an environment that included a particularly well-focussed selective pressure consisting of human agents. These phenotypes fall under the same laws of transmission genetics, the same replicator dynamics, as any others--as special and extreme cases in which the default "randomness" or noisiness of selective pressure has been greatly reduced. (shrink)
Human beings are strange animals. Although evolutionary theory has brilliantly accounted for the features we share with other creatures—from the genetic code that directs the construction of our bodies to the details of how our muscles and neurons work—we still stand out in countless ways. Our brains are exceptionally large, we alone have truly grammatical language, and we alone compose symphonies, drive cars, eat spaghetti with a fork and wonder about the origins of the universe.
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit." "From the outset [in 1976] the reviews were gratifyingly favorable and it [The Selfish Gene] was not seen, initially, as a controversial book. Its reputation for contentiousness took years to grow until, by now, it is widely regarded as a work of radical extremism. But over the very same years as the book’s reputation for (...) extremism has escalated, its actual content has seemed less and less extreme, more and more the common currency." How could it be that Dawkins’ most famous book became controversial, but not as a result of what it .. (shrink)
Among the many vivid metaphors in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, one stands out. The understanding of how cumulative natural selection gives rise to adaptations is, Dennett says, like a “universal acid”—an idea so powerful and corrosive of conventional wisdom that it dissolves all attempts to contain it within biology. Like most good ideas, this one is very simple: Once replicators (material objects that are faithfully copied) come to exist, some will replicate more rapidly than others, leading to adaptation by natural selection. (...) The great power of the idea is that the resulting adaptations can be understood by asking what leads to efficient, rapid replication. Given that ideas seem to replicate, it is natural that Dawkins (1976, 1982), Dennett (1992), and others have explored the possibility of using this idea to explain cultural evolution. (shrink)
In this paper I would like to reconstruct Patočka’s effort to give a faithful account of the phenomena, without betraying these phenomena with an objectivistic theory of perception. Only by remaining close to the things themselves will we be able to understand them as an appeal, as a call, while understanding ourselves as a response to this call. On the basis of this “ontological rehabilitation of the sensible”, which reveals Patočka’s affinity with Merleau-Ponty as much as his departure from Husserl, (...) I will criticize the idealism of Husserlian phenomenology and reconsider the a priori of correlation in a different fashion. World and subject will then find a different articulation, grounded in the ontological couple of movement and feeling. The analysis will consist of three parts: in the first part I will introduce the problematic of the opposition between phenomenological and physical space; the second part will deal with the notion of movement; the third part will concentrate on Patočka’s new account of subjectivity, the a-subjective cogito, arising precisely from the fundamental coupling of κίνησις and πάθος. Embodiment, qua original phenomenon, will be constantly present in the background of this analysis. (shrink)
The first issue raised by this paper is whether semiotics can bring any added value to ecology. A brief examination of the epistemological status of semiotics in its current forms suggests that semiotics' phenomenological macroconcepts (which are inherited from various theological and philosophical traditions) are incommensurate with the complexity of the sciences comprising ecology and are too reductive to usefully map the microprocesses through which organisms evolve and interact. However, there are at least two grounds on which interfacing semiotics with (...) ecology may prove to be scientifically productive: (a) the very looseness of semiotic discourse can be an important catalyser for multidisciplinary interactions, an important condition for the emergence of truly holistic ecology; (b) the present semiotic conceptual apparatus is not carved in stone. All its notions, frames of reference and types of reasoning can evolve in contact with the problems encountered in evolutionary ecological research. Semiotics, as an open-ended epistemological project, remains a proactive intellectual resource. The second issue raised by this paper is precisely to call attention to the opportunity provided by recent developments for rethinking and furthering semiotic inquiry. An attempt is made to show that counterintuitive theories such as memetics and new frontiers in teclmology such as nanotechnology, could help recast ecosentioticsalong more intellectually exciting lines of inquiry than the mere rewriting of ecological discourse in terms of the traditional semiotic macroconcepts. It goes without saying that memetics and nanotechology are not presented here as definitive solutions but simply as indicative of possible directions toward acomprehensive evolutionary ecosentiotics that would radically transform the basis of the 20th century sentiotic discourse and its ideological agenda. (shrink)
