So hard for me to focus on what he's saying when the audience is either moving on their chairs, coughing, sneezing, burping and whatnot. It's VERY irritating. If you're not interested in someone's speech, LEAVE THE ROOM! But how can you know if you are not interested in someone's speech if you didn't listened to it?
I really can't see any difference at all between memes and ideas - even ideas like science and rationality, except that it allows scientist to understand that ideas come to us, we don't design them. Artists have always taken this for granted, including notions that our ideas are bigger than us, have a life of their own, etc... I can't see what this memes do which ideas haven't been doing ever since ancient Greece and before that.
@leconfidant Memes are the explanation of how ideas spread, and can keep going. Even if they logically shouldn't. Hence his example of the community that thought everybody should be celibate. The same reason evolution and natural selection are different.
@Cyllid Yes but no-one ever thought ideas had to be logical to transmit. Believability would be enough, beauty or curiosity. Only some academics thought logic was important to an idea's survival. I spotted this first time I read Selfish Gene way back. This isn't progress, but revision. Memetics is just a fundamental ignorance of rather basic ideas like... "ideas", which means a concept which doesn't depend physically on a person, but can get around fine on its own. EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES.
@Cyllid I reviewed the video at the 10minute mark where he discusses celibacy. Highly disingenious. Celibacy isn't even a new idea like 'idea' or 'word'. It's an even simpler notion. Because many people are celibate not because they decided to be, or even realised they were celibate. They simply are so. This curious mutant species of self replicating meme has a special nomenclature fo it's own which is... "a fact".
Honest to fucking god! Nonsense on academic stilts.
@Cyllid Hostile? Yes. A lot of what the whole New Atheist camp remain determinedly ignorant of, Arts and Humanities take completely for granted. As if nothing can be which is not science. And this stuff is inane. Conversely, what the humanities know to be complex, they bizarrely assume are simple matters, theology being the least of that. But they talk as if they had insight the rest of us aren't capable of understanding because we don't agree with them. Hostile? No shit.
@leconfidant So you're saying that the arts should have the final say in what is/isn't?
Everything else should just take what the arts has done and build from it?
Science is a ground-up process. I can see it, I can record it, I can recreate it, I can predict results with it... That it often coincides with what is already known doesn't mean it's useless, or that the things it is confirming are useless. It's the stuff that conflicts with what is known that is interesting anyways.
@Cyllid Given the rich tradition of study of how ideas develop, I find it astonishing he makes no mention of them. We were always working against science's prejudice that culture development was logical progress. Now it's being "revealed" to us as a sophisticated discovery it's not. Well no shit? Welcome to planet earth. Interesting? Conflictual? No. The insights memetics brings to us is are ininteresting and controverrtial as a 3 year old boasting he can now go to the toilet on his own.
@leconfidant I didn't say that this was interesting or controversial. i said when what science reveals something that goes against what is the current knowledge, that it's interesting.
My issue was never with your objection to memes. More just how broadly you've appeared to me at least, to dismiss Scientific though.
@leconfidant the majority of people have sexual drives, and to be celibate in the face of those you need to have thoughts surrounding it, or at least be aware that you're doing something most people don't. If you're just purely asexual that's one thing... but in the face of the urge to be celibate? That's a choice and an idea, or several, are at the bottom of it.
@esoervik Almost everybody is celibate as a child and it doesn't involve choices, preferences or anything else. But celibacy as an idea will survive, we know this, because ideas arw not physically attached to their owners. Dennet says so and I agree. But while Dennet hauls in the vocabulary of evolution. I'm quite happy to say that some people are hung up about it. some can't be bothered and some people just aren't very attractive, choices or not.
@leconfidant you can't possibly mean that children are valid to point to? I mean, they're not sexually developed, for one, and once those pieces align we see experimenting galore. Anyway, I'll leave it, as we just seem to have very different outlooks.
This whole meme thing sounds like bullshit to me. So im suppose to believe theirs invisible "idea viruses" floating in the air. So if i come up with a great script of Back to the Future. Its not me. Its a invisible unproven "idea virus". That sound like complete Bullshit to me.
@Lone432345, I suspect a hint of sarcasm from your 'Back to the Future' example, but if not.. It's a metaphor, for a meta-universal hive mind of ideas (for lack of a better term, if there is such). I think it was pretty clearly explained, but here I am still watching this video..
@GuyWithTheMustache There is a better term for your metaphorical meta-universal hive mind of ideas . Culture. Memetics is scientists discovering culture and imagining they are the first ones to get there. Memes are ideas. No-one can tell me the difference. Dawkins is saying they literally have a life of their own, but that is very obvious to people who work in culture. It's like a 3 year old boasting he can go to the toilet then offering to teach us how to do it.
@Lone432345 Well, spreading your idea to other people that idea virus' are bullshit is a meme. This video about idea virus' was spread through the internet to other people. THAT'S A MEME. The action of spreading ideas from person to person. But being a free nation, we're used to A LOT of these memes. Other people aren't used to these "outside" ideas. You completely misunderstood Dennett's point. I suggest re-watching the video, and don't get offended this time.
@Lone432345@Lone432345 It is bullshit, but you:re overlooking the process. I ideas always did float around the air. The technical word for this is :communication'. If you ask artists where their ideas for scripts etc come from, they say the ideas 'come to them' and they merely accommodate them. Nobody develops ideas out of thin air. Nobody 'designs' music or scripts. But the sheer commonplace of ideas moving around through language and culture makes memetics completely redundant.
I think the gnu atheists should study juche ideology of north korea more, as that personality cult is almost identical to the cults of the god-kings of Antiquity. And the worship of that dead tyrant Kim il-sung is no different than worshipping the imaginary tyrant YHWH.
Homosexual activists understand the power of words.
Please visit my channel to watch a one-minute video clip in which popular atheist author Richard Dawkins admits that homosexual activists "hijacked the word 'gay'".
The word "homosexual" is more appropriate and accurate because it, unlike the word "gay", actually describes the behavior/attraction/relationship being discussed.
The word "gay" helps homosexual activists push their agenda.
The god created human beings so that we could evolve into super intelligent immortal robots which would eventually develop technology to stop the destruction of universe in the big crunch. There, I said it.
He misses a fundamental point, ideas are NOT assertive. Every individual with a capacity to hold an idea has a choice of which ideas to hold, which ideas to attempt to spread.
@VexingSoul The last time Dennett missed a fundamental point about anything was probably in kindergarten. I think it is more likely that YOU have missed a point, that the "meme doesn't need a mind to have a plan". Does a child of Christian parents have a choice? How often do children adopt a religion different from their parents? We think we choose what ideas to spread but did you make a conscious decision about what language you used to type out your post?
christians often change religion within Christianity and sometimes to Islam or Judaism or Buddhism. However, in other cultures, such as Islam, such things are seriously frowned upon. Death is the punishment for apostasy in many Islamic nations. One man in Afghanistan who converted to Christianity had to actually leave the country to save his life.
@leedsmanc I was the child of two devout catholics. Agnostic in my teens.Buddhist all my adult life.
Dennet and Dawkins are doughballs. Memes are ideas. That's all. There's nothing new here that art and culture studies haven't understood perfectly well since the beginning. That ideas communicate and have a life of their own is totally obvious. The whole thing is an Emperor's New Clothes joke.
@leconfidant You've missed the point. It's that ideas can control the very way you think, can change who you are. The knowledge of the nature of ideas is like an immunity from them. Just as flu virus isn't so scary to someone who's been fighting flu viruses all their life - brought up an atheist I'm immune to Buddhist bullshit..
What Dennett does is provide a framework to study these "self-evident facts". The FRAMEWORK is not obvious, even if the facts are. Until you apply Darwinian thinking.
@leedsmanc Knowledge of viruses doesn't make you immune to them. Immunity does. People dying of flu who know what it is and people surviving who don't is the norm.
That ideas and emotions control us more than we them is deeply Buddhist, so you overestimate your immunity. The Buddhist framework (unlike Dennet's) teaches liberation from it (Susan Blackmore). Niklaus Luhmann provides a framework from systems theory, so nothing exclusive about Dawkin's little muse (an ancient greek idea)
@leconfidant You're replying to what you wanted me to say, rather than what i said. Dennett is all about liberation from ideas, it's just you feel a little aggrieved that he seeks especial liberation from ideas bundled together in the insidious form of religion (you've been (well) taught to take attacks on religion personally, from an early age). I know how immune systems work thanks; I see you struggle with metaphors and analogies.
