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Ophis
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The Fatal Conceit
« on: 2003-02-23 17:09:15 » |
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I recently started reading Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit - The Errors of Socialism" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226320669/churchOfVirusA) and was surprised to find out how closely related his definition of cultural evolution comes to Dawkins' definition of the evolution of memes. I had to look at the book's bibliography to see if Hayek had been inspired by Dawkins (The Fatal Conceit was written in 1989) but although many biology authors are cited, there is no mention of Dawkins in the bibliography.
In the first chapter, entitled "Between Instinct and Reason", Hayek points out many similarities between cultural evolution and genetic evolution. Hayek seems to struggle at finding a classification for cultural evolution, which he sees as being neither natural, which he defines as phenomena that limit themselves to genetics, nor un-natural, phenomena that are brought about through reason and mindful design.
Quote:| "The similarity of the order of human interaction to that of biological organisms has of course often been noticed. But so long as we were unable to explain how the orderly structures of nature were formed, as long as we lacked an account of evolutionary selection, the analogies percieved were of limited help. With evolutionary selection, however, we are now supplied with a key to a general understanding of the formation of order in life, mind, and interpersonal relations." (p.144) |
Hayek classifies cultural evolution to be between instinct (genetics) and reason (intellect), not unlike memes, which Dawkins describes as a new form of replicators operating independently from both genes and intellect.
Hayek points out that it is outside mankind's intellectual ability to determine the course of cultural evolution, including the evolution of our societies, economies, customs, and traditions. The idea that man is able to shape his cultural evolution according to his wishes and plans is what Hayek calls the Fatal Conceit.
Hayek uses this insight to explain how the concepts (memes) of free markets and trade have evolved over time independently of anyone's particular planning or design. Although he doesn't use this terminology (he calls it the "spontaneous extended order"), Hayek explains how individual humans have carried these memes through time and civilisations simply by going along with their selfish businesses, without really being aware of the meme's incredible achievements (trade and markets) and importance to the survival of civilisations.
I recommend "The Fatal Conceit" to anyone who has an interest in memetics, politics, and economics (which, incidentally, seems to include most virians).
Quote:| "morals, including, especially, our institutions of property, freedom and justice, are not a creation of man's reason but a distinct endowment conferred upon him by cultural evolution." |
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David Lucifer
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Enlighten me.
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Re:The Fatal Conceit
« Reply #1 on: 2003-02-24 11:17:02 » |
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Quote from: Ophis on 2003-02-23 17:09:15
Hayek points out that it is outside mankind's intellectual ability to determine the course of cultural evolution, including the evolution of our societies, economies, customs, and traditions. The idea that man is able to shape his cultural evolution according to his wishes and plans is what Hayek calls the Fatal Conceit.
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If Hayek is right then this project, the Church of Virus, is doomed from the start. Did you find his arguments compelling?
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Ophis
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Re:The Fatal Conceit
« Reply #2 on: 2003-02-24 14:08:40 » |
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Hayek's arguments are very convincing and when reading my post, I realize that it is my description of Hayek's Fatal Conceit that is a little off. Instead of saying that man cannot shape his cultural evolution, I should have said that man connot control his cultural evolution. Indeed, shaping mankind's cultural evolution is the goal of many organizations.
One of Hayek's key point in both "The Fatal Conceit" and "The Constitution of Liberty" is that culture, the economy, and other such spontaneous human organisations are too complex to be controlled or even planned by a centralized organization (like a government, a corporation, or a church). Hayek calls this spontaneous organization of human activities the extended order.
Hayek explains that the forces that shape the growth of the extended order (society) are of an evolutionary nature and rely, for their evolution, on a multitude of decisions made by each individual that takes part of a society. These individuals cannot be forcedly controlled, lest we destroy the very evolutionary nature of the order.
Designing an "ideal" extended order is as impossible as selecting an "ideal" set of human genes (or memes). There is no such "ideal" selection. The ideal selection can only be so in a very static, specific, and sanitized context. Evolution requires options and can only happen in a diversified environment. In Hayek's socio-politico-economic context, this diversity is the requirement that justifies the need for liberty.
To come back to your comment, this doesn't mean that the CoV cannot or should not battle for the propagation of its memetic messages. What it does mean is that the CoV cannot control how the memes it propagates are going to affect the people who carry them.