Abstract The word ‘meme’ was first used by Richard Dawkins (Dawkins, 1976)1 in the sense of a replicator to introduce the idea of cultural transmission through the process of imitation, just as genes are responsible for the evolution of organisms. Following Dawkins several writers came forth to have a closer look at ‘meme’. The consensus was that this was a fascinating way of explaining cultural evolution and transmission; that meme is the basic unit of (cultural) information whose existence influences events (...) so as to make more copies of itself (Brodie, 1996).2 The book which got most attention in this line of literature wasThe Meme Machine (Blackmore, 1993),3 which favours the idea that culture, like biology, evolves through the process of variation, selection and replication. Something striking in Blackmore’s thesis is that emotions and attitudes do not count as memes since they are subjective and never get passed on. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02780405?LI=true. (shrink)
For a solid quarter century Paul Churchland and I have been wheeling around in the space of work on consciousness, and though from up close it may appear that we =ve been rather vehemently opposed to each other =s position, from the bird =s eye view, we are moving in a rather tight spiral within the universe of contested views, both staunch materialists, interested in the same phenomena and the same empirical theories of those phenomena, but differing only over where (...) the main chance lies for progress. (shrink)
In his critique of my recent book, Breaking the Spell, Alister McGrath is pounding on an open door. Yes, of course, scientific ideas are memes and atheism is a meme. That’s not the point. The point is not to criticize anything by calling it a meme. On the contrary, it is to provide an explanatory basis. So, of course, psychologist and memeticist Susan Blackmore was right to say that atheism is a meme.
Joseph Henrich and Richard McElreath begin their survey of theories of cultural evolution with a striking historical example. They contrast the fate of the Bourke and Wills expedition — an attempt to explore some of the arid areas of inland Australia — with the routine survival of the local aboriginals in exactly the same area. That expedition ended in failure and death, despite the fact that it was well equipped, and despite the fact that those on the expedition were tough (...) and experienced. For survival in such areas depended on accumulated local knowledge. The locals had learned how detoxify seeds before making bread from them, and how to catch the local fish. Bourke and Wills and their companions lacked this local knowledge, and died as a result (Henrich and McElreath 2003). (shrink)
Setting aside the problems of recognising consciousness in a machine, this article considers what would be needed for a machine to have human-like conscious- ness. Human-like consciousness is an illusion; that is, it exists but is not what it appears to be. The illusion that we are a conscious self having a stream of experi- ences is constructed when memes compete for replication by human hosts. Some memes survive by being promoted as personal beliefs, desires, opinions and pos- (...) sessions, leading to the formation of a memeplex (or selfplex). Any machine capa- ble of imitation would acquire this type of illusion and think it was conscious. Robots that imitated humans would acquire an illusion of self and consciousness just as we do. Robots that imitated each other would develop their own separate languages, cultures and illusions of self. Distributed seflplexes in large networks of machines are also possible. Unanswered questions include what remains of consciousness without memes, and whether artificial meme machines can ever transcend the illusion of self consciousness. (shrink)
This paper describes a computational model of how ideas, or memes, evolve through the processes of variation, selection, and replication. Every iteration, each neural-network based agent in an artificial society has the opportunity to acquire a new meme, either through 1) INNOVATION, by mutating a previously-learned meme, or 2) IMITATION, by copying a meme performed by a neighbor. Imitation, mental simulation, and using past experience to bias mutation all increase the rate at which fitter memes evolve. Memes (...) at epistatic loci converged more slowly than memes at over- or underdominant loci. The higher the ratio of innovation to imitation, the greater the meme diversity, and the higher the fitness of the fittest meme. Optimization is fastest for the society as a whole with an innovation to imitation ratio of 2:1, but diversity is comprimized. (shrink)
Differences in mutation rates, transmission chain-length, phenotypic manifestations, or the relative complexity of the mental representations in which they are embedded do not distinguish between “core” (intramodular) and “developing” (intermodular) memes, as Atran suggests. Dividing memes into types seems premature when our knowledge of mental representation is as imprecise as the unit of biological inheritance was in Darwin's time.
The ‘marketplace of ideas’ is an influential metaphor with widespread currency in debates about freedom of speech. We explore a number of ways competition between ideas might be described as occurring in a marketplace and find that none support the use of the metaphor. We suggest that an alternative metaphor, that of the ‘garden of ideas’, may offer more productive insights into issues surrounding the regulation of speech.