1) You said to VexingSouls kids of Christians have no choice. I am an exception. All my siblings are the same as me, Buddhist or pagan. Rather than acknowledge that I had indeed made a choice, 2) you said Buddhism was bullshit, which most people would say is a personal comment when you’re talking to a Buddhist. I ignored it and stuck to the issue. Now you’re saying I’m taking it too personally. Well my apologies... for your freudian projection,
3) You said that I failed to understand that ideas can control us. I think controlling our ideas is an illusion. “I”, such as I am, am merely their dialogue, which is a more radical position than Dennet’s, although I do agree with his position that there is no ego. I took this position from the age of 18. I’m 43. And I repeat, it was a well developed notion from early Buddhism and Greco-Roman culture onward.
@leedsmanc 4) You said knowledge of our ideas gives us immunity to them. and compared this to the awareness of people fighting flu viruses. Knowing about the flu doesn’t make you immune. People and animals who are immune, are generally unconsious of their immunity. People who are dying of it have the clearest set of symptoms to indicate what they’re dying of. I refuted both the science and your metaphorical point. Knowledge that we can have bad ideas doesn’t stop people having them.
@leedsmanc 5) You gave yourself as an example of someone who is immune to ‘Buddhist bullshit’. But the notion that we are often hijacked by ideas which do us no good is something religions and sciences have always said. That is why I say that your own particular immunity to Buddhist bullshit has clearly failed. The position that we are not the managers of our minds is classically Buddhist. QED. So you yourself are my proof, whether you identify as religious or not. Sorry about that.
@leedsmanc 6) There is no difference which memetics can discern between religious ideas and any other. Rationality itself, by memetic standards, can only be a another meme. By Darwinian thinking, survival fitness would be the measure of success of a meme, not logic. And religion isn’t doing badly as our co-evolution has a longer ancestry than the memes of modern science.
@leconfidant I'm still indignant that only Darwinian thinking will explain this framework. 6) My mind drifted through about 20 different philosophies which outlined similar frameworks. Gilles and Deleuze, Le Rochefoucauld, Greco-Roman daemonism, shamanism, deconstructionism all took the position that language and ideas and concepts come to us and we are merely hosts.
@leconfidant 7) By far the most obvious framework for memetic replication is the common speach of common people. For replication, try 'communication'. For competition, try dialogue and thinking. For mutation, try 'confusion'. That gives you the whole framework right there.That some ideas are bad ones, albeit rather persuasive and therefore harmful is something my grandmother would expect everyone to understand. Emperor's new clothes.
@leconfidant You cant categorize science like that, there are the scientific principles of discovery and observation, then there is religious dogma. One can be revised and expanded upon and the other can't, one is necessary for progress and...Rationality is more than a meme, it doesn't need justification, it justifies itself through evidence, it exists in spite of... This argument is akin to the argument that one can't prove God doesn't exist, its not a serious thought.
@erikachad 1)Religions have always been revised and reinterpreted (like the principles of discovery and observation).Therefore2)Not all religion is dogmatic3)No society ever survived without religion and those who gave it up collapsed or reneged.4)The concept of evidence is itself a mutating meme same as the rest. (Read Dawkins' definitions in Selfish Gene.) 5) I don't believe in god, but that you can't prove he doesn't exist is only an awareness of the limits of scientific evidence.
@leedsmanc Mmm. It's the first time I had to make more than one post, but it was just so wrong on so many points, dissection.was educational. No regrets.
@GCthegreat1ify lol you say that like memes are bad. All ideas are memes. Even ideas that are factually true are memes i.e. 2+2=4 is a meme. "Meme" is such a broad and general term that you really have to apply it to a specific subject for them to have any real use.
@sexyloser Exactly, thank you. A meme is basically an idea... accompanied by an evolution nerd telling you that it's a totally new discovery. I don't think this is a scene of scientific debate. I just want to point them to social work support.
@eveningtsar I've got the good book "Breaking the spell". For great analysis of the facts about the Bible & other old Writ & comparative religion try also John W. Loftus, Robert M. Price, Dan Barker, Valerie Tarico, Ken Humphreys, Keith Parsons, Ken Pulliam, David Mills, Gary Greenberg, Bart Ehrman, Joseph Wheless, C. Dennis Mckinsey, Richard Carrier, Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell, Israel Finkelstein, James Frazer, Jason Long, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens , Richard Dawkins
You mention Hitchens twice there, which is completely understandable: once wouldn't be enough for Hitchens! lol. Seriously though, thanks for the suggestions. "Breaking the Spell" was one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. I have read some of those authors before (mainly the "big four"), but others are new. I shall definitely check them out.
@NaturalSelection101 Glad to be of assistance. Have you discovered freethoughtblogs com. The top one is by PZ Myers but John W. Loftus does a good one on there: Debunkingchristianity. On 17th December he lists the top 50 atheists, on 18th he lists what he thinks should be top 35 atheist. Plenty of reading material in that lot.. Or if you look on Amazon at Christopher Hitchen's book, "The portable atheist" then you can look inside and see a short list of noteworthy writers in the contents page
The word "homosexual" is more appropriate and accurate than the word "gay".
A person does not need religion, hatred or any kind of phobia in order to acknowledge important, qualitative differences between heterosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption and homosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption.
Homosexual activists, with complete support from the media, have succeeded at framing themselves as noble victims and martyrs; it's an effective way to push a social agenda.
I think he ment 'bad memes' where more like 'colds' for some people, for others they can be more catastrophic. Even more, he says we have to allow small benign "mutations" so our "immune system" would be better. I think that's very reasonable and realistic. Guess I know why I didn't fail philosophy. xD
Germs and viruses - Our greatest competitors for domination of Planet Earth. For much of our history we had no way to combat them. Now we can win this battle; with further science and knowledge. NOT more ignorance and superstition.
The universe created human beings so that we could evolve into super intelligent immortal robots which would eventually develop technology to stop the destruction of universe in the big crunch. There, I said it.
Huh. That was strangely terrifying. Is he saying that I'm performing the moral equivalent of giving a tuberculosis-infected blanket to a native american every time I listen to punk rock or use birth control?
(probably no surprize I failed philosophy101 back in college)
Evolution through Natural Selection AKA Natural Preservation, Survival Of The Fittest, etc. Gives THE perfect explanation to why humans are the only species capable of doing what we do -
Great talk from Mr Dennet. Memes, in effect, use minds to survive and propagate. Maybe we only exist for the self-preservation of information/ideas. You have to wonder how something like war, which we can't seem to escape from by evolving, but yet evolves in the very way we wage it, ..why it stays with us.
so the theory of memes itself is a meme? how can there be any truth if its all just memes? This idea of memes seems more metaphorical then anything else.
@violet101 The fact that something if a meme does not imply that it is true or false. The Pythagorean Theorem is a meme. All of its proofs (even the incorrect ones) are memes. A recipe is a meme. True, the idea of a meme started out as metaphor of genes, but it is evolving into its own concept. It may be abstract and not physical like a gene, but so is mass, force, acceleration, energy, ...
@ogmonkey27 hmm, here we go. Mine as well debate on this vid, God exists, the fact that you think all beings exist on your plane of reality, within your five senses causes you to have primitive mind set, and prevents this world from stoping people like Hitler, the KKK, Stalin, etc.
Saying that the philosophy of the Shakers was a meme demonstrates how "meme" is simply an expression of bias against all ideas that interfere with our survival or reproduction. And ideas aren't living entities that "ride" us, we hold false ideas and true ideas but without our mind there is no idea; it's not a predator trying to ride our brain. It's a clever analogy but it's an attempt to justify bias with science.
@goodtwitch Not predators but parasites. Both memes and parasites do spread among suitable hosts, people with predisposition to and in condition of carrying them and spreading them even more. Some of them can be benign, in that case it is more like a symbiont, it spreads the same way but with good results instead of bad.
an excellent talk! -shame we have to listen to all 10 suicidal cigarette smokers hacking away, coughing as their respiratory tracts push tar outwards...!
I'm still waiting on you providing an answer to the straight forward question: Can you name an animal that has made something with a moving part? Your silence on this speaks volumes Ath-hole. I'll add that to the growing list of things you have nothing to say about. What an ath-hole!
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One school of thought? Memetics, evolutionary psychology, Boyd & Richerson's population approach and Dan Sperber's epidemiological approach are four schools of thought that spring to mind Ath-hole.
I can see why you are on you tube. You can make an assertion which is rooted on being so under-read it's quite stunning, all the while trying to make out you know more about something that you do. Where I come from, you are "a ponce", but I'll stick with the Ath-hole name. It's so you.
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I've asked you to provide a single species (from 100s of millions of different kinds over the evolutionary process) that have created a proto-tool with a working part.