It also means that an organisation would be abusive if it tried to force the acceptance of its memes through coersive methods; even if successful, the result of such coersion would most likely not be what was originally planned by the agressor because of the sheer complexity involved in any planned social change. The unwanted impacts would then require some more coersive activities and soon enough, the extended order would stagnate because of a need for over-plannification, and ultimately collapse under its own weight.
To conclude this, if I may try to paraphrase Hayek's Fatal Conceit meme once again, I'd say that mankind cannot design his cultural evolution.
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rhinoceros
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My point is ...
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Re:The Fatal Conceit
« Reply #3 on: 2003-02-24 15:46:56 » |
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[Ophis]
Hayek points out that it is outside mankind's intellectual ability to determine the course of cultural evolution, including the evolution of our societies, economies, customs, and traditions. The idea that man is able to shape his cultural evolution according to his wishes and plans is what Hayek calls the Fatal Conceit.
[rhinoceros]
What is cultural evolution anyway? Who or what are its agents? Isn't what Hayek calls "constructivist rationalism" a player? Isn't what Hayek calls "socialism" also a player? Isn't the State a player as well?
There have been social engineering projects. Aren't the corporations and the World Bank making specific plans for shaping certain aspects of the future? Haven't there been specific local nation-building projects, planned and executed? Haven't advertising, marketing, even the availability of technology been changing customs and traditions?
[Ophis]
Hayek uses this insight to explain how the concepts (memes) of free markets and trade have evolved over time independently of anyone's particular planning or design. Although he doesn't use this terminology (he calls it the "spontaneous extended order"), Hayek explains how individual humans have carried these memes through time and civilisations simply by going along with their selfish businesses, without really being aware of the meme's incredible achievements (trade and markets) and importance to the survival of civilisations.
[rhinoceros]
Yes, people have been going about their business while the forces of economy were spontaneously at work. A good start, but things change. Since political economy appeared, economic engineering projects abound. That is when the memes get back and become a player.
By the way, if I read the Amazon reviews of the book correctly, there is some talk about the care of the state for the poor usually associated with "socialism" as a result of primitive emotional forces. If so, I wonder why Hayek didn't try to see social care for the poor as an evolutionary advantage -- possibly making the individual feel more secure or alleviating harmful social tensions.
[Ophis quoting Hayek]
"morals, including, especially, our institutions of property, freedom and justice, are not a creation of man's reason but a distinct endowment conferred upon him by cultural evolution."
[rhinoceros]
In reality, someone stepped in at some point in time and forced the members of his tribe not to steal each other's stuff, probably after beating the crap out of the opposition, and after that his tribe survived the evolutionary process. There were always human agents thinking of stories and morals, or designing and writing down more successful or less successful laws. Although you can find consistent patterns of what survived cultural evolution all over the world, human agents with competing ideas were always there, doing what was right for them.
Historical trends have to be separated from the actions of the agents. If I want to know where I stand, I need the big picture. If I want to make a difference, I have to act as an agent.
***Editing to add this note: I posted this before reading Ophis' second post where he clarified some points.
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Ophis
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Re:The Fatal Conceit
« Reply #4 on: 2003-02-24 22:46:25 » |
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Quote:[rhinoceros]
What is cultural evolution anyway? Who or what are its agents? Isn't what Hayek calls "constructivist rationalism" a player? Isn't what Hayek calls "socialism" also a player? Isn't the State a player as well?
There have been social engineering projects. Aren't the corporations and the World Bank making specific plans for shaping certain aspects of the future? Haven't there been specific local nation-building projects, planned and executed? Haven't advertising, marketing, even the availability of technology been changing customs and traditions?
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Cultural evolution is the on-going process that results from individuals interacting with one another; in meme-talk, it is the result of individuals acting, and by so doing infecting one another with their memes. The evolution over time of the entire meme complex is cultural evolution.
The agents of cultural evolution are each individuals, acting each in their own selfish best interest, each in accordance with their best judgement. These judgements are, obviously, based on an individual's own set of memeplexes.
"Socialism" isn't an agent, it is a memeplex carried by individuals. "The State" isn't an agent either, it is also a memeplex carried by individuals. Only individuals act, sometimes in the name of a "corporation" or a "state", but in the end, only individuals are or can be infected by memes.
Hayek explains how individuals acting freely bring about cultural evolution that benefits mankind in the creation of what he calls "the extended order"; in meme-talk, when infected agents are allowed to freely follow their own purpose, the resulting meme complex is one that benefits the propagation of the better memes, which benefits the carriers.
