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Topic: Atheism as an "Anti-Meme" (Read 6158 times) |
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Perplextus
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #15 on: 2007-01-14 14:24:04 » |
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Lucifer: This is getting a bit semantically hairy.
Let me take up your mule example, for I think you have made the analogy incorrectly. A mule is composed of genes from a donkey and a horse. One could say that in attempting to transmit their genetic information, the donkey and the horse were both successful, for they produced another organism: the mule. The mule, by analogy, is a successfully infected/converted host. The mule, however, is sterile. Does this mean that it will not attempt transmission of its own genes? No. It means that it will never succeed in that. So, by analogy, a person infected with a sterile meme is NOT a person who does not display the behavior of trying to spread the meme; it is a person that tries and fails to spread the meme.
Let's look deeper: the "genes" transmitted by the mule have defects in their structure that prevents them from forming a new organism. These defects are such that one of the key features that define a gene has been eliminated; should they still be called "genes"? Not quite. Genese are capable of generating organisms. What mules transmit is, for functional purposes, indistinguishable from inert protein. They may look like genes, and be derived from genes, but they are not properly genes. Now analogize this with the information "transmitted" by someone infected with a sterile meme: this information fails in fully propagating itself, because it does not induce its new host to further replicate or transmit it--it does not produce a new meme. Like a mule's genes, it lacks something possessed by proper memes, is functionally indistinguishable from inert information, and must be qualified as such...perhaps as a non-meme.
You cannot take away the behavioral distinction between memetic information and non-memetic information without taking away the distinction all together. That distinction is the only distinction; a meme is defined as information that causes certain behavior. If information you assimilate does not cause you to spread it, that information is not a meme. Likewise, any information you possess that does not inspire you to spread it, by definition, is not a meme. Anything that alters a meme by which you are infected--in such a way that eradicates that meme's ability to cause you to spread it--has functionally destroyed that meme. There is no meme infecting you anymore, just inert information. Eliminate all replicative-behavior-inducing aspects of information held by a person and that person is a memetic void. Show me how you can argue otherwise without a drastic redefinition of the word "meme."
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David Lucifer
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #16 on: 2007-01-16 12:57:33 » |
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It seems to me that my main point was completely lost. Both memes and genes can be seen as programs, completely independent of whether or not they replicate. Obviously a mule has genes even though mule genes are never transmitted to progeny. Right?
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #17 on: 2007-01-16 13:40:15 » |
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I think the hairiness problem occurs because genes were "discovered" empirically first and only later imbued with the meaningfully important role as primary biological replicator by neo-Darwinists like Dawkins, Dennet etc. And from thence the meme was theoretically posited first as the primary cultural replicator and has been mostly empirically confirmed retroactively, . . . Like Pascal Boyer's discovery of the memetic persistence of supernaturalisms. Hence some hard core memeticists sometimes take an odd interpretation of genetics with this retrospective "enlightenment" . . . especially if they don't know a lot about genetics first.
On to the issue of atheism as an "anti-meme", I think perhaps it works as such but has a certain level of replication of its own. To some extent it is dependent on the religious memes it counters for its replication. In other respects atheism is a kind of embodiment of basic skepticism. I don't think of atheism as an ideology in any meaningful sense as atheists can differ widely in their various and sundry worldviews, but this doesn't necessary deprive atheism of replicative powers. Indeed this ability to include such a variety of worldviews gives it some replicative advantages that more encompassing and less tolerant ideologies would be unable to imitate. These memetic facts may be part of the reason that atheists don't have to actively prostlytize to get many of their points across. By merely seeming tolerant, they get a lot of memetic mileage which is unavailable to more dogmatic memebots.
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Mo Enzyme
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Perplextus
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #18 on: 2007-01-16 14:40:05 » |
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Lucifer, I feel the same way.
