Two remarks.
First,
I may have overstated my belief in cultural and biological evolution as
related processes in my previous e-mail. My point rather was that the
difference between them should not be based on the differences between
memes and genes.
In fact I think Luis Rocha is doing a great job in defending the
specificty
of cultural evolution relative to organic evolution (as this process is
normally concieved) Thus I fullly agree in the following exchange
between
Luis Rocha (> and >>>) and Alexei Sharov (>>):
>As I said above, I (or Gould for that
>matter) never said that progress and complexity are the same thing. The
>issue is that traditionally in evolutionary biology this has been the
>assumption. The arguments developed refer to progress only in this very
>restricted sense, which I will be quite happy to change.
>
>>
>> >Marco Polo went to China, he
>> >saw that noodles were good, and he brought the idea to Italy with a
>> >precise, known, goal. It is not by accident that Italians eat Pasta.
>> >Cultural discoveries are not accidental.
>>
>> This is not a discovery, but an adoption! Adoptions are often
>> intentional. And I agree with you, that species are not capable of
>> adoption of ideas.
>
>Then you agree with me! Fine, the difference between biological and
>cultural evolution is that the latter possesses an horizontal mechanism
>of information transmission based on the adoption/amalgamation/crossover
>of partially tested strategies -- this IS a tremendous difference! I am
>quite happy with this discussion because it is helping me to choose the
>right terms. Cultural evolution cannot be described by blind variation
>alone, it requires a model of evolution by
>adoption/amalgamation/crossover of ideas/concepts/strategies.
YES, cultural evolution cannot be described by blind variation alone,
but
neither can organic evolution (as I think Luis would himself admit). On
the
other hand there probably is nothing in organic evolution which
resembles
"adoption". This is because adoption presupposes a linguistic mind
capable
of symbolic reference, which is unique to the human being (cf. Terrence
Deacons's book "The Symbolic Species" - symbolic reference in this
context
should be understood in contradistinction to indexical reference which
is a
property of any nervous system).
Languge introduces a new kind of digitalization, unknown until that
point
in evolution. The analog (iconic and indexical) imagination we inherited
from our ape ancestors now in homo sapiens sapiens supplied itself with
a
digital redescription in language, forming a new kind of code-duality
which
Claus Emmeche and I have called it. This implied a colossal speeding up
of
the evolutionary process inside this pocket of the universe which is
human
culture, and certainly deserves for that reason to be analysed in
different
ways from organic evolution. And yet the relationship between the two
kinds
of evolution is also quite clear in that organic evolution is likewise
based on a fundamental code-duality (related to but not to be confused
with
Howard Pattee's pioneering distinction between a symbolic and a dynamic
mode), the duality of the digitally coded survival experiences written
in
the DNA and the analogly coded survival experiences built into the
enormously complicated three dimensional architecture of the cell or the
organism. (Ref: J. Hoffmeyer and C. Emmeche (1991):"Code-Duality and the
Semiotics of Nature" in Myrdene Anderson and Floyd Merrell (eds.): On
semiotic Modeling, Mouton de Gruyter, N.Y. pp.117-166).
The biological digital-analog-digital-analog.... retranslational chain
(or
web) is fundamentally semiotic, fundamentally triadic in the sense that
an
interpretative system (topologically connected to the organized system
of
autonomously growing membranes throughout the body) reframes the simple
dyadic cause and effect relationship between gene and organism
postulated
in textbook genetics. There is no non-ambiguous interpretation key to
the
translation of a gene-description into an actual life process. This is
what
I meant by my statement that genes should be seen as "semiotic resources
for the egg's survival project".
Let me add a more deep concern here: We should try to stop thinking
always
in terms of genes, when in fact membranes hold the true key to activity,
process, dynamics etc. Whether or when genes are used for anything is
fully
dependent on membrane bound activity in the cell(s) - as is the actual
outcome of the "reading of the genes". Genes are for book-keeping only
and
it is difficult not to see the amazingly disproportionate concern with
genes in contemporary science (and public imagination) as a reflection
of
our cultural concern for the book-keeping aspect of social life, or more
generally: the "digitalistic bias" of western culture. In Thomas
Aquinas'
thinking The Great (digital) Book of God, the bible, and The Great
(analog)
Book of Nature were equal sources to knowledge of God's will (as they
still
were for Newton four hundred years later!). Science now seems much too
confident or even obsessed with the idea that it should ultimately be
possible to construct a new DIGITAL book of God-Nature, The Great Book
of
Science? I think, as scientists, we should retain from Aquinas the
humble
intention of grasping the true unreducible interrelation between the
digital and the analog aspects of nature as well as human existence.
Second,
Stan Salthe, ssalthe@binghamton.edu, wrote:
>>All
>> developing systems so far encountered increase in
>> complicatedness, and usually in complexity too, during
>> development. Hence, if phylogeny is a material process, I would
>> predict that it should show complexity increases -- if only we could
>> find the key to making the right measurements (which McShea
>> has yet to achieve).
And Luis replies:
>Maybe it's up to those that believe that complexity should increase to
>propose the right measurements... McShea did an extraordinarily thorough
>job, if you don't agree that his complexity measure is accurate, then
>propose another study. He makes that invitation himself.
I agree with Stan and also in a way with McShea. In Signs of Meaning in
the
Universe (Indiana UP 1996, p. 60-61) I suggested that what is wrong with
complexity as a measure of evolutionary progress is that it does not
incorporate the semiotic or communicative aspect of life. The
interesting
thing about complexity is not just how many parts there are and the
degree
of irregularity of their arrangement, since this just means that complex
systems are heterogenous, detailed and lacking in any particular
pattern.
This perspective misses the overriding fact that organisms are always
born
into a world of signification, organisms are not alone in the world,
they
are heavily engaged in communication, anticipation and learning
prcesses,
i.e. in semiotic activity. And to my mind there can be no doubt that
exactly this dimension of life is the core of evolutionary change. The
semiotic freedom of mammals greatly exceeds the semiotic freedom of
reptiles - but mammals are not morphologically more complex than
reptiles.
So the challenge is to build the semiotic dimension of life into the
complexity measure. But I am afraid we will need quite new or unknown
forms
of formalization if this should be done in a not too reductively
damaging
way.
Now from these two remarks I think it follows that cultural evolution is
a
naturel process characterised by an immense sophistication of exactly
that
dimension of organic evolution to which biology has been most blind. In
Danish we have the expression "to put the telescope to the blind eye".
It
goes back to admiral Nelson at the battle of Copenhagen in 1801 where he
did exactly that because, contrary to what was decided in advance, he
wouldn't stop the fight at a given time. So in putting the telescope to
the
blind eye he was able to claim that he didn't observe the signal to
stop,
and he subsequently ruined the Danish fleet and won the battle. I am
afraid
that there is also much to gain from putting the telescope to biology's
blind eye. Often it is much easier to advance when you do not see the
true
complications. But in the long run this is hardly a healthy scientific
strategy.
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University of Copenhagen
Institute of Molecular Biology, The Biosemiotics Group
Jesper Hoffmeyer tel
+45
3532 2032
Solvgade 83
fax
+45 3532 2040
DK-1307 Copenhagen K
e-mail: hoffmeyer@mermaid.molbio.ku.dk
http://www.molbio.ku.dk/MolBioPages/abk/PersonalPages/Jesper/Hoffmeyer.html
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