@42kang My brief look seemed uninspiring. I got as far as: "His deepened understanding of cell biology highlighted the mechanisms by which the mind controls bodily functions, and implied the existence of an immortal spirit." - and then gave up.
@tmtyler haha that sounds like the presenter. His premise is that dna does not control the cell but the environment triggers parts of the dna. Then he strings environment together with thought and so on and so forth.
The solution to the debate over directed memetic evolution and random memetic evolution is a simple one. Human minds cannot consciously direct the evolution of meme, we do not design memes. Instead we design the environment by which certain memes are favored over others. A comedian, for example, does not design the memes by which their jokes are created, they create an environment in their minds that increases the survivability of joke memes. This is a conscious and directed process.
This topic seems to have long since died, so perhaps my arguement will only fall on deaf ears. However, I will answer previous questions.
Is memetics a meme? absolutely
If so, how can you be confident of its truth? Better to answer this with another question. Why do you get songs stuck in your head? Why do you prefer coke or pepsi?
Skeptics seem to be trying to argue that memes are "bad". What you must come to realize is that they are neither good nor bad....or objective. They simply exist
The use of the actual books to quote from is compelling. Great quality of information!
It gets 5 stars from me.
Of course, style is irrelevant to the information, but beauty and aesthetics is important to us, human beings who spend the time in listening and watching this.
Memetics is the carrying over of narrow gene-centrism from the biological sphere to the cultural sphere where it holds even less resonance.
Culture is not the transmission of information. Dawkins would like you to believe that because it artificially bolsters his delusion of 'Universal Darwinism'. In the last 150 years Darwinism/neo-Darwinism have all failed to theorise culture.
Ideas spread, big deal. This is not a theory but an observation stiffened with biological metaphor. Garbageplex
Somebody help me because I think I have a meme that surfaces every time I read about memes, making me think that is esoteric mambo jumbo of the worst kind but dangerously taking seriously a science-at par with 'intelligent Design' or 'Eugenics.' Freud cold have been flawed but Donkeys-I mean, Dawnkins is a hypocritical fraud for peddling this unscientific tosh around while criticizing Freud who brought us an infinitely superior 'theory'. You can always show me what a meme looks like though.
Memetics is a pseudoscintific and self-refuting mess of a theory. Unless you exclude memetics from memetics. Which would be a bit silly. If you accept memetics it cuts the ground from under your feet and leaves you with very little reason to think that most of your true beliefs are little more than effective replicators.
Maybe a video about those who claim memetics is pseudoscience one day. It seems like making a video about creationism, though. Surely that is someone else's job.
Actually I have changed my mind about memetics being pseudoscience but for reasons more to do with the problem of demarcation in science and my feyerabendian view of science than the validity of memetics itself.
However I do have a couple of questions. Is memetics a meme? If so, how can you be confident of its truth? Does the idea of truth even make sense in a system where beliefs are selected by their 'fitness' or adaptive success?
More like a bunch of associated ideas - like most scientific theories. "True" mostly seems like a synonym for smething one is reasonably certain of. So: it is true that gravity is an attractive force, for example.
So a memeplex? I would agree with your rough definition of truth. My problem comes when I try to apply memetic theory to memetics. I end up with no reason to believe it anything other than a particularly good replicator, replacing other memes and giving an impresion of usefulness. That would be a good description of the christianity meme right? It is wrong but effective because it dispells other memes and causes belief that it is useful. But on what grounds do I believe memetics to be 'truer'?
Memetics is mostly just a terminology for cultural evolution. Cultural evolution is just another branch of science - though one that is still developing.
If you can't distinguish between science and religion (because both ideas spread rather like pathogens do) then you have a basic problem which has been written about endlessly - and which you should hopefully be able to resolve by reading about the philosophy of science and the scientific method.
I have read extensivley about science and the scientific method. And I would suggest that if you had done the same you may have heard of the demarcation problem. Which is particularly troublesome when combined with a feyerabendian view of science, as I have already stated is my position.
Also you completely ignored the point of my critcism. Your use of the pathogen analogy is telling, if scientific and religous ideas both spread like pathogens, what reason is there to prefer scientific ones?
I'm not really trying to patronise you - I just don't understand the problem you seem to be having.
Why should the accuracy or usefulness of ideas depend on the pattern of their spread? From the point of view of host DNA, some memes are deleterious pathogens, and other ones are beneficial symbiotes. Both can be good at spreading. That provides one possible way for an individual to distinguish between "good" and "bad" memes on utilitarian grounds - and no doubt there are others.
Anyway, you last comment seems to suggest that your problem is not really with memetics, but with broader areas of science in general. Deciding what is and what is not science is a topic which has been written on extensively by philosophers of science. I am not terribly interested in the problem - and so will just defer to them.
Actually I studied to be a biologist and memetics was the thing that made me start to question the inherent rationality of science. As far as I can see it is only more scientific than things which get refered to a pseudo-science because of its adherence to a reductionist aesthetic. Deciding what is and is not science is tricky little problem that we are probably best to leave out of this though, I agree.