To respond (hopefully in a meaningful way) to your attempt at clarifying your point:
Yes, I agree that you can conceive of both memes and genes simply as programs and ignore the actual behavior they induce; you can even conceive of them completely apart from their biological/psychological functions. You can get as abstract as you desire in your conception, divorce it from reality to the point where all you have left is some structural model. But you cannot meaningfully define memes and genes according to these conceptions; the final test for whether something is or is not a meme or gene is ALWAYS whether it functions in a certain way.
Say you are a molecular biologist, and you use an advanced nano-device to assemble from scratch some protein that should, according to your programmatic theory of what constitutes a gene, be a gene. How do you test your creation to see if it's actually a gene? You test its functionality--see if it can reproduce. Now say you are a memeticist, and you engineer a pattern of information according to some abstract structural programmatic theory of what constitutes a meme. How do you test whether or not you've succeeded in creating a meme? You see if it spreads. Or am I mistaken about this? Would it still be proper to call these engineered products "genes" and "memes" respectively if they failed to function?
To the forum in general (and espeically White Fox):
No one has yet responded to my challenge to explain how a meme that does not induce replication is different from inert information. Nor has anyone responded to my challenge to describe observable differences between someone infected with a non-reproducing meme and someone who is not infected by that meme at all. Is there some kind of a "brain test"?
In other words, what evidence would settle an argument over whether a person--let's call him "Jones"--is or is not infected with a non-replicating meme?
Mo:
Good points, especially about how Atheism sort of requires Theism to replicate. However, I do wonder whether atheists get as much mileage as you suggest simply out of tolerance. Frankly I don't think atheists get much mileage in general. But that's another topic.
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #19 on: 2007-01-16 16:34:34 » |
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Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-10 22:57:12 | 1. Given that "An idea or information pattern is not a meme until it causes someone to replicate it, to repeat it to someone else" (as stated in the CoV Lexicon), is it true to say an idea or information pattern, once a meme, is always a meme, even if it ceases to cause its host to replicate it? |
I disagree with the idea that a meme is only a “meme” when it causes someone to replicate it, a meme to me is any infectious informational pattern which we host - and since we continue to host it, it remains infectious. Saying that replication is requisite for memetic classification (to my mind) is like saying a gene is only a gene when a gene has undergone DNA replication, but for something such as a gene to replicate it has to have come from somewhere to begin with, since genes were not present before the Earth existed.
Genes had to evolve into genes from somewhere before they were given the chance to replicate themselves and evolve genetically as we know today; genes must have had an exogenic origin out side of replication; in other words nucleic acid molecules, such as DNA or RNA, had to form at somepoint into genes out side of DNA replication through Chemical evolution. Now using this analogy we can also say that memes can also originate in a similar way (theoretically) and thus without replication.
The Miller-Urey experiment may be insghtful to some here.
Just as an allele is any one of a number of viable DNA codings occupying a given locus (position) of a chromosome, this same example (anaolgy) could be used for ideas in a meme.
And just as a chromosome is the basic 'unit' of DNA in a genetic structure this same example (analogy) could be used for information patterns in a meme.
These (mental) informational patterns, when brought togeather, would form the meme.
Given the above if memes do not replicate then they are simply sterile for what ever phychological reason of the given host which they continue to influence and personify. The reason it remains a meme is because it continues to infect the host but because it does not replicate it is classed as sterile.
Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-10 22:57:12 | 2. If information can still be memetic without causing its host to replicate/transmit it, how is that information to be distinguished from non-memetic information? |
All such (mental) information we host would be memetic. Whether or not memes could fixate or concentrate biochemically into a genetic structure and evolve into an allele (or form the informational coading and variances of such), or cause allele informational sequences to change over time I don't know.
I guess a good question here would be, can or do memes influence and mold our genetic structure. I would personally think so (depending on other factors and condictions), but thats another topic.
Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-10 22:57:12 | 3. What differentiates a "dissipated" meme (a meme that has been replaced by another meme) from a meme that does not replicate? And how could we observe this distinction--what behavioral characteristics of the host would enable us to determine whether a non-replicating informational pattern held by the host was a dissipated meme, a sterile meme, or a non-meme? |
Memes would not really be “replaced” but more overwritten, analogous to how data on a computer can be. A dissipated meme is a meme (based on a specific informational area) which has been dispersed or dispelled (of its current informational pattern) and overwritten by another (more dominant and infectious) meme. A meme that does not replicate (sterile) would be a meme incapable of infection outside its given host.
