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David Lucifer
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #30 on: 2007-01-19 17:04:54 »
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Let's all read the Wikipedia article for meme and see if we can reach some kind of concensus based on that. Perhaps at least we can figure out where the source of disagreement really lies (if there is one).

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The term "meme" (IPA: /miːm/, not /mɛm/ or /mimi/, to rhyme with "theme"), coined in 1976 by the zoologist and evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins, refers to a unit of cultural information transferable from one mind to another.

For starters, if we observe some unit of cultural information transferred from one mind to another we can identify it as a meme (I don't think there is any argument there). However, if it has not yet transferred could it still be "transferable"? I think so. Obviously this information I am typing into this web page form is transferable even though it has not yet be tranferred (when I wrote this). By analogy a meme that is in a single host could also be theoretically transferable before it has been transferred.

Say some guy is ship wrecked on a deserted island and makes up some games to amuse himself until he is rescued. Are the games memes? I would say the answer should depend more on the features of the games then whether or not the castaway is eventually rescued. Agree or disagree?

Now to answer Perplextus's demand of how to distinguish memetic information from non-memetic information, are their any mental constructs that are not theoretically transferable? In fact there is: qualia. I know what it is like to perceive the color green (to use a well-worn example), but there is no possible way I can communicate it to another person. It is mental information but it can never be cultural information and therefore it is not a meme.
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #31 on: 2007-01-19 20:02:13 »
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Oh dear, Lucifer.  You just had to mention the Q-word, didn't you?  Well, that's a can of worms I'd rather not get into just yet.

Given this definition, I seem to have gotten the wrong idea about memes.  There doesn't seem to be anything here about memes having specific behavior-inducing qualities.  Indeed, any behavior of the host to bring about the spread of a meme seems to be only a contingent fact.  We might as well call memes "bio-bits" or something, as they appear to be the biological form of encoding information for storage and communication.  In this case, I withdraw my arguments; the only thing that could be called an "anti-meme" is something that actually erases information from consciousness, like a brain injury or perhaps hypnosis.  Or do our minds possess their own interior mechanisms that can actually eliminate stored information?  If they do, then it might be possible for certain memes to act as hardware-controlling software to bring about the erasure of certain other memes...but I remain skeptical of this. 

It seems to me that memes, once they infect a host, acquire permanent status within the host's consciousness (barring above-stated information-destroying events).  Memetic "natural selection" would actually be a form of intelligent selection then, as it is ultimately up to the host's will to determine what memes he or she will propagate.  Memes then "do well" only by taking advantage of, perhaps, the host's innate preferences.  So the competition between, say, religions and Atheism, is a competition between which can engage the natural interests of the most hosts.  This gives me much to think about.  Perhaps an actual biological evolution must occur to alter our innate psychological preferences (as a species) before Atheism can hope to compete with religions?
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #32 on: 2007-01-20 21:48:13 »
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[David Luficer] I know what it is like to perceive the color green (to use a well-worn example), but there is no possible way I can communicate it to another person. It is mental information but it can never be cultural information and therefore it is not a meme.

[White Fox] Surely it would depend on what type or method of communication you were referring to here. If you mean verbally then I would agree (for the most part), but there is more then one form of communication; perception which you mentioned for instance. From what I can see, if your example was true then green surely could not be communicated as a meme for someone who is deaf. But then deaf people can and are able to distinguish and communicate the color green, as well as artists and others who know how; colors can mean more then just how they look, they can also produce meaning based on how we can relate to and interpret them – and if we can interpret a meaning then it can be communicated. Using color I would argue is a brilliant method of communication, as different colors can relate and refer to different things and moods; i.e. Blue can be interpreted and communicated as being serene, peaceful, or depressive, as well as relate to things which we are familiar with such as the sky or the ocean. Colors used in text to emphasize certain words and sentences can also prove a good method of communication in this way. There are types of small squid and poison dart frogs, and other various animals which use color as an effective method of communication, so I would argue that color, if anything, is one of the most powerful methods of communication that the animal kingdom possesses.