All around us the techno-memes are proliferating, and gearing up to take control; not that they realise it; they are just selfish replicators doing what selfish replicators do – getting copied whenever and wherever they can, regardless of the consequences. In this case they are using us human meme machines as their first stage copying machinery, until something better comes along. Artificial meme machines are improving all the time, and the step that will change everything is when these machines (...) become self-replicating. Then they will no longer need us. Whether we live or die, or whether the planet is habitable for us or not, will be of no consequence for their further evolution. (shrink)
Meme replication is described as a 4-stage process, consisting of assimilation, retention, expression and transmission. The effect of different objective, subjective, intersubjective and meme-centered selection criteria on these different stages is discussed.
Charles Darwin und seine Erben wendeten die Theorie der Evolution biologischer Arten auch auf Kultur an. Kultur evolviere wie die Natur auf Darwinistische Weise. Die sog. Memtheorie, vertreten von verschiedenen Autoren auf der Basis des Darwinistischen Genselektionismus, ist eine Spielart einer solchen analogen Anwendung. Dieser Artikel kritisiert drei zentrale Aussagen der Memtheorie: (i) dass es Einheiten der Kultur – Meme – gibt, die analog zu Genen zu verstehen sind, (ii) dass Meme, in Analogie zu Genen, Replikatoren sind, und (iii) dass (...) Meme als Einheiten der kulturellen Selektion auf die gleiche Art wie Gene 'egoistisch' sein können. Nach einer Einführung in die Memtheorie in Teil 1, werden diese drei Thesen in Teil 2 als entweder falsch oder trivial entlarvt. Dieser kritische Teil soll vor allem zeigen, dass die Memtheorie keine 'gefährliche Idee' ist, die das bisher in den Geistes- Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften tradierte Verständnis von Geist und Kultur herausfordern kann. Im Gegenteil, im besten Fall re-formuliert die Memtheorie lediglich Bekanntes in evolutionärer Sprache und ist in diesem Sinne trivial. In Teil 3 wird die Perspektive gewechselt: Nicht mehr der Gehalt, sondern die Funktion der Memtheorie, v.a. im Kontext interdisziplinärer Verständigung, soll betrachtet werden. Denn trotz der Kritik der drei Kernthesen kann die Memtheorie eine kommunikative und somit produktive Rolle zwischen den 'zwei Kulturen' der Wissenschaften spielen. (shrink)
The science of memetics faces a serious problem. The concept of the meme emerged from evolutionary biology and the theory of replicators, and within this context it is well understood, if highly controversial. But out on the web, and in popular discourse, the word ‘meme’ is horribly abused. It is confused with ‘idea’ or ‘concept’ or treated as something ethereal or non-material floating about quite separate from behaviours and artefacts.
ABSTRACT: A popular strategylor resolving Kim 's exclusion problem is to suggest that mental and physical property tropes are identical despite the non-identity of the mental and physical properties themselves. I argue that mental and physical tropes can be identified without losing the dispositional character of mentality only if a dual-character hypothesis regarding the intrinsic characters of tropes is endorsed. But even with this assumption, the causaI efficacy of the wrong dispositions is secured.RÉSUMÉ: On résout habituellement le problème de l'exclusion (...) de Kim en suggérant que les tropes de propriété mentale et physique sont identiques en dépit de la non-identité des propriétés mentales et physiques elles-mêmes. Je soutiens que les tropes mentaux et physiques peuvent être ramenés l'un à l'autre sans perdre le caractère dispositionnel de la pensée, à la condition d'approuver une hypothèse sur la nature double des caractères intrinsèques des tropes. Même en suivant cette proposition, l'efficacité causale des dispositions fausses est maintenue. (shrink)
We suggest that human culture exhibits key Darwinian evolutionary properties, and argue that the structure of a science of cultural evolution should share fundamental features with the structure of the science of biological evolution. This latter claim is tested by outlining the methods and approaches employed by the principal subdisciplines of evolutionary biology and assessing whether there is an existing or potential corresponding approach to the study of cultural evolution. Existing approaches within anthropology and archaeology demonstrate a good match with (...) the macroevolutionary methods of systematics, paleobiology, and biogeography, whereas mathematical models derived from population genetics have been successfully developed to study cultural microevolution. Much potential exists for experimental simulations and field studies of cultural microevolution, where there are opportunities to borrow further methods and hypotheses from biology. Potential also exists for the cultural equivalent of molecular genetics in “social cognitive neuroscience,” although many fundamental issues have yet to be resolved. It is argued that studying culture within a unifying evolutionary framework has the potential to integrate a number of separate disciplines within the social sciences. (Published Online November 9 2006) Key Words: cultural anthropology; cultural evolution; cultural transmission; culture; evolution; evolutionary archaeology; evolutionary biology; gene-culture coevolution; memes; social learning. (shrink)
Our response contains a definition of niche construction, illustrations of how it changes the evolutionary process, and clarifications of our conceptual model. We argue that the introduction of niche construction into evolutionary thinking earns its keep; we illustrate this argument in our discussion of rates of genetic and cultural evolution, memes and phenogenotypes, creativity, the EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptedness), and group selection.