Because your ideas got into your head by being good replicators and you get to decide which ones are useful based on other memes which are also their because of their ability to replicate NOT because of any degree of truth they may contain. Truth is kinda key if you want to claim a theory is TRUE. Once you start introducing ways around this memetics becomes nothing more than a series of banal truisms about people liking things that other people like.
Hi Tim. Enjoying your vids. In regards to your statement that memes are a kind of gene that is not stored on DNA: My way of explaining this would be that memes and genes are both instances of a more abstract concept of a replicator. Genes are best understood, in my view, as being biochemically encoded replicators which use cellular machinery to replicate. The reason for this emphasis is to support the endeavour of biological sciences.
Memes, on the other hand arose as a separate instance of the evolutionary algorithm, not as an extension of existing genetic replication. Memes store different information than genes do. They store it in a neural network, and externally as signs and symbols.
The point is that they are two independent levels of evolution, not one extending the other. Compare with RNA/DNA. DNA is an extension of RNA evolution. Memes are not extensions of genes, but are a new instantiation of the replicator phenomenon, operating in an independently running algorithm of social culture.
Also compare with Genetic Algorithms. The replicators there are running in their own independent evolutionary process.
In the abstract, it makes sense to call all of these replicators within an abstract evolutionary algorithm, but to say that the bit strings in a GA are 'genes' is to blur the useful concept of the gene in biology.
The results of genetic algorithms are applied in the real world. That is why people make such systems in the first place. Their evolution influences evolution on the rest of the planet - and that is the point of their existence. If the systems interact as much as this, I prefer to see things as one evolutionary process, composed of multiple different types of replicators in their own ecosystems.
Delivery is awesome.
Narajah 1 month ago
Comment removed
Narajah 1 month ago
what.the.hell.
zaniwilson 2 months ago
Can you give a responce to bruce liptons lecture, the biology of belief pleeeeeeeeeease?
42kang 1 year ago
@42kang My brief look seemed uninspiring. I got as far as: "His deepened understanding of cell biology highlighted the mechanisms by which the mind controls bodily functions, and implied the existence of an immortal spirit." - and then gave up.
tmtyler 1 year ago
@tmtyler haha that sounds like the presenter. His premise is that dna does not control the cell but the environment triggers parts of the dna. Then he strings environment together with thought and so on and so forth.
42kang 1 year ago
The solution to the debate over directed memetic evolution and random memetic evolution is a simple one. Human minds cannot consciously direct the evolution of meme, we do not design memes. Instead we design the environment by which certain memes are favored over others. A comedian, for example, does not design the memes by which their jokes are created, they create an environment in their minds that increases the survivability of joke memes. This is a conscious and directed process.
carrtoonist 1 year ago
This topic seems to have long since died, so perhaps my arguement will only fall on deaf ears. However, I will answer previous questions.
Is memetics a meme? absolutely
If so, how can you be confident of its truth? Better to answer this with another question. Why do you get songs stuck in your head? Why do you prefer coke or pepsi?
Skeptics seem to be trying to argue that memes are "bad". What you must come to realize is that they are neither good nor bad....or objective. They simply exist
Rabbith 2 years ago
The use of the actual books to quote from is compelling. Great quality of information!
It gets 5 stars from me.
Of course, style is irrelevant to the information, but beauty and aesthetics is important to us, human beings who spend the time in listening and watching this.
chiropra1 2 years ago
Memetics is the carrying over of narrow gene-centrism from the biological sphere to the cultural sphere where it holds even less resonance.
Culture is not the transmission of information. Dawkins would like you to believe that because it artificially bolsters his delusion of 'Universal Darwinism'. In the last 150 years Darwinism/neo-Darwinism have all failed to theorise culture.
Ideas spread, big deal. This is not a theory but an observation stiffened with biological metaphor. Garbageplex
naturalpreservation 2 years ago
dude, love your delivery style!
xgeronimo005 2 years ago 6
Somebody help me because I think I have a meme that surfaces every time I read about memes, making me think that is esoteric mambo jumbo of the worst kind but dangerously taking seriously a science-at par with 'intelligent Design' or 'Eugenics.' Freud cold have been flawed but Donkeys-I mean, Dawnkins is a hypocritical fraud for peddling this unscientific tosh around while criticizing Freud who brought us an infinitely superior 'theory'. You can always show me what a meme looks like though.
marcelavasques 2 years ago
Memetics is a pseudoscintific and self-refuting mess of a theory. Unless you exclude memetics from memetics. Which would be a bit silly. If you accept memetics it cuts the ground from under your feet and leaves you with very little reason to think that most of your true beliefs are little more than effective replicators.