[White Fox] I do agree with Dawkins definition of a meme but I weyken the term itself needs to be expanded, or evolve into something a little more logically fitting. For a meme to be transferable it needs to first be infectious in order to spread (if it’s not infectious then why do we hold on to it?), therefore I see being infectious as being just as important (if not more) then being transferable. So we have something like: A unit of information which constantly retains an infectious pattern within a host and is culturally transferable from one mind to another.

[White Fox] Whether a meme is transferred or not remains a possibility, but the infection of a meme always exists within a conscious host. Transferability only further emphasizes the infectious capability of a meme; therefore a meme is constantly infectious by definition. Even when a meme is not being transferred from one mind (or host) to another it still remains infectious by virtue of the host it embodies and continues to personify. So by using my example here infection becomes requisite to the definition of what a meme is, and that a cultural pattern of information does not necessarily need to be transferred to be classed as a meme. 

[Perplextus] It seems to me that memes, once they infect a host, acquire permanent status within the host's consciousness (barring above-stated information-destroying events).

[White Fox] This is what I was attempting to portray to you with my theory; the only bit I added was that memetic interactions (which successfully replicate) overwrite one memes informational bits (the host) with the replicating ones (the vector). So memes are never “destroyed” per say, just manipulated into different patterns of information, if that makes sense.

[Perplextus] So the competition between, say, religions and Atheism, is a competition between which can engage the natural interests of the most hosts.

[White Fox] In my experience religion (excluding the CoV) tends to play on a host’s ignorance by preying on fear through dogmatic tyranny rather then to engage in ones natural interests. I don’t actually see what natural interests you could be referring to, meaning that all irrational religions vastly consist of supernatural and mythical interests. The “interest” of most religions seem to be little more then deeply imbedded illusions without a natural foundation and which over time become little more then a bad habit. But then I would weyken that the human desire to shun and avoid fear would count as a natural interest here and thus contribute to what you say.

[Perplextus]  Perhaps an actual biological evolution must occur to alter our innate psychological preferences (as a species) before Atheism can hope to compete with religions?

[White Fox] I concur with your view on biological evolution and its relation to our innate psychological preferences, but I am very sure Atheism can compete with religions today when it is applied logically and reasonably. If an Atheist for instance starts to persecute a Christian then a Christian will just hold on tighter to his religion, since it says somewhere in the bible that all Christians will be persecuted – so it’s a bit like trying to put of a fire using gasoline. If however you argue against them empathetically using reason and logic emplace of verbal aggression then atheism can be quite successful form what I have seen. As reason evolves with science I can only see us growing out of religion more and more as time goes on, but then of course this reasoning must be spread in the right ways to these minds if atheism is to have a chance. This is why the CoV is such a good vision for the future.

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Fox
« Last Edit: 2007-01-20 21:50:42 by White Fox » Report to moderator   Logged

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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #33 on: 2007-01-21 05:20:19 »
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For a good discussion on qualia, see Daniel Dennett's Sweet Dreams particularly the chapter "What RoboMary Knows."  Suffice it to say that I quite agree with his argument that given sufficient information, it would be possible for someone to achieve a brainstate identical to my perception of the color, without ever perceiving the color (let alone the color through my eyes).  In fact, so long as consciousness can be explained in purely physicalistic reductionist terms (mind states "just are" brain states), the notion of qualia is somewhat absurd.  How could two brains, put in exactly the same state, not have the same phenomenal consciousness-content?  Really, as Dennett argues, the problem is that we simply can't imagine how to communicate a sufficient quantity of information to allow someone else to put their brain in the same state as our own...it's an "intuition pump", not a logical argument.  There is nothing "necessary" about the existence of qualia, but we "feel like" there is because of the limits of our imaginations.

White Fox, I still don't get what you mean by "overwritten".  I don't see how the meme itself can be altered, though I do see how one's attitude toward or perception of it can be.  Sort of like the RAM/ROM distinction: a meme, as information that infects a host, is written in ROM format; on the other hand, conscious attitudes and perceptions toward that information occur in RAM.  So when the meme is called into consciousness, it gets attached to/attended by conscious information, which may be different each time the meme is called.  So one's attitude toward/perception of memes can be overwritten, not the memes themselves.  Hmm...I'm just kind of throwing out ideas here, what do you think?