Memes are not best understood as semantic information stored in brains, but rather, as whatever is imitated or copied in culture. Whereas other theories treat culture as an adaptation, for memetics it is a parasite turned symbiont that evolves for its own sake. Memetics is essential for understanding today's information explosion and the future evolution of culture. (Published Online November 9 2006).
Building on work by Popper, Schweber, Nozick, Sober, and others in a still-growing literature, I explore here the conceptual kinship (not the hackneyed ideological association) between Adam Smith''s ''invisible hand'' and Darwinian natural selection. I review the historical ties, and examine Ullman-Margalit''s ''constraints'' on invisible-hand accounts, which I later re-apply to natural selection, bringing home the close relationship. These theories share a ''parent'' principle, itself neither biological no politico-economic, that collective order and well-being can emerge parsimoniously from the dispersed (...) (inter)action of individuals. The invisible hand operates on ''memes'' the way natural selection operates on genes. Like Darwin''s concept, it brings together traditional opposites, ''nature'' and ''selection,'' forming a saltation-mitigating transition between biological instinct and full-blown conscious design. Herschel''s criterion of confirmation, which Darwin long strove to satisfy, is itself an invisible hand-like meme – a ''Midas effect'' revealing and rewarding the fittest theories, Darwin''s and Smith''s emphatically among them. (shrink)
l examine the “omniscient interpreter” (OI) argument against scepticism that Donald Davidson published in 1977 only to retract it twenty-two years later. I argue that the argument’s persuasiveness has been underestimated. I defend it against the charges that Davidson assumes the actual existence of an OI and that Davidson’s other philosophical commitments are incompatible with the very conceivability of an OI. The argument’s surface implausibility derivesfrom Davidson’s suggestion that an OI would attribute beliefs using the same methods as afallible human (...) interpreter. But this problem can be remedied via the adoption of an ambiguity theory of belief.J’examine l’argument de “l’interprète omniscient” (IO) contre les objections sceptiques formulées par Donald Davidson en 1977, qu’il a rétractées vingt-deux ans plus tard. Je soutiens que la force de cet argument a été sous-estimée. Je m’inscris en faux contre les critiques voulant que Davidson ait supposé l’existence effective de l’IO, et que les autres croyances philosophiques de Davidson soientincompatibles avec la possibilité de concevoir l’idée d’un IO. Si l’argument semble peu plausible à prime abord, c’est que Davidson a suggéré qu’un IO attribuait les croyances en utilisant les mêmes méthodes qu’un interprète humain faillible. On peut remédier à ce problème en adoptant une théorie de l’ambiguïté des croyances. (shrink)
"It's all in the genes." Is this true, and if so, what is all in the genes? Genes: A Philosophical Inquiry is a crystal clear and highly informative guide to a debate none of us can afford to ignore. Beginning with a much-needed overview of the relationship between science and technology, Gordon Graham lucidly explains and assesses the most important and controversial aspects of the genes debate: Darwinian theory and its critics, the idea of the "selfish" gene, evolutionary psychology, (...)memes, genetic screening and modification, including the risks of cloning and "designer" babies. The author considers areas often left out of the genes debate, such as the environmental risks of genetic engineering and how we should think about genes in the wider context of debates on science, knowledge and religion. Gordon Graham asks whether genetic engineering might be introducing God back into the debate and whether the risks of a brave new genetic world outweigh the potential benefits. Essential reading for anyone interested in science, technology, and philosophy, Genes: A Philosophical Inquiry is ideal for those wanting to find out more about the ethical implications of genetics and the future of biotechnology. (shrink)
We discuss the concept of a cardinal number and its history, focussing on Cantor's work and its reception. J'ay fait icy peu pres comme Euclide, qui ne pouvant pas bien >faire< entendre absolument ce que c'est que raison prise dans le sens des Geometres, definit bien ce que c'est que memes raisons. (Leibniz) 1.