Things start going wrong when an individual coerces another to act against the latter's own purpose and memes. In this scenario, the aggressor's memes do not infect the victim, yet the victim is forced to comply with the aggressor. Yet, the aggressor's memes even if not infecting the victims, still do have an impact on the victim's memes. This impacts the victim's future behavior in ways that are unpredictable to the aggressor.
Hayek makes a case to show that the extended order of a society is so complex, and so little understood, that these unpredictable impacts, even if caused by memes imposed on a population with good intentions, end-up de-stabilizing the order.
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rhinoceros
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Re:The Fatal Conceit
« Reply #5 on: 2003-02-25 08:36:22 » |
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Ok, here is what I think.
Yes, in theory everything boils down to humans as agents of economic and cultural evolution, but stopping there is hardly useful because it leads to an overly complex and unmanageable model. No wonder Hayek finds it hard to accept that any reliable social intervention or long-term social planning can come out of this outlook.
However, individual also seem to interact with faceless institutions and ideologies. Sometimes, even personal interactions are not really personal; one or both parties may act not according to their best interests but as affiliated with an ideology or simply as part of their job description.
This applies easily to corporations. When a factory is polluting, it is not the management's job to think that it is harmful to them as persons. Their job is to avoid legal or public relation problems and keep the profits coming in. If they don't act accordingly, they are out. I think that that allows us to talk of a corporation-entity as an agent, regardless of the memes carried by its employees or even its CEO.
Also I am not so sure that persons always act according to their best interests in any "objective" way. Persons' judgements and actions often depend on their affiliations with people and ideologies. Given that most widespread ideologies are more or less clearly identifiable and can align the actions of millions of people, they can be seen as agents.
If you think of it, while Hayek's treatment of the issue initially seems to be a "meta" treatment, essentially he gets into the issue becoming an agent himself and he sides with certain particular views. The meme-suppressing coercion which allegedly leads to de-stabilization of the order is all around us and it is the reality. It does not exist only in authoritarian laws and morals or in attempts at social intervention. It also exists in our given or chosen affiliations with social entities to which we belong, and which are agents too.
I can't offer a definite answer on whether social intervention or long-term social planning is reliable, but it is the reality. What I suggest is that studying the dynamics of higher-level agent-entities may give us a fairly reliable ground to build on. If you think of it, we don't try to solve every math problem using only arithmetic; we have differential equations as well.
Of course, there is also the issue of social goals. Life goals are something personal, but that does not change things much if enough people don't subscribe to an ideology, provide it with structure and resources, prove it viable and make it an agent, regarless of whether the persons who started it pull out eventually.
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Ophis
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Re:The Fatal Conceit
« Reply #6 on: 2003-02-25 12:27:44 » |
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Quote:
Sometimes, even personal interactions are not really personal; one or both parties may act not according to their best interests but as affiliated with an ideology or simply as part of their job description.
Also I am not so sure that persons always act according to their best interests in any "objective" way. Persons' judgements and actions often depend on their affiliations with people and ideologies. Given that most widespread ideologies are more or less clearly identifiable and can align the actions of millions of people, they can be seen as agents.
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But aren't the ideology, the job description, and even an individual's affiliations memes? I certainly don't see them as agents by themselves. A job description doesn't do the job on its own. The individual, when accepting that job, gets infected by the job description (or something like it) and elects to act in accordance with that contract now part of his memes set.
The same goes for an ideology. Until there is an individual infected by it, the ideology isn't going to do much on its own.
Acting in accordance with one's "best personnal interest", means taking everything into account (including the memes that define the individual's job, ethics, habits, affiliations, responsibilities, etc) that, from the individual's perspective, is related to the action. The individual's decision to act is necessarely subjective and not objective; this said, that particular individual might happen to hold objectivity in high regards and align his subjective view with what he perceives to be objective.
For example, an individual might not want to go to work in the morning, but understanding the consequences of not going to work compels the individual to act accordingly. The same goes for the CEO who's industry causes pollution.
Memes don't become agents even when they represent such complex systems as a government, a corporation, a city, an ideology, etc. Only entities that can be infected by memes can be agents.
It becomes tempting to see "a government" as an agent of its own because of its organisational complexity. In fact, in our day-to-day lives, it might be acceptable to abstract "a government" as such. But when we study the nature of social evolution, we can't loose track of the fact that the only individuals can be meme carriers. The abstractions, in the end, are just memes of their own.
