NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/cyberspa/930

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-21 | 5.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.iastate.edu!iscsvax.uni.edu!rezabek1037
From: [e-mail] (Will be President for Food)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberspace
Subject: Re: MEMES (was: RE: Cybrspc Grvty, Def of Cybrspc)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 21 Jan 93 18:06:06 -0600
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>   <HURH-200193203017@131.225.123.13>
Followup-To: alt.cyberspace
Organization: University of Northern Iowa
Lines: 82

In article >, [e-mail] (Patrick Hurh) writes:
> OK... I'm not a linguist or memetic student but my father is a sociologist
> and I've seen the Dawkins book on one of his bookshelves for a long time (I
> think) so this is interesting to me.

i'd recommend it, i suppose. it's a good read, if nothing else. the chaps on
memes (11) and the first 3 chaps are my favorites.

> If the analogy of evolution (natural selection) holds true for information
> (let's say info in the net) then the environment which 'judges' the fittest
> info is the cyberspace congregation of users.  In a natural environment
> (desert, arctic, etc...) 'judgements' of organisms are formed on a basic
> set of rules or attributes (water retention, opposable thumbs, etc...).
> The set of rules changes with the environment but no one (except
> perhaps...perhaps god  :)) consciously ever decides on those rules.

[note: some dislike the meme metaphor. warning: i am going to use it for now,
for this post... feel free to skip ahead, if desired.]

true. cogent. we cannot DECIDE what those rules are, but we CAN model what
those "rules of thumb" might BE. why? well, the only way to test our idea of
what an axiom of memetics might be is to TRY it, to interact WITH that
environment, and see what happens. this is NOT physics. it's memetics. a
physicst can... in fact, ASPIRES to, observe objectively the environment being
studied. from there axioms are formulated and tested. but because memes deal
with ideas and thought, the only tools with which to STUDY them are ideas and
thought, and thus the only way to TEST them is to get your fingers in the
grease. i can HYPOTHESISE that a warm coat will keep me warm, but eventually i
will have to put it on and go out in the cold and see.

> If you can follow what I just said: Is this sort of what you're looking
> for? The basic rules (equations) which govern (describe) the flow and
> 'living and dying' of information?  I would contend that since it is the
> users that define the set of attributes (characteristics?) that information
> lives and dies by, a working model even a working understanding of
> information evolution is impossible.  The rules (created by us) change too
> quickly and are sporadically influenced by real world (hard) events such as
> natural disasters.  Even the type of computer each individual user utilizes
> to access cyberspace would affect the flow of information.

as said, this is not physics. one ofthe reasons i think memetics IS becoming an
important counter-paradigm is that any meaningful study of it EMBRACES all
effectors, it works within the play of the system. but. a meaningful example of
a hypothesis. let's try an early one.

in SELFISH GENE, dawkins uses as an example the song, "old langsyne." it's
passed on, most often, by word of mouth. he notes that the original POEM says
"for old langsyne." the SONG is usually sung "for the *SAKE* of old langsyne."
his reason, the memetic advantage, he hypothesised had to do with the fact that
"s" sounds in crouds carry over as lisps. so someone listening and trying to
catch the drift will be more likely to catch that "SAKE" lisp than NOT.
obviously, this is just hypothesis. take it or leave it or just say, hmm,
that's neat.

another, this one mine. for a meme like "GOD" to exist in the meme pool (in
human consciousness at large) it MUST have some memetic advantage. there's no
physical evidence, so what could it be? ok. the "GOD" meme has the advantage of
lending hope, of assuading the feeling of existential angst that a god-less
universe posits in the human. meanwhile, "DARWINISM" must have memetic
advantages in the meme pool. it's quite brutal, quite solipsistic and
existential in its own way. well, an ADVANTAGE is that it is in some sense
TESTABLE, it goes some direction towards explaining CHANGE; it *WORKS.* but
darwinists and fundamentalists butt heads all the time.

q: what sort of growth pattern do you hypothesise we could expect from a meme
which shared some of the "pragmatic" advantages of darwinism & genetics with
the "hopeful" advantages of "GOD"? some would say quite a large growth
pattern...

>  but that a model in
> mathematical terms (and in any qualitative terms) is impossible.

for a model to do everything we need of it, the model must be as detailed as
the reality, BUT BE MORE EFFICIENTLY ACCESSIBLE, ... neater. usully, this means
that the model BECOMES reality, and is useless. i'm not ATTEMPTING a
"mathematical" model. math has its own neck of the woods wrapped up nicely
enough. math is internally consistent, and thus works. what more could you ask
for? but i *DO* think that qualitative models (the meme is the most cogent one
i've encountered thus far) CAN make sense and, more importantly, DO *MAKE A
DIFFERENCE.* (note i did not say "explain away the knots.")

.rez