Au cours des années 1970 (qui furent, dans plusieurs pays, celles de la libéralisation de Vavortement), la question du statut de Vembryon humain fut surtout débattue en termes de libertés individuelles : droit des femmes à disposer d'elles-mêmes, vs. ‘droit à la vie' du fœtus caché dans le corps de sa mère. Dans les années 1980, avec l'application des techniques de procréation ‘artificielle' au traitement de la stérilité humaine, l'accent est mis sur une responsabilité collective à l'égard de l'embryon séparé, (...) conçu en éprouvette, mis au congélateur, convoité par la recherche lorsqu'il n'est pas rendu à un utérus maternel. « Il est urgent de déterminer le degré de sa protection juridique », dit l'Assemblée parlementaire du Conseil de l'Europe (Recommandation 1046, 1986). Mais il n'existe pas de consensus sur les fondements philosophiques d'une telle protection. Le but du présent article n'est pas d'ajouter une thèse de plus à une littérature internationale déjà considérable, mais de situer les positions et arguments en présence, pour éclairer un débat qui touche, entre autres, aux sources du respect dû à la personne humaine. The European Parliament has recently expressed the view that human embryos and fetuses are endowed with human dignity, and that a definition of the degree to which they should be protected by law is urgently needed (Recommendation 1046, 1986). There is however no consensus on the philosophical grounds for such a protection, or on the degree to which embryos and fetuses should be treated as persons. This paper contrasts the biological (natural) and ethical (cultural) criteria of person hood and their underlying ontologies, examines the arguments in favor of taking a pragmatic line rather trying to decide when human beings become persons, and suggests that the pragmatic attitude in fact implies a developmental ontology. (shrink)
Atran's account of cultural transmission can be further refined by considering constraints from early-developed, domain-specific intuitive ontological understanding. These suggest specific predictions about the cultural survival of “memes,” depending on the way they activate intuitive understanding. There is no general dynamic of cultural inheritance; only complex predictions for domain-specific competencies that cut across cultural domains.
Employing a well-known local regularity from macroeconomics, the Phillips curve, I examine Woodward’s ([2000], [2003]) account of the explanatory power of such historically restricted generalizations and the mathematical models with which they are sometimes associated. The article seeks to show that, pace Woodward, to be explanatory such generalizations need to be underwritten by more fundamental ones, and that rational choice theory would not avail in this case to provide the required underwriting. Examining how such explanatory restricted regularities are underwritten in (...) biology—by unrestricted Darwinian regularities—provides the basis for an argument that Darwinian regularities serve the same function in human affairs. The general argument for this claim requires, inter alia , that we accept some version or other of a theory of memes. The article concludes by clearing the field of some prominent objections to the existence of memes, and extracting some policy implications from the persistence and acceleration of arms races in human affairs. (shrink)
Jaegwon Kim définissait une propriété intrinsèque comme une propriété compatible avec le fait que l'objet ne serait accompagné d'aucun autre être contingent. Mais cela impliquerait que la solitude serait une propriété intrinsèque, or c'est une propriété extrinsèque. Les auteurs définissent une propriété intrinsèque de base comme une propriété indépendante de la solitude et de l'accompagnement et qui n'est ni une propriété disjonctive ni une négation de propriété disjonctive. Deux doubles intrinsèques sont des objets qui ont toutes les mêmes propriétés intrinsèques (...) de base. Une propriété intrinsèque peut dès lors être définie