23discordians 3 years ago
Maybe a video about those who claim memetics is pseudoscience one day. It seems like making a video about creationism, though. Surely that is someone else's job.
tmtyler 2 years ago
Actually I have changed my mind about memetics being pseudoscience but for reasons more to do with the problem of demarcation in science and my feyerabendian view of science than the validity of memetics itself.
However I do have a couple of questions. Is memetics a meme? If so, how can you be confident of its truth? Does the idea of truth even make sense in a system where beliefs are selected by their 'fitness' or adaptive success?
23discordians 2 years ago
More like a bunch of associated ideas - like most scientific theories. "True" mostly seems like a synonym for smething one is reasonably certain of. So: it is true that gravity is an attractive force, for example.
tmtyler 2 years ago
So a memeplex? I would agree with your rough definition of truth. My problem comes when I try to apply memetic theory to memetics. I end up with no reason to believe it anything other than a particularly good replicator, replacing other memes and giving an impresion of usefulness. That would be a good description of the christianity meme right? It is wrong but effective because it dispells other memes and causes belief that it is useful. But on what grounds do I believe memetics to be 'truer'?
23discordians 2 years ago
Memetics is mostly just a terminology for cultural evolution. Cultural evolution is just another branch of science - though one that is still developing.
If you can't distinguish between science and religion (because both ideas spread rather like pathogens do) then you have a basic problem which has been written about endlessly - and which you should hopefully be able to resolve by reading about the philosophy of science and the scientific method.
tmtyler 2 years ago
I have read extensivley about science and the scientific method. And I would suggest that if you had done the same you may have heard of the demarcation problem. Which is particularly troublesome when combined with a feyerabendian view of science, as I have already stated is my position.
Also you completely ignored the point of my critcism. Your use of the pathogen analogy is telling, if scientific and religous ideas both spread like pathogens, what reason is there to prefer scientific ones?
23discordians 2 years ago
I'm not really trying to patronise you - I just don't understand the problem you seem to be having.
Why should the accuracy or usefulness of ideas depend on the pattern of their spread? From the point of view of host DNA, some memes are deleterious pathogens, and other ones are beneficial symbiotes. Both can be good at spreading. That provides one possible way for an individual to distinguish between "good" and "bad" memes on utilitarian grounds - and no doubt there are others.
tmtyler 2 years ago
Anyway, you last comment seems to suggest that your problem is not really with memetics, but with broader areas of science in general. Deciding what is and what is not science is a topic which has been written on extensively by philosophers of science. I am not terribly interested in the problem - and so will just defer to them.
tmtyler 2 years ago
Actually I studied to be a biologist and memetics was the thing that made me start to question the inherent rationality of science. As far as I can see it is only more scientific than things which get refered to a pseudo-science because of its adherence to a reductionist aesthetic. Deciding what is and is not science is tricky little problem that we are probably best to leave out of this though, I agree.
23discordians 2 years ago
Because your ideas got into your head by being good replicators and you get to decide which ones are useful based on other memes which are also their because of their ability to replicate NOT because of any degree of truth they may contain. Truth is kinda key if you want to claim a theory is TRUE. Once you start introducing ways around this memetics becomes nothing more than a series of banal truisms about people liking things that other people like.
23discordians 2 years ago
Hi Tim. Enjoying your vids. In regards to your statement that memes are a kind of gene that is not stored on DNA: My way of explaining this would be that memes and genes are both instances of a more abstract concept of a replicator. Genes are best understood, in my view, as being biochemically encoded replicators which use cellular machinery to replicate. The reason for this emphasis is to support the endeavour of biological sciences.
wonderist 3 years ago
Memes, on the other hand arose as a separate instance of the evolutionary algorithm, not as an extension of existing genetic replication. Memes store different information than genes do. They store it in a neural network, and externally as signs and symbols.
wonderist 3 years ago
The point is that they are two independent levels of evolution, not one extending the other. Compare with RNA/DNA. DNA is an extension of RNA evolution. Memes are not extensions of genes, but are a new instantiation of the replicator phenomenon, operating in an independently running algorithm of social culture.
wonderist 3 years ago
Also compare with Genetic Algorithms. The replicators there are running in their own independent evolutionary process.
In the abstract, it makes sense to call all of these replicators within an abstract evolutionary algorithm, but to say that the bit strings in a GA are 'genes' is to blur the useful concept of the gene in biology.
wonderist 3 years ago
The results of genetic algorithms are applied in the real world. That is why people make such systems in the first place. Their evolution influences evolution on the rest of the planet - and that is the point of their existence. If the systems interact as much as this, I prefer to see things as one evolutionary process, composed of multiple different types of replicators in their own ecosystems.
tmtyler 2 years ago
Genetic algorithms do contain genes in my book. That is why we call them "genetic" - because they involve genes.
This usage of the term "gene" has a long history - dating back at least as far as the 1960s.
tmtyler 2 years ago
I prefer my take on this terminology. I subsequently made another video - explaining my position in more depth: "Against replicator terminology".
tmtyler 2 years ago