A dissipated meme could be observed via before and after observation. For instance an Atheist is brought into Theistic Company and is left with these theists over a period of months then this effect could possibly be seen. If, at the end of this time period, the Atheist held Theistic views this would be good evidence that his Atheistic memes have been dissipated (overwritten) by Theistic ones; what would make the results of this even better is if we could actually observe the infectious process of this event and interaction. Observing these effects should be fairly noticeable, but I’m open to other observable suggestions.
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #20 on: 2007-01-16 17:48:11 » |
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Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-16 14:40:05 Mo:
Good points, especially about how Atheism sort of requires Theism to replicate. However, I do wonder whether atheists get as much mileage as you suggest simply out of tolerance. Frankly I don't think atheists get much mileage in general. But that's another topic.
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Yes, I think a good "anti-meme" on some fundamental level requires that the meme it opposes replicates (at least somewhat) for its own survival, as any predator/parasite requires. In this respect the anti-meme necessarily co-exists in the same environment as the meme it counters and is thus dependant on that very meme it counters in order to replicate. Without robust memes of theism, people would fail to see the point (and therfore fail to replicate) memes of atheism. However I would further point out, that atheism might better be seen as a subset of memes of general scientific skepticism which would likely view any supernaturalism (be it karma, dharma, nirvanah, monotheism, ghosts, angels, etc.) with a skeptic's eye. On this kind of stage, any magical thinking would necessarily give a memetic boost, however slight, to its opposite skeptical position. Of course it may seem negligible in the scope of any one interaction or conversation, but its cumulative powers can be more appreciated in such sentiments as, "I simply believe in one less god thingy (or supernatural thingy) than you do."
Indeed I think the rise of ever-more fundamentalist ideologies across the spectrum of western monotheism (Judeo-Christian-Islamic) has resulted in "Atheist" or "Agnostic" becoming the fastest growing if still minority self-identified religious position in recent years.
From the point of view of the Church of virus, the Sins and Virtues are our underlying replicating memes. Skepticism (and thus atheism) is simply an often-resulting (though not uncriticisable) attitude from following reason and avoiding dogmatism and hypocrisy.
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Mo Enzyme
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #21 on: 2007-01-16 18:06:31 » |
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I would further add that basic skepticism would tend to operate against many other less supernatural visions . . . for example transhumanist ideas of uploading one's self into current or near-future information storing/computing technologies. Though as a technophilic transhumanist I find the discussion of such possible technologies more interesting from a standpoint of vision than more supernatural fantasies, I remain skeptical about their feasibility until shown otherwise. I also note some conceptual similarities in The Singularity and Uploading, as one finds in The Rapture.
Still wondering about that "ghost in the machine",
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Mo Enzyme
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #22 on: 2007-01-16 18:26:22 » |
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Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-04 01:29:55
Question: is the existence of "anti-memes" possible? By "anti-memes", I mean memes which serve only to annihilate other memes, leaving a memetic void, rather than replacing competing memes with themselves. If such anti-memes can exist, would any of you agree that atheistic arguments against the existence of particular deities to be anti-memes?
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Another point I would add is that atheism doesn't leave a memetic void. Rather it simply promotes a different attitude about existing memes. The Greco-Roman pantheon is still alive and replicating even though few people "believe" in them anymore. I expect that Christian memes will endure long after people no longer believe them anymore (even if eventually replaced by newer supernaturalisms).
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #23 on: 2007-01-16 19:55:22 » |
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White Fox, it's good to hear from you again!