comme une propriété qui ne peut jamais différer entre deux doubles. Cette définition est ensuite appliquée à différents problèmes. Si les lois de la nature sont absolument nécessaires ou qu'un être nécessaire existe, de nombreuses connexions deviendraient alors des propriétés intrinsèques et il sera nécessaire de conserver un sens à la possibilité que ces connexions nécessaires auraient pu ne pas exister. Les propriétés dispositionnelles seront intrinsèques ou non, selon la conception des lois de la nature. Il est possible de suivre les conséquences de la définition, en amendant éventuellement d'autres concepts. La définition peut aussi s'appliquer aux relations. Les auteurs comparent aussi leur définition à d'autres définitions antérieurement données par David Lewis et Peter Vallentyne. Jaegwon Kim had defined an intrinsic property as a property that does not imply that the object is accompanied by another contingent being. But this would imply that loneliness would be an intrinsic property, whereas it is an extrinsic property. The authors define a basic intrinsic property as a property independent from accompaniment or loneliness and which is neither a disjunctive property nor a negation of a disjunctive property. Two intrinsic duplicates are objects which have all the same basic intrinsic properties. An intrinsic property can be defined as a property which can never differ between duplicates. This definition is then applied to different problems. If laws of nature are necessary or if a necessary being exists, many connections will turn out to be intrinsic properties and it will be necessary to keep a sense of possibility according to which those necessary connections could have not obtained. Dispositions will be intrinsic or extrinsic depending on the conception of the laws of nature. It is possible to follow this definition of intrinsicness if one amends other concepts. The definition can also be applied to relations. The article ends by comparing this definition with previous ones by David Lewis and Peter Vallentyne. (shrink)
ABSTRACT: A popular strategylor resolving Kim 's exclusion problem is to suggest that mental and physical property tropes are identical despite the non-identity of the mental and physical properties themselves. I argue that mental and physical tropes can be identified without losing the dispositional character of mentality only if a dual-character hypothesis regarding the intrinsic characters of tropes is endorsed. But even with this assumption, the causaI efficacy of the wrong dispositions is secured.RÉSUMÉ: On résout habituellement le problème de l'exclusion (...) de Kim en suggérant que les tropes de propriété mentale et physique sont identiques en dépit de la non-identité des propriétés mentales et physiques elles-mêmes. Je soutiens que les tropes mentaux et physiques peuvent être ramenés l'un à l'autre sans perdre le caractère dispositionnel de la pensée, à la condition d'approuver une hypothèse sur la nature double des caractères intrinsèques des tropes. Même en suivant cette proposition, l'efficacité causale des dispositions fausses est maintenue. (shrink)
The implications that Steels & Belpaeme's (S&B's) models have for memetics are discussed. The results demonstrate the power of memes (in this case colour words) to influence both concept formation, and the creation of innate concepts. They provide further evidence for the memetic drive hypothesis, with implications for the evolution of the human brain and for group differences in categorisation.
Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet of the University of California in San Francisco asked volunteers to do exactly that. A clock allowed the subjects to note exactly when they decided to act, and by fitting electrodes to their wrists, Libet could time the start of the action. More electrodes on their scalps recorded a particular brain wave pattern called the readiness potential, which occurs just before any complex action and is associated with the brain planning its next move.