I would also like to question your use of the term "infectious."  What do you mean by it?  At this point it seems there's actually a lot of redundancy going on in this definition.  How can information be perceived at all if it's not infectious, and how can it be recognized as information if it's not transferable?  I'm beginning to feel like "meme" is actually a useless term, a mere synonym for information.  What I'd like is for someone to give me an example of non-memetic information.  The only answer to this that I can come up with is "unperceived information", information that does not ever encounter or interact with a consciousness, i.e. the magnetic data written onto the hard drive of my computer, or the radiowaves that constantly pass through my house.  But anything that interacts with a consciousness would have to be memetic, in which case I'd say that a more logical/suitable definition of meme is simply "information that interacts with consciousness", since that necessarily implies that the information is both transferable and infectious.  Or am I wrong about this, too?
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #34 on: 2007-01-24 11:24:23 »
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[White Fox] Surely it would depend on what type or method of communication you were referring to here.

[Lucifer] I don't think so. No one has yet come up with a way to even theoretically communicate qualia. But you could be first. Say the colour green looks to me like the colour blue looks to you. Everything I see as green you see as blue and vice versa. How could you possibly detect that situation?

[White Fox] ... so I would argue that color, if anything, is one of the most powerful methods of communication that the animal kingdom possesses.

[Lucifer] Sure, but that says absolutely nothing about qualia.
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #35 on: 2007-01-24 11:28:20 »
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Quote from: Perplextus on 2007-01-21 05:20:19   
I'm beginning to feel like "meme" is actually a useless term, a mere synonym for information.  What I'd like is for someone to give me an example of non-memetic information. 

Wow it didn't take you long to forget my qualia example of non-memetic information. If you don't like that one then another example is basic functions of the nervous system, information to regulate heart beat and digestive system, hormonal system, etc. Definitely information that is propagated by and stored in the nervous system, but not memetic.
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #36 on: 2007-01-29 14:29:12 »
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Lucifer, if you want to talk qualia, we should start a new thread.  Suffice to say, I consider the concept of qualia to lack any empirical basis, and is as useless and unjustifiable an intuition as the concept of a deity.

As to your other example, why should such impulses emanating from the nervous system be non-memetic?  They are certainly transferable: one can monitor and encode or record all such signals with the proper equipment, viz. that employed by people studying biofeedback, therefore one can transfer them; and there may come a day when we possess the technology to link two nervous systems together to allow direct communication of such impulses between them.  I also see nothing in their nature that would prevent them from entering cultural use given the popular adoption of various technologies; it is only a matter of contingent fact that they are not already in cultural use.
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #37 on: 2007-01-31 12:03:27 »
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I guess you are right in the sense that any information *could* be memetic given sufficient technology and motivation. But the fact is that most information is not memetic given that it isn't driving the behavior of agents with minds. It suspect it appears most or all information is memetic only because you are considering only the tiny subset of information that humans find interesting which is very highly correlated with memetic or potentially memetic information.
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #38 on: 2007-05-12 16:06:07 »
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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?

I think that the existence of anti-memes is probable.  As an example, take hype in the blogosphere.  Say there's a new product, band or movie that a lot of people are talking about.  The intial trend is often one of fascination (or at least half-interest, which is often more common):

"Neat!"
"It's kind of sexy."
"I might buy one."
"It's about time they came up with this."
"What will they think of next?"

Now, the longer the dialogues progress, the more likely it is that someone will make a statement that either a) finds a flaw or b) belittles the concept:

"There's no way this could work, and here's linked proof."
"Who came up with this color scheme, a five year-old?"
"No one would pay that kind of money for this.  I could build one for less."
"He/she's too old to play this role."
"This director has a history of ruining everything he touches."
"This has already been done, and better."

All it takes is a few well-placed comments in highly visible places, and you can effectively destroy a hyped concept.

So I think for every specific concept, there is more than likely a counter-argument which, given enough growth, can either negate or overtake the validity/popularity of the original idea.

Answering the second question...actually, I think I just did.  I don't think it just applies to particular cases, though.  There are plenty of people that don't believe in deities, fairies, dragons, magic(k), Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny.  There is probably a way to create a blanket countermeme for the existence of all non-tangible entities.
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Re:Atheism as an "Anti-Meme"
« Reply #39 on: 2007-06-01 02:42:42 »
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