I've already asked you before to name the one accepted theory of culture from evolutionary theory and you've said nothing in reply, because you and I know that there has been no accepted theory of culture over the last 151 years from evolutionary theory despite 10+ schools of thought trying and retrying.
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You might hint that there is one but you are only mischief making, in the process making yourself look even more of a massive Ath-hole than you seem already. Come on, answers please.
Oh my, what a big girlie you are. So you cannot answer the question(s) I put to you then. You make yet another ridiculous statement which only exposes how out of touch you are on culture. Time and time again. What an Ath-hole you are.
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No answers, in fact the only response is to quote from your UD pretention Faith-head and fellow you tube lifer-styler, fabs. Talk about quoting/scraping from the bottom of the barrel.
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Stop responding Ath-hole, you've got nothing to say uber-ponce.
You said there was only one school of thought, I named four off the top of my head. Who's the dipshit (in your words) now, dipshit?
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You trip yourself up, almost with every post. You are stunningly short and now you are resorting to quoting from your fellow you tube lifer-styler, and UD Faith-head, fabs. Another low-point from you, and there have been a number.
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Caught out yet again, and I mean yet again. I don't want to talk to you shorty, but you seem keen enough on talking to me.
You said pathetically "there is only ONE school of thought dipshit" and then I reeled off four and how do you reply girlie?
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You said "Bladly Blah Blah Blah Blah - wtf makes you thing I want to talk to you?"
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I could just sit here and watch you literally trip yourself up with very misguided key stroke. You've got nothing, and the very idea you think you have anything to say, when you leave yourself exposed time after time, is laughable and sad all at the same time
my main point I am trying to get accross; despite all the specific dates for these subjects of the past, all of it was very very gradual. Nothing in our past was 'sudden'. The evidence shows very long timelines. Simply stating specific dates seems to confuse many.
Even the 'PreCambrian Explosion' is a 5 million year time period - not long in geological terms, but..
I have no issue with the narrative that science is rooted on in terms of the physical world and then the emergence of the terrestrial/natural world. The key issue for me is:
1. generating an accepted theory of culture and mind.
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2. holding this alongside both the natural and the physical sciences to see what further connections can be made, and I've said that this can be done through 'sociological psychology' and 'theoretical sociophysics'.
Hi, I'll check it out but there is a profound issue with experimental psychology if it is going to state that our will is not free in the sense that the entire legal system which regulates societies is based on the core idea of personal responsibility. That is something that psychology has to take on board, as well as in 2011 there is no accepted theory of mind, and unconscious mind for that matter.
So while we can state that 'conscious' awareness 'gets' the decisions we are making milliseconds after they are made, this is again to extrapolate out on experimental data (important though they are) without having the benefit of an accepted theory of mind (or culture for that matter) to pin it on. The resultant expression of these results always has a tendency for the big headline, scientists are always looking for new streams of funding, it's a very human business.
However, if I told you that in the 'trilectic of mind' there are three elements that are all causes and effects from each other:
1. our field of experience (FoE)
2. our conscious mind (Cm)
3. our unconscious mind (Um)
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If we take on board that the FoE is caused by and in turn causes Cm, which causes Um and which in turn causes Cm which in turn causes FoE....and so on and so forth then the situation is much more complex than some articles may portray.
The history of science has reached this point in part because it is rooted on a causative model of 'cause and effect' but the more science drifts away from 'centrisms, 'causing' phenomena and embraces the idea of complexity, then it's not just the connections we need to understand but the very dialectical nature of causation where causes are effects, and effects are causes.
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This requires a different mindset, and you have to work harder to get the 'working nets' of networks
I am saying that meaning is the informational range that only humans engage in. Dennett narrating the NOVA documentary referred to "the world of meaning" and understanding the laws of motion about meaning and culture is the deep problem for the social sciences. That is something beyond the explanatory capacity of the biological sciences.
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Information is all around us as 'meaning potential' and collapses as it enters our field of experience. I think Dawkins confuses memeing with meaning
Purpose is something different from meaning (communicative indication). That is a particular grand statement of cosmic direction and that is more the domain of faith than science.
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Dawkins colleague/friend and paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey in 'Origins Reconsidered' finds the 'sudden' emergence of symbolic art and expression "puzzling". Leakey and his relatives have found more human origins than any other research team, so we've got to take his considered opinion seriously on this
There remains a difference between anatomically (archaic) similar sapiens and behaviourally modern humans NS and your comments don't change that.
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There remains a profound difference between primordial culture, proto culture and culture (proper) which is a propulsive, quickening process to the point of exponentiality. Again, 'tools' remained the same for one million years through homo habilis, and we need only reflect how life changing the industrial age has been in less than 300 years
I think it comes down to two areas of contention for me. The first is that culture is different in dimension from nature. Dawkins (you tube lecture 'The Purpose of Purpose') freely concedes that cultural evolution is "an entirely new kind of evolution" which is "up to a million times faster" than Darwinian evolution. I think this new system of change is beyond the explanatory capacity of evolutionary theory and the last 151 years is a solid period of history endorsing such a view NS.
The second point refers to the rubicon period where culture (proper) emerged from, and extended from the evolutionary process NS. I think the evidence points towards a convergence of capacities which through a contingent, perfect storm type emergence we have "the mind's big bang" (William Calvin) and the telling difference between anatomically (archaic) similar sapiens and behaviourally modern humans.
I think the more ToC rolls out and the social sciences see the possibilities of it's explanatory range and how it can add something of value to research past and present they'll embrace the metanarrative more and more.
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Certainly when they train their eye on the relatively weak arguments that evolutionary theory has clumped together to argue that culture is an evolutionary process they'll challenge them increasingly more. Those arguments are mainly narrative and not scientific NS.
So culture as an identifiable process with laws of motion, mathemetical representation and the ability to measure it's speed is perhaps my main focus. However, understanding the rubicon moment when we can see culture (proper) emerging from the evolutionary process (Leakey's Puzzle) is another area of interest
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I think that once ToC rolls out and you see the level of explanation, measurement and theory in understanding culture, it'll be easy to see that it's different in dimension to nature
@naturalpreservation I appreciate your insight. You put much thought into all this and you are "ahead of the game", as far as where I am. I'll be on the road again with my business, and will check in here again sometime soon.
I just have to say again that all the philosophy of man's acheivements, etc. doest not require a god.
We differ on the God thing but I'd remind you what Francis Bacon once said, and he is thought to be the father of the science method, " A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
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As a shorthand and accessible way to understand the difference between instinctual, hard-wired life in localised environments and habitual, soft-wired life in dynamic social world zones NS, think of the difference between ROM and RAM
ROM (read only memory) life in localised environments over geological time can be accounted for well by evolutionary theory, but the RAM (random access memory) 'intelligent' life that humans embody is too dynamic for the slow, gradual degrees of the Darwinian model to account for. That was the case in 1859 and remains the same today
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The work on neuroplasticity underlines the causative power of experience for the human brain, and society is the primary source of that experience. Later NS
I've always found reference to Occam's Razor (a person of faith) as an easy out. I can't remember Occam/Ockham ever cracking culture or coming up with the theory of evolution. I think the evidence more than substantiates what I am arguing and so does the setup of the modern University system, with the physical sciences, terrestrial/natural sciences and social sciences, arts and humanities involved with the three layers of reality that I have outlined a number of times NS.
I don't think we are Gods, but there is certainly a case that we are 'of' God. The comparison, well argued, is quite stark. Humans are exceptions to a theory that has broad explanatory capacity in explaining biological and botanical change in the organic setting of nature. In species terms, that's one species in comparison with 100s of millions. In temporal terms it's just less than 1/100,000th of life on earth, or 0.000001 as a fraction.
I like reading about Darwin, especially the social history and the age of thinking he grew up in but when he stated in 'Descent' that the difference between the mind of man and animals was "one of degree not of kind" there was neither (as remains to this day, quite startlingly) an accepted theory of mind or culture in his day, or since. If we hold true to the comparative method that underpins science then we have to acknowledge the weakness of Darwin's assertion in this regard.
All the work I have done and continue you do points firmly not just to a difference in kind, but a difference in dimension. Culture and mind are beyond the measure of evolutionary theory, and therefore the biological sciences as well.
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I think the social sciences will generate the laws of motion describing the social world of humankind, and through mathematical representation conducive to Galileo's understanding of the book of nature culture's state and speed can also be measured.
The people who promoted memetics moved on because the knew it was a little too dogmatic about some things, right? Maybe since the whole idea of the scientific theory is to actually prove things wrong really worked with memetics?
"Evolution is a specific model of change that can not explain cultural change."
of course, but maybe you can see that the basic/original 'thought' from Dawkin's Selfish Gene still survives? Knowing that most of that was polluted by non scientists over the years...