ABSTRACT: This article shows how the "problem of moral luck" and Sartre's concept of "bad faith" are mutually illuminating, since both have to do with confusions about how much we control, or are controlled by, our situations. I agree with three recent proposals that the problem of moral luck results from certain epistemic malfunctions. However, I argue that the problem cannot be dissolved by overcoming these malfunctions because they are rooted in bad faith. Against the currently dominant interpretation, I argue (...) that bad faith is an inescapable condition of human being because, while we are both free and factical, we can only exist as one or the other atonce (much as a "duck-rabbit" drawing can only be seen as duck or rabbit) , thus always keeping an aspect of our nature hidden (though in plain sight) from ourselves.RÉSUMÉ: Cet article montre comment le «problème de la chance morale» et le concept de la «mauvaise foi» de Sartre sont révélateurs l'un l'autre, puisque tous les deux concernent une confusion au sujet du niveau de contrôle que nous avons sur nossituations, ou que nos situations exercent sur nous. Je suis en accord avec trois propositions récenies qui décrivent que le problème de la chance morale résulte de certains défauts de fonctionnement épistémique. Par contre, je soutiens que le problème ne peut pas être résolu en surmontant ces défauts, parce qu'ils sont fondés sur la mauvaise foi. À contre-courant de l'interprétation dominante actuelle, j'affirme que la mauvaise foi est un état inèvitable de l'être humain, parce que, bien que nous soyons libres et factices, nous pouvons seulement exister en tant qu'un ou l'autre au même moment. Ainsi, nous gardons toujours un aspect de notre nature cachée (quoiqu'en pleine vue) de nous-mêmes. (shrink)
The question of whether religion is adaptive or not is debated with much vigor and passion, but the question as usually posed is much too simplistic to be answerable. Religions are extremely diverse. What is true of one often will not apply to another. Given religions are complex systems of beliefs, emotions, rituals, moral injunctions, and social institutions and organizations. Some parts may be adaptive and others maladaptive. We know that cultural evolutionary processes can, in theory, lead to adaptations, maladaptations, (...) and neutral variation. Religion is an appreciable fraction of the totality of culture, and any appreciable fraction of culture is virtually certain to exhibit all three. The list of proposed functions and dysfunctions of religions is long. The bulk of the empirical information that bears on the consequences of religions for individuals and groups is largely non-quantitative or evaluates only selected aspects of religious belief. To appreciate some of the complexity we must contend with, consider the role of natural selection on religious variation. Selection might act on religious ideas directly, favoring parasitic religious memes (which would be adaptive in their own terms of course). If a religion increases individual health and well-being or promotes fertility, religious variants that increase ordinary individual or inclusive fitness will be favored by selection, perhaps to the detriment of the collective welfare. If some religious variants promote intra-group cooperation, they may be favored by group selection. But cooperative groups may compete violently or prey upon other groups in ways that are maladaptive judged from either the individual or the meta-group level. The decision-making forces by which human individuals and collectivities influence the evolution of religion can likewise have adaptive and maladaptive outcomes at different levels of organization, all depending upon the details of the situation. Much of the variation between religious is likely to be neutral symbolic variation with no fitness consequences at all.. (shrink)
An examination of Hull's claims about the nature of interactors, replicators and selection, with special attention to how the genetic material realizes the first two types, and a critique of Hull's attempt to apply the theory of natural selection to the explanation of scientific change, and in particular the succession of theories. I conclude that difficulties attending the molecular instantiation of Hull's theory are vastly increased when it comes to be applied to memes.
L'acte de prescription de normes de conduite, et notamment de normes juridiques, est-il un acte « normatif » , un simple acte de dire des normes, de prononcer des paroles ayant objectivement, de par elles-mêmes, valeur d'énoncés de normes, et notamment de normes juridiques ? C'est ce que paraît suggérer l'expression même « dire - édicter - le droit » , et c'est de fait le point de vue généralement développé par la théorie éthique et juridique. Cette étude montre qu'il (...) y a là une aberration au sens propre du terme, c'est-à-dire un écart par rapport à la réalité. (shrink)
To be human is to imitate. This is a strong claim, and a contentious one. It implies that the turning point in hominid evolution was when our ancestors first began to copy each other’s sounds and actions, and that this new ability was responsible for transforming an ordinary ape into one with a big brain, language, a curious penchant for music and art, and complex cumulative culture. The argument, briefly, is this. All evolutionary processes depend on information being copied with (...) variation and selection. Most living things on earth are the product of evolution based on the copying, varying and selection of genes. However, once humans began to imitate they provided a new kind of copying and so let loose an evolutionary process based on the copying, varying and selection of memes. This new evolutionary system co-evolved with the old to turn us into more than gene machines. We, alone on this planet, are also meme machines. We are selective imitation devices in an evolutionary arms race with a new replicator. This is why we are so different from other creatures; this is why we alone have big brains, language and complex culture. There are many contentious issues here; the nature and status of memes, the validity of the concept of a replicator, the difference between this and other theories of gene-culture co-evolution, and whether memetics really is necessary, as I believe it is, to explain human nature. I shall outline the basic principles of memetics, show how memes could have driven human evolution, and consider some of these questions along the way. (shrink)