So, you said:
Quote:| Genes had to evolve into genes from somewhere before they were given the chance to replicate themselves and evolve genetically as we know today; genes must have had an exogenic origin out side of replication; in other words nucleic acid molecules, such as DNA or RNA, had to form at somepoint into genes out side of DNA replication through Chemical evolution. Now using this analogy we can also say that memes can also originate in a similar way (theoretically) and thus without replication. |
Yes, but those precursors WEREN'T GENES! They didn't become genes until they came together in a form that was capable of reproduction. This, if anything, reinforces my claim that there exists non-memetic information, information which only becomes memetic when it attains a certain structure which is capable of replication. Carrying this analogy further, if one breaks a gene down into components, or strips away a sufficient amount of its chemical structure, one is left with a mere chemical, which is NOT a gene! So if memes are like genes, the same thing should be possible for a meme, that it be broken down into a bunch of non-memetic information.
This is out of order, but I have to address it first:
Quote:| Memes would not really be “replaced” but more overwritten, analogous to how data on a computer can be. A dissipated meme is a meme (based on a specific informational area) which has been dispersed or dispelled (of its current informational pattern) and overwritten by another (more dominant and infectious) meme. |
A dissipated gene is not still a gene. So how is a dissipated meme still a meme? Above, you admitted that memes are informational patterns made up of non-memetic components--the components of a meme are not memes themselves. So if a meme, to be overwritten, must be first disperesed, dissolved into its non-memetic components, how does this not constitute the destruction of the meme? Furthermore, why isn't it possible to disperse a meme without overwriting it with a new one?
Quote:| All such (mental) information we host would be memetic. |
I will ignore the fact that this blatantly contradicts your above statements. Am I correct in interpretting this as essentially maintaining that there is no such thing as non-memetic information? This is a radical departure from convention, at least as I understand it. Does anyone else agree to this? To me, it sounds like saying "all proteins are genes".
We cannot have meaningful debate until we agree on a definition of "meme." If your definition is correct, of course it is impossible for a "memetic void" to exist in a conscious person--that would be a person whose consciousness contains no information, which is (I weyken) a logical contradiction given the definition of "consciousness." As I am no expert on memetics, I submit to the forum: is there such thing as "non-memetic" information, or is all information memetic? If the latter is true, I must withdraw my entire argument.
However, there is another point to address, which I feel I should mention lest it get left behind. I will grant you your definition of memes for argument's sake. You said:
Quote:| A dissipated meme could be observed via before and after observation. For instance an Atheist is brought into Theistic Company and is left with these theists over a period of months then this effect could possibly be seen. If, at the end of this time period, the Atheist held Theistic views this would be good evidence that his Atheistic memes have been dissipated (overwritten) by Theistic ones; what would make the results of this even better is if we could actually observe the infectious process of this event and interaction. Observing these effects should be fairly noticeable, but I’m open to other observable suggestions. |
I think this contradicts your definition of a meme. Memes, because they are just information, do not leave the consciousness unless a physical change takes place to repress the memory. A meme couldn't be dispersed or overwritten, it could only be stripped of its "access priveleges" to the host's transmission machinery by, say, a stronger meme.
Mo raised a point that I find very interesting: there is no necessary connection between memetic virulence and host "belief structures." Religion, considered memetically, is nothing but information. One could spread religion without spreading belief, in the sense that one could make others objectively aware of the tenets, rituals, and texts of a religion. So being infected by a meme doesn't mean a change in one's belief structure. I picture it like being handed a pamphlet and then going out and making copies of the pamphlet and distributing them to others. Nothing in that set of events requires a change in my internal belief structures.
The other side of this is that for an atheist to convert to Theism a change in memetic consciousness-content is not even required, only a change in which meme is given "expression privileges" (or not even that; perhaps a change only in internal attitudes is sufficient...humans can certainly lie, express memes that are contrary to their own beliefs).
I need to read up on some memetic theory. Has anyone studied the ways in which memes interact with beliefs, with the goal of a theory that explains why some memes seem to change beliefs while others are passed on neutrally? Heck, I'd be happy with a theory that explains how memes propagate at all (i.e. what necessarily gives them their powers to induce behavior in the host). Is anything like this on the reading list?