....that shows how the tree of life represents our relationship with the great apes. What are the possibilities for evolution for the family of apes, for the next 150kn years?
Do you actually think the evolutionary process has ended, because of a god?
The timing of your question is quite poignant NS.
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'Horizon - Are We Still Evolving?' 14/15
Dr Alice Roberts follows a trail of clues from ancient human bones to the frontiers of genetic research to discover if we are still evolving - and where we might be heading
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This is on BBC television this evening at 9pm. I've stated, (I'll restate) human history is a process of cultural expression, not cultural evolution. Evolution is a specific model of change that can't explain cultural change
So the way to understand human history and cultural expression is not a process of evolution, but of development. Development captures the idea that humans have increasingy power to shape the worlds around them, both social world and natural world, which in turn feedsback on them
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It doesn't bother me droning on about the problems evolutionary theory has had in explaining culture because for critical minds in this area it's a huge elephant in the room, except for Ath-hole, UD Fabs and Co
I've been caught up for the last few weeks with a young earth creationists/bible literalist. Wow what a time this has been. How some can put down the science of dating methods, but not know one thing about it, is beyond me.
I'm not going to beat up on any believer in God but you are showing a lack of critical thinking there. Like I;ve said there's a lot to know and it can take a lot of time to know it. Anyone who goes to Uni for four years, and maybe another 3 for their PhD is doing something quite indulgent. I've added another 11 years to that, but that is something alien to a lot of working people's experience.
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Human super learning means that all humans undergo a level of soft-indoctrination, a given.
@naturalpreservation I understand that. But one does not need a high level of University education to understand how the world works, if they are motivated, in this information age. A lot of people are digging for answers, and finding out information that clashes with what they were brought up to believe. Result has been a rise in atheism.
Critical thinking really does work both ways and I don't think you are trying hard enough there. That being the case you are not really trying to understand the other position (real critical thinking can be quite exhaustive) and as a consequence you are only telling me what you don't understand, rather than why that person understands the world they way they do
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If you understand culture's ubiquity, then no-one can escape it's reach through it's relative concert with mind, and all minds
Ultra-biologists in this argument don't like to acknowledge that there are cultural drives and layers of complexity that biology can't account for. The social and cultural facts remain that things like genre and generational effects are not 'in' our biology but emerge from the interconnection of the physical, terrestrial and social worlds that humans live in.
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I can see attitudes changing about science and religion in my generation, but this is 'adoption' and not 'adaptation'.
Humans are born with a super-learning capacity that enables and demands a capacity of experience loaded into our brains/minds beyond all precedent across 100s of millions of species in the natural world. This experience is stored in/through attitudes, beliefs, opinions and values and that is something that defines our individual being.
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Darwin wrote that habits (learned) and instincts (innate) were very difficult to tell apart at times and that can come down to interpretation NS.
@naturalpreservation critical thinking was used, and I did my best to influence that, not try to change the other. I understand the other position very well. I was there for a long time, and understand the way they do/think about god, critical thinking is why I an not a christian any longer.
I'm not going to disagree with you that they are misguided but if you think that you can overcome deep seated beliefs through the 'conversational medium' of you tube then you are either:
1. dismissing the depth of their belief
2. overstating the power of your argument and rational debate
3. overstating the power of what you can convey through you tube.
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Ath-hole, UD Faithy Fabs think Darwinism is near God-like and I don't. They are too dogmatic, but their lack of argument is very clear
The B&B case is cloudier for me because for a loving couple (gay or straight) to be turned away from any B&B can't be a good feeling, but then there is a couple here who are being criminalised (later fined £1,800) for changing attitudes during their lifetimes.
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Whatever view(s) people have on this there is no biological manipulation involved, humans have to legislate to regulate. So in the UK you can not turn someone away for being gay, whereas in America you can. Culture is relative.
thank you for introducing memes to me
joelet123 4 days ago
A great mind.
PaDoCoKeFo 1 week ago
those 2 retards in the audience coughed throughout the whole vid
sodaxcandy08 2 weeks ago
So hard for me to focus on what he's saying when the audience is either moving on their chairs, coughing, sneezing, burping and whatnot. It's VERY irritating. If you're not interested in someone's speech, LEAVE THE ROOM! But how can you know if you are not interested in someone's speech if you didn't listened to it?
TheGirlyLolita 2 weeks ago
I've been debating about whether to shave my still rather short beard.
When I watch Dennett talks, I really don't want to shave it...
hellomate639 2 weeks ago
I really can't see any difference at all between memes and ideas - even ideas like science and rationality, except that it allows scientist to understand that ideas come to us, we don't design them. Artists have always taken this for granted, including notions that our ideas are bigger than us, have a life of their own, etc... I can't see what this memes do which ideas haven't been doing ever since ancient Greece and before that.
leconfidant 3 weeks ago
@leconfidant Memes are the explanation of how ideas spread, and can keep going. Even if they logically shouldn't. Hence his example of the community that thought everybody should be celibate. The same reason evolution and natural selection are different.
Cyllid 1 week ago
@Cyllid Yes but no-one ever thought ideas had to be logical to transmit. Believability would be enough, beauty or curiosity. Only some academics thought logic was important to an idea's survival. I spotted this first time I read Selfish Gene way back. This isn't progress, but revision. Memetics is just a fundamental ignorance of rather basic ideas like... "ideas", which means a concept which doesn't depend physically on a person, but can get around fine on its own. EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES.
leconfidant 1 week ago
@Cyllid I reviewed the video at the 10minute mark where he discusses celibacy. Highly disingenious. Celibacy isn't even a new idea like 'idea' or 'word'. It's an even simpler notion. Because many people are celibate not because they decided to be, or even realised they were celibate. They simply are so. This curious mutant species of self replicating meme has a special nomenclature fo it's own which is... "a fact".
Honest to fucking god! Nonsense on academic stilts.
leconfidant 1 week ago
@leconfidant You seem oddly hostile. There is little difference, but so what?
What's the problem with an additional classification? Things obtain new labels all the time.
Cyllid 1 week ago
@Cyllid Hostile? Yes. A lot of what the whole New Atheist camp remain determinedly ignorant of, Arts and Humanities take completely for granted. As if nothing can be which is not science. And this stuff is inane. Conversely, what the humanities know to be complex, they bizarrely assume are simple matters, theology being the least of that. But they talk as if they had insight the rest of us aren't capable of understanding because we don't agree with them. Hostile? No shit.
leconfidant 1 week ago
@leconfidant So you're saying that the arts should have the final say in what is/isn't?
Everything else should just take what the arts has done and build from it?
Science is a ground-up process. I can see it, I can record it, I can recreate it, I can predict results with it... That it often coincides with what is already known doesn't mean it's useless, or that the things it is confirming are useless. It's the stuff that conflicts with what is known that is interesting anyways.
Cyllid 1 week ago
@Cyllid Given the rich tradition of study of how ideas develop, I find it astonishing he makes no mention of them. We were always working against science's prejudice that culture development was logical progress. Now it's being "revealed" to us as a sophisticated discovery it's not. Well no shit? Welcome to planet earth. Interesting? Conflictual? No. The insights memetics brings to us is are ininteresting and controverrtial as a 3 year old boasting he can now go to the toilet on his own.
leconfidant 1 week ago
@leconfidant I didn't say that this was interesting or controversial. i said when what science reveals something that goes against what is the current knowledge, that it's interesting.
My issue was never with your objection to memes. More just how broadly you've appeared to me at least, to dismiss Scientific though.
Cyllid 1 week ago
@leconfidant the majority of people have sexual drives, and to be celibate in the face of those you need to have thoughts surrounding it, or at least be aware that you're doing something most people don't. If you're just purely asexual that's one thing... but in the face of the urge to be celibate? That's a choice and an idea, or several, are at the bottom of it.
esoervik 1 week ago
@esoervik Almost everybody is celibate as a child and it doesn't involve choices, preferences or anything else. But celibacy as an idea will survive, we know this, because ideas arw not physically attached to their owners. Dennet says so and I agree. But while Dennet hauls in the vocabulary of evolution. I'm quite happy to say that some people are hung up about it. some can't be bothered and some people just aren't very attractive, choices or not.
leconfidant 1 week ago
@leconfidant you can't possibly mean that children are valid to point to? I mean, they're not sexually developed, for one, and once those pieces align we see experimenting galore. Anyway, I'll leave it, as we just seem to have very different outlooks.
esoervik 1 week ago
tl:dw
amirkeyrain 1 month ago
This whole meme thing sounds like bullshit to me. So im suppose to believe theirs invisible "idea viruses" floating in the air. So if i come up with a great script of Back to the Future. Its not me. Its a invisible unproven "idea virus". That sound like complete Bullshit to me.