Pain is not a primitive sensory event but rather a complexperception and a process by which a person interacts with theinternal and external environments, constructs meaning, andengages in action. Because folk beliefs are central to meaning,folk concepts of pain play multiple causal roles in a painpatient's interaction with health care providers and others.In every case, the notion of pain is linked to a goal-directedbehavior that is useful to the person. The wide variation inconcepts of pain across individuals suffering with painunderscores (...) the richness and complexity of the pain experience.In some cases involving chronic pain, the patient may form amaladaptive cluster of behaviors around the concept of pain.Patient beliefs and expectations are an important part of manychronic pain syndromes, and patients can benefit fromintervention directed at revising the individual's folk model of pain. Memetics offers a framework for identifying the memesthat patients hold and determining whether patient memes fitor clash with provider memes. (shrink)
We should not understand in this title "What does not return to the same" the announcement of a return to Levinas, but rather of what the word or concept of "return" could mean in Levinas's work. There is perhaps no better way of misunderstanding Levinas than imposing on his philosophical gesture the interpretative grid of a "horizon of return". This article will attempt to dismantle the strategies of reading which stipulate that Levinas's philosophy is one of "return". In this way (...) we shall reveal the complexity of Levinasian thought, and that, beyond the numerous slogans, there are the ones of a "return" or of its simple contrary, the ones of a "philosophy of exile". (shrink)
From a developmental and comparative perspective, folk biology is a core “meme.” The universality and resistance to change in such core “memes” may be a function of the developmental timing of cognitive domains during childhood. Evidence from cognitive development in humans, monkeys, and apes is discussed. Suggestions for a developmental research program are offered.
L’étude présente, d’une part, les fonctions de l’imagination décelées dans le Guide et, d’autre part, la liaison entre la faculté de l’imagination et la perfection humaine dans le contexte extraordinaire de la prophétie. La caractérisation de l’imagination offerte par le traité de Maïmonide souligne la nature médiatrice de cette faculté décrite comme «faculté du corps / corporelle», toujours liée à la matière. Toute représentation suppose l’intermédiarité du corps. La fonction exceptionnelle de l’imagination survient pendant la prophétie dont les représentations traduisent (...) cette fois l’intelligible, en utilisant les mêmes images qui transposent d’une manière ordinaire le sensible. Il faut savoir distinguer les deux genres de représentations pour interpréter adéquatement le texte biblique.La perfection humaine dépend de la perfection de toutes les facultés de l’âme (et du corps), séparément et ensemble, mais elle est atteinte seulement par le prophète. (shrink)
Robert M. Adams claims that Leibniz’s rehahilitation of the doctrine of incomplete entities is the most sustained etlort to integrate a theory of corporeal substances into the theory of simple substances. I discuss alternative interpretations of the theory of incomplete entities suggested by Marleen Rozemond and Pauline Phemister. Against Rozemond, I argue that the scholastic doctrine of incomplete entities is not dependent on a hylomorphic analysis of corporeal substances, and therefore can be adapted by Leibniz. Against Phemister, I claim that (...) Leibniz did not reduce the passivity of corporeal substances to modifications of passive aspects of simple substances. Against Adams, I argue that Leibniz’s theory of the incompleteness of the mind cannot be understood adequately without understanding the reasons for his assertion that matter is incomplete without minds. Composite substances are seen as requisites for the reality of the material world, and therefore cannot be eliminated from Leibniz’s metaphysics. (shrink)
For two million years, members of Homo sapiens (and the species from which it emerged) have shaped to their purpose almost everything they found in nature. Yet we are still reproducing by sex. This is a poor method of conceiving human beings, because it surrenders many of the future child’s characteristics to luck. Both parents and children are better off the more parents control their children’s genotypes. The emerging technologies that enable this do not reduce free will and will not (...) eliminate human characteristics (such as certain forms of “mental illness”) that are worth preserving; rather, they will match types of children to parents who can appreciate them. Technological reproduction, not reproduction by sex, should be regarded as truly human. It is the application of the power of thought to human reproduction, and, like the application of that power to external objects and to memes, it will enhance our capacities. (shrink)
American Political Science Association Meeting, New Orleans, 1985. Belew, R. K. "E,volut,ioi1. Leariiing, and Culture: Computational Metaphors for Adaptive Algorithms? Complex Systems 4 (1990}: 11-49. Banner, J. T. The Evolution of Culture in Animals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univcrsitv Press. 1980.