We're getting away from Hayek's Fatal Conceit meme but let me coin-in one of my favorite author. Ludwig Von Mises (one of Hayek's teacher) wrote one of the most complete treatise on economics ever written, entitled Human Action (http://www.mises.org/humanaction.asp). The first 200 pages of the book are dedicated to the understanding of the nature and sociological consequences of acting man, and the fact that it is only individuals that act, not virtual entities like societies, corporations, or governments.
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rhinoceros
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Re:The Fatal Conceit
« Reply #7 on: 2003-02-25 20:53:48 » |
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[Ophis]
But aren't the ideology, the job description, and even an individual's affiliations memes? I certainly don't see them as agents by themselves. A job description doesn't do the job on its own. The individual, when accepting that job, gets infected by the job description (or something like it) and elects to act in accordance with that contract now part of his memes set.
The same goes for an ideology. Until there is an individual infected by it, the ideology isn't going to do much on its own.
[rhinoceros]
Yes, you are right. An ideology, a job description and an affiliation are memes. However, a poltical party, a corporation, or a family fully deserve to be called agents because they often allow us to make more useful predictions than considering only persons as agents.
It is natural that you can't make many predictions or draw conclusion if you consider only persons as agents. A person is a low-level agent, and if you consider the social structures as external factors you miss what is known about those high-level structures.
[Ophis]
Acting in accordance with one's "best personnal interest", means taking everything into account (including the memes that define the individual's job, ethics, habits, affiliations, responsibilities, etc) that, from the individual's perspective, is related to the action. The individual's decision to act is necessarely subjective and not objective; this said, that particular individual might happen to hold objectivity in high regards and align his subjective view with what he perceives to be objective.
For example, an individual might not want to go to work in the morning, but understanding the consequences of not going to work compels the individual to act accordingly. The same goes for the CEO who's industry causes pollution.
[rhino]
This seems to be another reasonable view. The problem is how useful it is. What conclusions does Hayek draw out of this view? Practically nothing. Just an assertion that everything turns out for the best if people are left to act naturally under their memetics infections and constraints.
[Ophis]
Memes don't become agents even when they represent such complex systems as a government, a corporation, a city, an ideology, etc. Only entities that can be infected by memes can be agents.
It becomes tempting to see "a government" as an agent of its own because of its organisational complexity. In fact, in our day-to-day lives, it might be acceptable to abstract "a government" as such. But when we study the nature of social evolution, we can't loose track of the fact that the only individuals can be meme carriers. The abstractions, in the end, are just memes of their own.
[rhinoceros]
If we find out that considering a government, a corporation, a city, or a political party as agents can give us meaningful predictions while a memetic theory centered on the person can not, then memetics would be the theory which should be abandoned or adjusted.
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Ophis
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Re:The Fatal Conceit
« Reply #8 on: 2003-02-26 01:14:57 » |
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Quote:
What conclusions does Hayek draw out of this view? Practically nothing. Just an assertion that everything turns out for the best if people are left to act naturally under their memetics infections and constraints.
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Hayek's assertion is based on the fact that we need to let natural selection "battle it out" before we know what's best.
When an event changes the natural balance of an ecosystem, there is nothing like natural selection to bring a new order that mosts benefits the ecosystem. Genetic natural selection ensures the most efficient use of available resources.
Likewise, when an event changes the natural balance of an extended order, there is nothing like freedom & liberty to bring a new order that most benefits the extended order. Memetic natural selection ensures the most efficient use of available knowledge.
So we have the following analogies:
Code:
genes = memes
species = humans
natural selection = liberty
ecosystem = extended order
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Genes are carried by species, which battle it out in the big game of natural selection to build a most efficient ecosystem.
Memes are carried by humans, which battle it out in the big game of liberty and freedom to build a most efficient extended order.
When humans (a specific specie) disturb an ecosystem, it is usually to the benefit of humans. Even with good intentions, humans wanting to forcefully sustain or improve an ecosystem against its own natural evolution, usually endup doing so at the cost of other natural resources (other species or ecosystems).
When an individual (a specific human) disturbs an extended order, it is usually for the benefits of the individual (not that of the extended order). Even with good intentions, individuals wanting to forcefully sustain or improve an extended order against its own cultural evolution, usually end up doing so at the cost of other resources (other humans or extended orders).
I'm afraid that we might have stretched the analogy to its limit (then again, maybe not but it's time to turn-in for the night so I'll stop here).
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