Lone432345 1 month ago
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TheOJDrinker 1 month ago
@Lone432345, I suspect a hint of sarcasm from your 'Back to the Future' example, but if not.. It's a metaphor, for a meta-universal hive mind of ideas (for lack of a better term, if there is such). I think it was pretty clearly explained, but here I am still watching this video..
GuyWithTheMustache 1 month ago
@GuyWithTheMustache There is a better term for your metaphorical meta-universal hive mind of ideas . Culture. Memetics is scientists discovering culture and imagining they are the first ones to get there. Memes are ideas. No-one can tell me the difference. Dawkins is saying they literally have a life of their own, but that is very obvious to people who work in culture. It's like a 3 year old boasting he can go to the toilet then offering to teach us how to do it.
leconfidant 1 week ago
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astros0 3 weeks ago
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@Lone432345 Well, spreading your idea to other people that idea virus' are bullshit is a meme. This video about idea virus' was spread through the internet to other people. THAT'S A MEME. The action of spreading ideas from person to person. But being a free nation, we're used to A LOT of these memes. Other people aren't used to these "outside" ideas. You completely misunderstood Dennett's point. I suggest re-watching the video, and don't get offended this time.
astros0 3 weeks ago
@Lone432345 @Lone432345 It is bullshit, but you:re overlooking the process. I ideas always did float around the air. The technical word for this is :communication'. If you ask artists where their ideas for scripts etc come from, they say the ideas 'come to them' and they merely accommodate them. Nobody develops ideas out of thin air. Nobody 'designs' music or scripts. But the sheer commonplace of ideas moving around through language and culture makes memetics completely redundant.
leconfidant 1 week ago
I think the gnu atheists should study juche ideology of north korea more, as that personality cult is almost identical to the cults of the god-kings of Antiquity. And the worship of that dead tyrant Kim il-sung is no different than worshipping the imaginary tyrant YHWH.
saguhh00 1 month ago
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Homosexual activists understand the power of words.
Please visit my channel to watch a one-minute video clip in which popular atheist author Richard Dawkins admits that homosexual activists "hijacked the word 'gay'".
The word "homosexual" is more appropriate and accurate because it, unlike the word "gay", actually describes the behavior/attraction/relationship being discussed.
The word "gay" helps homosexual activists push their agenda.
lightandbeautiful 1 month ago
disappointing ...
swamper45 2 months ago
should i be afraid of lolcatz?
lsmayhew1 2 months ago
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zytigon 2 months ago
One of the four horsemen!!!! I LOVE Dan!!!!!!!
rudemood2011 2 months ago 2
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The god created human beings so that we could evolve into super intelligent immortal robots which would eventually develop technology to stop the destruction of universe in the big crunch. There, I said it.
MrPEDOCTOR 3 months ago
Have to watch this for english and use it as a source.....kill me.
BF4DW3CC13 4 months ago
@BF4DW3CC13 I'm watching this because I'm interested in memes as a theory.
chaoticpix93 3 months ago
He misses a fundamental point, ideas are NOT assertive. Every individual with a capacity to hold an idea has a choice of which ideas to hold, which ideas to attempt to spread.
VexingSoul 4 months ago
@VexingSoul The last time Dennett missed a fundamental point about anything was probably in kindergarten. I think it is more likely that YOU have missed a point, that the "meme doesn't need a mind to have a plan". Does a child of Christian parents have a choice? How often do children adopt a religion different from their parents? We think we choose what ideas to spread but did you make a conscious decision about what language you used to type out your post?
leedsmanc 3 months ago
vexing soul
christians often change religion within Christianity and sometimes to Islam or Judaism or Buddhism. However, in other cultures, such as Islam, such things are seriously frowned upon. Death is the punishment for apostasy in many Islamic nations. One man in Afghanistan who converted to Christianity had to actually leave the country to save his life.
Ramigurl 3 months ago
@leedsmanc I was the child of two devout catholics. Agnostic in my teens.Buddhist all my adult life.
Dennet and Dawkins are doughballs. Memes are ideas. That's all. There's nothing new here that art and culture studies haven't understood perfectly well since the beginning. That ideas communicate and have a life of their own is totally obvious. The whole thing is an Emperor's New Clothes joke.
leconfidant 1 week ago
@leconfidant You've missed the point. It's that ideas can control the very way you think, can change who you are. The knowledge of the nature of ideas is like an immunity from them. Just as flu virus isn't so scary to someone who's been fighting flu viruses all their life - brought up an atheist I'm immune to Buddhist bullshit..
What Dennett does is provide a framework to study these "self-evident facts". The FRAMEWORK is not obvious, even if the facts are. Until you apply Darwinian thinking.
leedsmanc 6 days ago
@leedsmanc Knowledge of viruses doesn't make you immune to them. Immunity does. People dying of flu who know what it is and people surviving who don't is the norm.
That ideas and emotions control us more than we them is deeply Buddhist, so you overestimate your immunity. The Buddhist framework (unlike Dennet's) teaches liberation from it (Susan Blackmore). Niklaus Luhmann provides a framework from systems theory, so nothing exclusive about Dawkin's little muse (an ancient greek idea)
leconfidant 6 days ago
@leconfidant You're replying to what you wanted me to say, rather than what i said. Dennett is all about liberation from ideas, it's just you feel a little aggrieved that he seeks especial liberation from ideas bundled together in the insidious form of religion (you've been (well) taught to take attacks on religion personally, from an early age). I know how immune systems work thanks; I see you struggle with metaphors and analogies.
leedsmanc 6 days ago
@leedsmanc
1) You said to VexingSouls kids of Christians have no choice. I am an exception. All my siblings are the same as me, Buddhist or pagan. Rather than acknowledge that I had indeed made a choice, 2) you said Buddhism was bullshit, which most people would say is a personal comment when you’re talking to a Buddhist. I ignored it and stuck to the issue. Now you’re saying I’m taking it too personally. Well my apologies... for your freudian projection,
leconfidant 4 days ago
@leedsmanc
3) You said that I failed to understand that ideas can control us. I think controlling our ideas is an illusion. “I”, such as I am, am merely their dialogue, which is a more radical position than Dennet’s, although I do agree with his position that there is no ego. I took this position from the age of 18. I’m 43. And I repeat, it was a well developed notion from early Buddhism and Greco-Roman culture onward.
leconfidant 4 days ago
@leedsmanc 4) You said knowledge of our ideas gives us immunity to them. and compared this to the awareness of people fighting flu viruses. Knowing about the flu doesn’t make you immune. People and animals who are immune, are generally unconsious of their immunity. People who are dying of it have the clearest set of symptoms to indicate what they’re dying of. I refuted both the science and your metaphorical point. Knowledge that we can have bad ideas doesn’t stop people having them.
leconfidant 4 days ago
@leedsmanc 5) You gave yourself as an example of someone who is immune to ‘Buddhist bullshit’. But the notion that we are often hijacked by ideas which do us no good is something religions and sciences have always said. That is why I say that your own particular immunity to Buddhist bullshit has clearly failed. The position that we are not the managers of our minds is classically Buddhist. QED. So you yourself are my proof, whether you identify as religious or not. Sorry about that.
leconfidant 4 days ago
@leedsmanc 6) There is no difference which memetics can discern between religious ideas and any other. Rationality itself, by memetic standards, can only be a another meme. By Darwinian thinking, survival fitness would be the measure of success of a meme, not logic. And religion isn’t doing badly as our co-evolution has a longer ancestry than the memes of modern science.
leconfidant 4 days ago
@leconfidant I'm still indignant that only Darwinian thinking will explain this framework. 6) My mind drifted through about 20 different philosophies which outlined similar frameworks. Gilles and Deleuze, Le Rochefoucauld, Greco-Roman daemonism, shamanism, deconstructionism all took the position that language and ideas and concepts come to us and we are merely hosts.
leconfidant 4 days ago
@leconfidant 7) By far the most obvious framework for memetic replication is the common speach of common people. For replication, try 'communication'. For competition, try dialogue and thinking. For mutation, try 'confusion'. That gives you the whole framework right there.That some ideas are bad ones, albeit rather persuasive and therefore harmful is something my grandmother would expect everyone to understand. Emperor's new clothes.
leconfidant 4 days ago
@leconfidant You cant categorize science like that, there are the scientific principles of discovery and observation, then there is religious dogma. One can be revised and expanded upon and the other can't, one is necessary for progress and...Rationality is more than a meme, it doesn't need justification, it justifies itself through evidence, it exists in spite of... This argument is akin to the argument that one can't prove God doesn't exist, its not a serious thought.
erikachad 3 days ago
@erikachad 1)Religions have always been revised and reinterpreted (like the principles of discovery and observation).Therefore2)Not all religion is dogmatic3)No society ever survived without religion and those who gave it up collapsed or reneged.4)The concept of evidence is itself a mutating meme same as the rest. (Read Dawkins' definitions in Selfish Gene.) 5) I don't believe in god, but that you can't prove he doesn't exist is only an awareness of the limits of scientific evidence.
leconfidant 1 day ago
@leconfidant Tedious. It's tedious talking to you. Your arguments are so devoid of relevance it's like debating with a damp towel.
leedsmanc 4 days ago
@leedsmanc Mmm. It's the first time I had to make more than one post, but it was just so wrong on so many points, dissection.was educational. No regrets.
leconfidant 4 days ago
@VexingSoul I dunno, some ideas and memes can be aggressive.
chaoticpix93 3 months ago
I think your lifes work on consciousness is a meme.