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #24 on: 2007-01-18 19:47:49 » |
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Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-16 14:40:05
Say you are a molecular biologist, and you use an advanced nano-device to assemble from scratch some protein that should, according to your programmatic theory of what constitutes a gene, be a gene. How do you test your creation to see if it's actually a gene? You test its functionality--see if it can reproduce. |
Here you are assuming the only function is to reproduce. The molecular biologist would test to see if the gene functioned properly by coding for and generating the expected amino acids. Consider that the vast majority of genes in your body's cells are never replicated, only the ones in your germline cells can possibly be passed on to your progeny and only a few of those will.
Quote:
Now say you are a memeticist, and you engineer a pattern of information according to some abstract structural programmatic theory of what constitutes a meme. How do you test whether or not you've succeeded in creating a meme? You see if it spreads. Or am I mistaken about this?
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I'm not arguing against the replication view of memes. I'm saying that there is another valid perspective. Von Neumann figured out the dual perspective when researching self-replicating machines years before DNA was even discovered, he knew that whatever the genetic material was it would have to be treated as data during copying and executed as a program during expression.
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #25 on: 2007-01-18 20:30:14 » |
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Quote:| Here you are assuming the only function is to reproduce. The molecular biologist would test to see if the gene functioned properly by coding for and generating the expected amino acids. Consider that the vast majority of genes in your body's cells are never replicated, only the ones in your germline cells can possibly be passed on to your progeny and only a few of those will. |
*turns red* You've got me there. I should know better than to invoke fields in which I'm not competent!
I still don't quite understand what "other perspective" about memes there is, to which you are referring. There's certainly nothing mentioned about it in the Lexicon that I've been able to find. If you could provide me with a concise formal means of distinguishing memes from inert information, without referencing replication, I'd much appreciate it.
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #26 on: 2007-01-18 21:03:42 » |
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Perplextus, I think that this discussion is somewhat getting confused between respectable members, and I grant here that my theory is somewhat difficult for me to articulate to you.
Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-16 19:55:22
Yes, but those precursors WEREN'T GENES! |
Of course I agree with you here but I didn't mean that genes actually evolved into genes, I meant that genes had to evolve into genes from outside sources that were not genes. I should have explained that better last time, sorry for the confusion.
Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-16 19:55:22 | So if memes are like genes, the same thing should be possible for a meme, that it be broken down into a bunch of non-memetic information. |
Just like genes are made up of chromosomes and allele memes can be thought of being made up of values and ideas. But the gene-meme anology can only, I would weyken, be taken so far - as with all anologies. Breaking down a meme would be like breaking down an idea or value, this is where the gene-meme anology tends to break down because when broken down to a degree a gene is no longer a gene, but I would argue that a meme (when broken down) always remains a meme as long as it remains infectious. Breaking down the components of a meme (ideas, opinions, values) would be breaking up the information of those components - the people, subjects, entities, ect involved with them. These things remain memetic because they form and make up the meme.
Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-16 19:55:22 | Above, you admitted that memes are informational patterns made up of non-memetic components--the components of a meme are not memes themselves. |
I think you have confused yourself with what I was saying, again my fault for not articulating it with more clarity. As mentioned above components of memes would remain memetic because they are the "stuff" which makes up the meme itself.
Ideas and values may be memetic in nature, but that does not necessarily make them themselves "memes".
I'll give you an example of my claim. Characteristics make up (or are the components of) character, but they are not a character in themself.
Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-16 19:55:22 | Furthermore, why isn't it possible to disperse a meme without overwriting it with a new one? |
A meme would be dispersed because it has been overwritten via a new meme. Just like energy always reamins so to would memes within hosts, and like energy memes could only be converted into another type of meme, just like energy can only be converted into a different type of energy. Of course his anology can again only be used so far since memes would have an actual genesis where energy just always is.
Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-16 19:55:22 | I will ignore the fact that this blatantly contradicts your above statements. |
I see no contradiction... could you clarify?
Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-16 19:55:22 | Am I correct in interpretting this as essentially maintaining that there is no such thing as non-memetic information? |
Within a host, correct.
Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-16 19:55:22 | I think this contradicts your definition of a meme. Memes, because they are just information, do not leave the consciousness unless a physical change takes place to repress the memory. |
Contradiction? I don't follow. Through a change in character (under such influencial circumstances) memetic interaction could be observed - through a change in characteristics, views, outlooks, ect.
Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-16 19:55:22 | A meme couldn't be dispersed or overwritten, it could only be stripped of its "access priveleges" to the host's transmission machinery by, say, a stronger meme. |
Well what I was saying was that a meme could be dispersed, and thus overwritten (these could be seen as going hand in hand) via a stronger meme. Stripping a meme of its "access priveleges" to a host's transmission machinery would suggest to me that the host in question posseses some sort of physical or cerebral defect.
Hopefully this made things a little more clear?
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #27 on: 2007-01-19 05:46:41 » |
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White Fox, I feel like we're both just spinning our wheels here. Nothing in your reply seemed to me to represent your ideas any differently than in previous posts, so I'm going to suggest that to settle this, we both just "hit the books" (so to speak). "Meme" as a term was coined with a particular purpose and definition in mind, and I reckon there's a fair bit of literature in the field of memetics. This is a matter to be settled by research, not discussion.
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #28 on: 2007-01-19 13:35:14 » |
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I encourage you to study the research, but I don't think there is a LOT of empirical work predicated on memetic theory at this point. I know Pascal Boyer referred to some evolutionary psychology research in his book Religion Explained . . .
http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Explained-Evolutionary-Origins-Religious/dp/0465006965/sr=1-1/qid=1169230772/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8996192-6612625?ie=UTF8&s=books
. . . and interprets it with a memetic theory - that religion enjoys replicative advantages because it involves supernaturalisms which have been empirically shown to make stories employing them more memorable than stories which do not. This would give any story with a supernatural element certain memetic advantages, especially in preliterate societies without written word - relying instead on oral tradition and memorization. As I've explained this to others, supernaturalisms were the special effects of stories before there were movies.
In any case, you aren't really spinning your wheels so much when it comes to memetic theory. A lot of it remains open to individual interpretation and anecdote while standardized empiric research is still scarce. Indeed, I think more initial breakthroughs in memetics will come in providing better interpretations of research conducted under evolutionary psychology models, as Pascal Boyer has done. So if you wish to hit the research, I would start with a general survey of evolutionary psychology before delving in to google searches of "memes" or "memetics" which will produce mostly noise at this current evolutionary stage of the science. After you have familiarized yourselves with evolutionary psychology, you will be better equipped to productively filter out much of the noise that currently surrounds the meme meme.
Despite the current lack of research our personal experiences of cultural phenomenon offer first hand experience of the memetic programs. Understanding genetic programming requires more specialized, and often necessarily second hand understanding of processes which can't even be directly seen or experienced without a microscope or other research equipment. For memes a significant part of the selective processing environment occurs in your brain or in the brains of people very much like you - we all have the same direct access the experimental subject. Hence memetic understanding ought to be in theory more directly and universally accessible than genetic understanding. This is what makes memetics such a fun topic for me, as I'm sure it does for others in the Church of Virus.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Perplextus
Adept
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Posts: 55
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #29 on: 2007-01-19 15:36:21 » |
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Mo, I understand what you're saying, but the disagreement between White Fox and myself is at the fundamental level of semantics and terminology. When two people do not agree on the definition of a word, how are they to have meaningful discussion about that to which the word corresponds? "Meme" is a technical term, it was coined by an individual, and has a conventional definition. Research should serve to illuminate that definition, in a way that discussion cannot. Right now the situation is such that neither White Fox or myself have enough information to make a justified claim to know what a "meme" really is. If one of us can point to something and say, "this is the definition given by the guy who coined the term; your/my usage of the term is inconsistent with this definition, so let us agree to adopt the proper definition before we continue discussion", that is the only way we'll get beyond arguing over semantics.
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Praise Bob!
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