GCthegreat1ify 4 months ago
@GCthegreat1ify lol you say that like memes are bad. All ideas are memes. Even ideas that are factually true are memes i.e. 2+2=4 is a meme. "Meme" is such a broad and general term that you really have to apply it to a specific subject for them to have any real use.
sexyloser 3 months ago
@sexyloser Exactly, thank you. A meme is basically an idea... accompanied by an evolution nerd telling you that it's a totally new discovery. I don't think this is a scene of scientific debate. I just want to point them to social work support.
leconfidant 1 week ago
Superb!
landulf88 4 months ago
This vid has . . . OVER 9000 VIEWS~!!!
BlueSugarMaple 4 months ago
the TED intros reminds me of, old vhs videos when they did a sound test at the begining of every movie that was realeased
GenX52 5 months ago
@GenX52 what is vhs? i was born in 2009
880330145789 4 months ago
Its a fungus. This guy is a humanist that perhaps may perish; just like that ant.
superwawisuperstars 5 months ago
Memes will eat your brain!
astormboy 5 months ago
My copy of "Breaking the Spell" is the same colour as his shirt. . .
eveningtsar 5 months ago
@eveningtsar I've got the good book "Breaking the spell". For great analysis of the facts about the Bible & other old Writ & comparative religion try also John W. Loftus, Robert M. Price, Dan Barker, Valerie Tarico, Ken Humphreys, Keith Parsons, Ken Pulliam, David Mills, Gary Greenberg, Bart Ehrman, Joseph Wheless, C. Dennis Mckinsey, Richard Carrier, Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell, Israel Finkelstein, James Frazer, Jason Long, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens , Richard Dawkins
zytigon 4 months ago
@zytigon
You mention Hitchens twice there, which is completely understandable: once wouldn't be enough for Hitchens! lol. Seriously though, thanks for the suggestions. "Breaking the Spell" was one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. I have read some of those authors before (mainly the "big four"), but others are new. I shall definitely check them out.
eveningtsar 4 months ago
@zytigon thanks for the list of authors, I'm always looking for good reading that exposes religious bullshit
NaturalSelection101 2 months ago
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@NaturalSelection101 Glad to be of assistance. Have you discovered freethoughtblogs com. The top one is by PZ Myers but John W. Loftus does a good one on there: Debunkingchristianity. On 17th December he lists the top 50 atheists, on 18th he lists what he thinks should be top 35 atheist. Plenty of reading material in that lot.. Or if you look on Amazon at Christopher Hitchen's book, "The portable atheist" then you can look inside and see a short list of noteworthy writers in the contents page
zytigon 2 months ago
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The word "homosexual" is more appropriate and accurate than the word "gay".
A person does not need religion, hatred or any kind of phobia in order to acknowledge important, qualitative differences between heterosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption and homosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption.
Homosexual activists, with complete support from the media, have succeeded at framing themselves as noble victims and martyrs; it's an effective way to push a social agenda.
lightandbeautiful 5 months ago
0:26 to skip the intro
EastCoastJew 5 months ago 2
Pretty interesting watching this talk after seeing the movie Inception.
aguaski06 5 months ago
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I think he ment 'bad memes' where more like 'colds' for some people, for others they can be more catastrophic. Even more, he says we have to allow small benign "mutations" so our "immune system" would be better. I think that's very reasonable and realistic. Guess I know why I didn't fail philosophy. xD
egodrive 5 months ago
@egodrive Why the heck was this flagged as spam??
MyLatestEscape 5 months ago
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egodrive 5 months ago
Germs and viruses - Our greatest competitors for domination of Planet Earth. For much of our history we had no way to combat them. Now we can win this battle; with further science and knowledge. NOT more ignorance and superstition.
ZachRose88 6 months ago 2
@ZachRose88 right on Zach
NaturalSelection101 6 months ago
The universe created human beings so that we could evolve into super intelligent immortal robots which would eventually develop technology to stop the destruction of universe in the big crunch. There, I said it.
dirtyharree 6 months ago
Huh. That was strangely terrifying. Is he saying that I'm performing the moral equivalent of giving a tuberculosis-infected blanket to a native american every time I listen to punk rock or use birth control?
(probably no surprize I failed philosophy101 back in college)
MyLatestEscape 7 months ago
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egodrive 5 months ago
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egodrive 5 months ago
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egodrive 5 months ago
Did everyone have asthma in that room while he was talking?
VVillowz 7 months ago
Evolution through Natural Selection AKA Natural Preservation, Survival Of The Fittest, etc. Gives THE perfect explanation to why humans are the only species capable of doing what we do -
NaturalSelection101 7 months ago
Memes, The Greatest Coup Of All Time.
xjustamem0ryx 7 months ago
I love Daniel Dennet. He looks like Socrates. lol
DeenerBabiixxo 7 months ago
I said the same thing about memes on my channel
someone said he looks like darwin.....
lol google "santa rudolph" and he looks just like santa, it will make you laff.
rattytheraccoon 8 months ago
where the hell is the like button
ok i found it. i like this.
rattytheraccoon 8 months ago
3:40 INCEPTION.
nimrodlev333 8 months ago
@nimrodlev333 Some should edit this video into an Inception trailer. . .
MrPrankmastergeneral 7 months ago
Great talk from Mr Dennet. Memes, in effect, use minds to survive and propagate. Maybe we only exist for the self-preservation of information/ideas. You have to wonder how something like war, which we can't seem to escape from by evolving, but yet evolves in the very way we wage it, ..why it stays with us.
1isaacmusic 8 months ago
thumbs up if you hate the ted intros as much as i do
theskiprat 8 months ago
Why does EVERYONE in the audience have a terrible upper respiratory infection?? D:<
sameryuu 8 months ago
I love how he looks like Darwin. Makes me feel like I didn't miss the Darwin bus!
BlameRepublicans 8 months ago
so the theory of memes itself is a meme? how can there be any truth if its all just memes? This idea of memes seems more metaphorical then anything else.
violet101 8 months ago
@violet101 The fact that something if a meme does not imply that it is true or false. The Pythagorean Theorem is a meme. All of its proofs (even the incorrect ones) are memes. A recipe is a meme. True, the idea of a meme started out as metaphor of genes, but it is evolving into its own concept. It may be abstract and not physical like a gene, but so is mass, force, acceleration, energy, ...
Quaternion86 8 months ago
cool analog of how we are victims of or victimize others with our belief systems.
xjustamem0ryx 9 months ago
meems!? should be pronounced "MAYMAY's" imo
xjustamem0ryx 9 months ago in playlist 2011 ones to watch
@ogmonkey27 hmm, here we go. Mine as well debate on this vid, God exists, the fact that you think all beings exist on your plane of reality, within your five senses causes you to have primitive mind set, and prevents this world from stoping people like Hitler, the KKK, Stalin, etc.
animedude00spec 9 months ago
1:18. Someones about to jack off to this shit.
cobolt13 9 months ago
Saying that the philosophy of the Shakers was a meme demonstrates how "meme" is simply an expression of bias against all ideas that interfere with our survival or reproduction. And ideas aren't living entities that "ride" us, we hold false ideas and true ideas but without our mind there is no idea; it's not a predator trying to ride our brain. It's a clever analogy but it's an attempt to justify bias with science.
goodtwitch 9 months ago
@goodtwitch Are you saying that books don't exist?
mcmonkey001 8 months ago
@goodtwitch Not predators but parasites. Both memes and parasites do spread among suitable hosts, people with predisposition to and in condition of carrying them and spreading them even more. Some of them can be benign, in that case it is more like a symbiont, it spreads the same way but with good results instead of bad.
Memes are not good nor bad, results are.
DarkZholt 8 months ago
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Sounds just like Christianity :-)
mbdulka 9 months ago
maybe ur right or maybe ur wrong...but hands down ur a dumb ass
erivesmoi 9 months ago
maybe ur right or maybe ur wrong...but hands down ur a dumb ass
erivesmoi 9 months ago
Brilliant man.
MrRobotoToo 10 months ago 40
an excellent talk! -shame we have to listen to all 10 suicidal cigarette smokers hacking away, coughing as their respiratory tracts push tar outwards...!
tobynsaunders 10 months ago
The Beard Says It All.
DeepCore214 11 months ago 57
@DeepCore214 You sir... UNDERSTAND LIFE!
Scientisticsoviet 5 months ago
It's always our fault!!!!
baetzaashu1 11 months ago
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MrAtheoi 11 months ago
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MrAtheoi 11 months ago
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MrAtheoi 11 months ago
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MrAtheoi 11 months ago
@Flat Earther Faithy (sigh) Fabs,
After 151 years since 'Origin', despite 10+ schools of thought, that's the best reply you can come up with in 2011 UD Faith-head?
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Usual. Bless.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@naturalpreservation there is only ONE school of thought dipshit, the latest and greatest making you look like and idiot
MrAtheoi 1 year ago
@Ath-hole,
I'm still waiting on you providing an answer to the straight forward question: Can you name an animal that has made something with a moving part? Your silence on this speaks volumes Ath-hole. I'll add that to the growing list of things you have nothing to say about. What an ath-hole!
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One school of thought? Memetics, evolutionary psychology, Boyd & Richerson's population approach and Dan Sperber's epidemiological approach are four schools of thought that spring to mind Ath-hole.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@Ath-hole,
I can see why you are on you tube. You can make an assertion which is rooted on being so under-read it's quite stunning, all the while trying to make out you know more about something that you do. Where I come from, you are "a ponce", but I'll stick with the Ath-hole name. It's so you.
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I've asked you to provide a single species (from 100s of millions of different kinds over the evolutionary process) that have created a proto-tool with a working part.
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I'd like an answer Ath-hole.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@Ath-hole
I've already asked you before to name the one accepted theory of culture from evolutionary theory and you've said nothing in reply, because you and I know that there has been no accepted theory of culture over the last 151 years from evolutionary theory despite 10+ schools of thought trying and retrying.
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You might hint that there is one but you are only mischief making, in the process making yourself look even more of a massive Ath-hole than you seem already. Come on, answers please.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@naturalpreservation in the words of friend fabs038, Bladly Blah Blah Blah Blah
wtf makes you thing I want to talk to you?
MrAtheoi 1 year ago
@Ath-hole,
Oh my, what a big girlie you are. So you cannot answer the question(s) I put to you then. You make yet another ridiculous statement which only exposes how out of touch you are on culture. Time and time again. What an Ath-hole you are.
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No answers, in fact the only response is to quote from your UD pretention Faith-head and fellow you tube lifer-styler, fabs. Talk about quoting/scraping from the bottom of the barrel.
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Stop responding Ath-hole, you've got nothing to say uber-ponce.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@Ath-hole,
You said there was only one school of thought, I named four off the top of my head. Who's the dipshit (in your words) now, dipshit?
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You trip yourself up, almost with every post. You are stunningly short and now you are resorting to quoting from your fellow you tube lifer-styler, and UD Faith-head, fabs. Another low-point from you, and there have been a number.
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Caught out yet again, and I mean yet again. I don't want to talk to you shorty, but you seem keen enough on talking to me.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
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@Ath-hole
You said pathetically "there is only ONE school of thought dipshit" and then I reeled off four and how do you reply girlie?
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You said "Bladly Blah Blah Blah Blah - wtf makes you thing I want to talk to you?"
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I could just sit here and watch you literally trip yourself up with very misguided key stroke. You've got nothing, and the very idea you think you have anything to say, when you leave yourself exposed time after time, is laughable and sad all at the same time
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What an Ath-hole
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
my main point I am trying to get accross; despite all the specific dates for these subjects of the past, all of it was very very gradual. Nothing in our past was 'sudden'. The evidence shows very long timelines. Simply stating specific dates seems to confuse many.
Even the 'PreCambrian Explosion' is a 5 million year time period - not long in geological terms, but..
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NS101,
I have no issue with the narrative that science is rooted on in terms of the physical world and then the emergence of the terrestrial/natural world. The key issue for me is:
1. generating an accepted theory of culture and mind.
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2. holding this alongside both the natural and the physical sciences to see what further connections can be made, and I've said that this can be done through 'sociological psychology' and 'theoretical sociophysics'.
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On meaning, it is different from purpose NS.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@naturalpreservation Go to the Scientific American website and check out the Mind &Brain article, about "How Free Is Your Will?"
NaturalSelection101 11 months ago
@NaturalSelection101
Hi, I'll check it out but there is a profound issue with experimental psychology if it is going to state that our will is not free in the sense that the entire legal system which regulates societies is based on the core idea of personal responsibility. That is something that psychology has to take on board, as well as in 2011 there is no accepted theory of mind, and unconscious mind for that matter.
naturalpreservation 11 months ago
@NaturalSelection101
So while we can state that 'conscious' awareness 'gets' the decisions we are making milliseconds after they are made, this is again to extrapolate out on experimental data (important though they are) without having the benefit of an accepted theory of mind (or culture for that matter) to pin it on. The resultant expression of these results always has a tendency for the big headline, scientists are always looking for new streams of funding, it's a very human business.
naturalpreservation 11 months ago
@NaturalSelection101
However, if I told you that in the 'trilectic of mind' there are three elements that are all causes and effects from each other:
1. our field of experience (FoE)
2. our conscious mind (Cm)
3. our unconscious mind (Um)
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If we take on board that the FoE is caused by and in turn causes Cm, which causes Um and which in turn causes Cm which in turn causes FoE....and so on and so forth then the situation is much more complex than some articles may portray.
naturalpreservation 11 months ago
@NaturalSelection101
The history of science has reached this point in part because it is rooted on a causative model of 'cause and effect' but the more science drifts away from 'centrisms, 'causing' phenomena and embraces the idea of complexity, then it's not just the connections we need to understand but the very dialectical nature of causation where causes are effects, and effects are causes.
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This requires a different mindset, and you have to work harder to get the 'working nets' of networks
naturalpreservation 11 months ago
@NS101,
I am saying that meaning is the informational range that only humans engage in. Dennett narrating the NOVA documentary referred to "the world of meaning" and understanding the laws of motion about meaning and culture is the deep problem for the social sciences. That is something beyond the explanatory capacity of the biological sciences.
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Information is all around us as 'meaning potential' and collapses as it enters our field of experience. I think Dawkins confuses memeing with meaning
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS101
Purpose is something different from meaning (communicative indication). That is a particular grand statement of cosmic direction and that is more the domain of faith than science.
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Dawkins colleague/friend and paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey in 'Origins Reconsidered' finds the 'sudden' emergence of symbolic art and expression "puzzling". Leakey and his relatives have found more human origins than any other research team, so we've got to take his considered opinion seriously on this
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS101,
There remains a difference between anatomically (archaic) similar sapiens and behaviourally modern humans NS and your comments don't change that.
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There remains a profound difference between primordial culture, proto culture and culture (proper) which is a propulsive, quickening process to the point of exponentiality. Again, 'tools' remained the same for one million years through homo habilis, and we need only reflect how life changing the industrial age has been in less than 300 years
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
your a fellow book worm......check out the works of Donald C. Johanson and Ann Gibbons
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NaturalSelection101 you are..
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NS101,
I think it comes down to two areas of contention for me. The first is that culture is different in dimension from nature. Dawkins (you tube lecture 'The Purpose of Purpose') freely concedes that cultural evolution is "an entirely new kind of evolution" which is "up to a million times faster" than Darwinian evolution. I think this new system of change is beyond the explanatory capacity of evolutionary theory and the last 151 years is a solid period of history endorsing such a view NS.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS101,
The second point refers to the rubicon period where culture (proper) emerged from, and extended from the evolutionary process NS. I think the evidence points towards a convergence of capacities which through a contingent, perfect storm type emergence we have "the mind's big bang" (William Calvin) and the telling difference between anatomically (archaic) similar sapiens and behaviourally modern humans.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS101,
I think the more ToC rolls out and the social sciences see the possibilities of it's explanatory range and how it can add something of value to research past and present they'll embrace the metanarrative more and more.
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Certainly when they train their eye on the relatively weak arguments that evolutionary theory has clumped together to argue that culture is an evolutionary process they'll challenge them increasingly more. Those arguments are mainly narrative and not scientific NS.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS
So culture as an identifiable process with laws of motion, mathemetical representation and the ability to measure it's speed is perhaps my main focus. However, understanding the rubicon moment when we can see culture (proper) emerging from the evolutionary process (Leakey's Puzzle) is another area of interest
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I think that once ToC rolls out and you see the level of explanation, measurement and theory in understanding culture, it'll be easy to see that it's different in dimension to nature
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@naturalpreservation I appreciate your insight. You put much thought into all this and you are "ahead of the game", as far as where I am. I'll be on the road again with my business, and will check in here again sometime soon.
I just have to say again that all the philosophy of man's acheivements, etc. doest not require a god.
Later
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NS101,
We differ on the God thing but I'd remind you what Francis Bacon once said, and he is thought to be the father of the science method, " A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
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As a shorthand and accessible way to understand the difference between instinctual, hard-wired life in localised environments and habitual, soft-wired life in dynamic social world zones NS, think of the difference between ROM and RAM
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS101
ROM (read only memory) life in localised environments over geological time can be accounted for well by evolutionary theory, but the RAM (random access memory) 'intelligent' life that humans embody is too dynamic for the slow, gradual degrees of the Darwinian model to account for. That was the case in 1859 and remains the same today
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The work on neuroplasticity underlines the causative power of experience for the human brain, and society is the primary source of that experience. Later NS
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
we both could sound like broken records. Human Exceptionalism, occam's razor, only animal on the tree of life that can create, natural selection.
the search for meaning has been around for 200k years+ and will alway's be here - IMO that is what is natural.
did you know the first graves date back to 300k?....profound evidence of superstition.
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
"superstition" also came about way before 50k.
and it evolved.
please do not deny history.
It is a 'wonder' of humans to create. (we are lucky)
from the primitive tools and primitive superstition,
which evolved to such advanced tech and creative superstition.
Unfortunately, without proof of the supernatural you made the
decision to grasp - occam's razor is much more powerful.
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NS101,
I've always found reference to Occam's Razor (a person of faith) as an easy out. I can't remember Occam/Ockham ever cracking culture or coming up with the theory of evolution. I think the evidence more than substantiates what I am arguing and so does the setup of the modern University system, with the physical sciences, terrestrial/natural sciences and social sciences, arts and humanities involved with the three layers of reality that I have outlined a number of times NS.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NP
..My 'realism' is what is acknowledging the differences of human life to all other life.
Your claim to the 50k mark in time is lacking in facts.
Many many things were happening, evolution wise, prior to 50k years ago. You can not throw all that out!
And the 'sudden' so called human exceptionalism near 50k years ago does YOU no credit to claim divine intervention.?!?
Do you understand the realist requires evidence, not faith, for extraordinary claims like that?
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
...you and I know what 'memes' can shape/change culture. Down to basic things like what people wear.
That is little of a 'so what' right now for me.
God, as explained by you, is what I am questioning.
Your view is very new, I can't say I know of anyone with your take on god - yet still claims to be 'christian'
You see the human expression of god through written word. As evidence(human exceptionalism, etc.)
But for me, with my deep interest in science, would like to see ONE bit of evidence
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NS101,
I don't think we are Gods, but there is certainly a case that we are 'of' God. The comparison, well argued, is quite stark. Humans are exceptions to a theory that has broad explanatory capacity in explaining biological and botanical change in the organic setting of nature. In species terms, that's one species in comparison with 100s of millions. In temporal terms it's just less than 1/100,000th of life on earth, or 0.000001 as a fraction.
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It's quite a difference NS.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS101,
I like reading about Darwin, especially the social history and the age of thinking he grew up in but when he stated in 'Descent' that the difference between the mind of man and animals was "one of degree not of kind" there was neither (as remains to this day, quite startlingly) an accepted theory of mind or culture in his day, or since. If we hold true to the comparative method that underpins science then we have to acknowledge the weakness of Darwin's assertion in this regard.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS101,
All the work I have done and continue you do points firmly not just to a difference in kind, but a difference in dimension. Culture and mind are beyond the measure of evolutionary theory, and therefore the biological sciences as well.
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I think the social sciences will generate the laws of motion describing the social world of humankind, and through mathematical representation conducive to Galileo's understanding of the book of nature culture's state and speed can also be measured.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
The people who promoted memetics moved on because the knew it was a little too dogmatic about some things, right? Maybe since the whole idea of the scientific theory is to actually prove things wrong really worked with memetics?
"Evolution is a specific model of change that can not explain cultural change."
of course, but maybe you can see that the basic/original 'thought' from Dawkin's Selfish Gene still survives? Knowing that most of that was polluted by non scientists over the years...
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
....that shows how the tree of life represents our relationship with the great apes. What are the possibilities for evolution for the family of apes, for the next 150kn years?
Do you actually think the evolutionary process has ended, because of a god?
I'm rushing here, will be back later
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NS101
The timing of your question is quite poignant NS.
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'Horizon - Are We Still Evolving?' 14/15
Dr Alice Roberts follows a trail of clues from ancient human bones to the frontiers of genetic research to discover if we are still evolving - and where we might be heading
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This is on BBC television this evening at 9pm. I've stated, (I'll restate) human history is a process of cultural expression, not cultural evolution. Evolution is a specific model of change that can't explain cultural change
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS101
So the way to understand human history and cultural expression is not a process of evolution, but of development. Development captures the idea that humans have increasingy power to shape the worlds around them, both social world and natural world, which in turn feedsback on them
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It doesn't bother me droning on about the problems evolutionary theory has had in explaining culture because for critical minds in this area it's a huge elephant in the room, except for Ath-hole, UD Fabs and Co
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
I've been caught up for the last few weeks with a young earth creationists/bible literalist. Wow what a time this has been. How some can put down the science of dating methods, but not know one thing about it, is beyond me.
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NS101,
I'm not going to beat up on any believer in God but you are showing a lack of critical thinking there. Like I;ve said there's a lot to know and it can take a lot of time to know it. Anyone who goes to Uni for four years, and maybe another 3 for their PhD is doing something quite indulgent. I've added another 11 years to that, but that is something alien to a lot of working people's experience.
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Human super learning means that all humans undergo a level of soft-indoctrination, a given.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@naturalpreservation I understand that. But one does not need a high level of University education to understand how the world works, if they are motivated, in this information age. A lot of people are digging for answers, and finding out information that clashes with what they were brought up to believe. Result has been a rise in atheism.
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NS101
Critical thinking really does work both ways and I don't think you are trying hard enough there. That being the case you are not really trying to understand the other position (real critical thinking can be quite exhaustive) and as a consequence you are only telling me what you don't understand, rather than why that person understands the world they way they do
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If you understand culture's ubiquity, then no-one can escape it's reach through it's relative concert with mind, and all minds
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@naturalpreservation Yes, very true, but I have to elaborate later
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NS101.
Ultra-biologists in this argument don't like to acknowledge that there are cultural drives and layers of complexity that biology can't account for. The social and cultural facts remain that things like genre and generational effects are not 'in' our biology but emerge from the interconnection of the physical, terrestrial and social worlds that humans live in.
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I can see attitudes changing about science and religion in my generation, but this is 'adoption' and not 'adaptation'.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS101,
Humans are born with a super-learning capacity that enables and demands a capacity of experience loaded into our brains/minds beyond all precedent across 100s of millions of species in the natural world. This experience is stored in/through attitudes, beliefs, opinions and values and that is something that defines our individual being.
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Darwin wrote that habits (learned) and instincts (innate) were very difficult to tell apart at times and that can come down to interpretation NS.
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@naturalpreservation critical thinking was used, and I did my best to influence that, not try to change the other. I understand the other position very well. I was there for a long time, and understand the way they do/think about god, critical thinking is why I an not a christian any longer.
NaturalSelection101 1 year ago
@NS101,
I'm not going to disagree with you that they are misguided but if you think that you can overcome deep seated beliefs through the 'conversational medium' of you tube then you are either:
1. dismissing the depth of their belief
2. overstating the power of your argument and rational debate
3. overstating the power of what you can convey through you tube.
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Ath-hole, UD Faithy Fabs think Darwinism is near God-like and I don't. They are too dogmatic, but their lack of argument is very clear
naturalpreservation 1 year ago
@NS101,
The B&B case is cloudier for me because for a loving couple (gay or straight) to be turned away from any B&B can't be a good feeling, but then there is a couple here who are being criminalised (later fined £1,800) for changing attitudes during their lifetimes.
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Whatever view(s) people have on this there is no biological manipulation involved, humans have to legislate to regulate. So in the UK you can not turn someone away for being gay, whereas in America you can. Culture is relative.