Exactly, the term "evolution" simply adds more organization to the concept
of change, as opposed to random changes that don't accumulate in any
meaningful way.
>> because this term implies a similar mechanism
>> for biological evolution through natural selection and for cultural
>> evolution. Needless to say, the notion of meme only emphasizes this
>> supposed similarity.
>
>My understanding is that the memetics movement is attempting generally
>to explore this strong metaphor of culture is to social evolution as
>genetics is to biological evolution, where culture and genes form the
>"informational" component respectively. Clearly there will be
>significant differences, but, we can also hope, some significant
>similarities. Whether the first or the latter turn out to be most
>important, I suppose, will determine the fate of the specific term
>"meme".
My point, of course, is that both are involved in evolution, which is one
result not two.
>
>> At the core of Gould's discontent is the notion of progress. The above
>> mentioned book advances a tremendously sound argument for why biological
>> evolution does not entail any progress or drive to increased
>> complexity.
>
>I believe that Heylighen has answered this argument in
>detail. Francis: can you point us to the source, and/or outline the
>counterargument?
I do not believe this has been answered conclusively or even
semi-convincingly. The "answers" are ultimately circular. I do not think it
is possible to determine if an evolutionary pathway is the result of
accumulated intentions or the result of accumulated random acts. Just as it
is very difficult to prove that your own thoughts are intentional vs.
merely the accumulated result of prior random events and interactions with
a larger environment/system. In reality these are two "views" of the same
phenomena. The way to distinguish them is according to their usefulness in
leading to further insight about other phenomena. The view where there are
no "intentional" states driving evolution must lead to the view that there
are no intentional states driving anytyhing, and this is not very useful in
many cases, particular human but also others. It is, on that gound, an
incorrect concept. We have knowledge and experience of intentional states
and it does science no good to reduce the explanation of that to
statistical descriptions of it. We should work with it as a causal
phenomena in its own right, certainly as a starting point. Then, in the
future, perhaps we may find a more reductive explanation. But there isn't
one today. That means that science must accept it as phenomena, not that
science can legitimately afford to ignor it on the grounds that it can't be
reduced therefore doesn't exist.
>
>> I am not going to go into great detail here about this argument, but
>> just say that it is based on the idea that given that life started with
>> organisms almost as close as possible to a minimum threshold of
>> complexity required for life, statistically we are to expect a strongly
>> skewed distribution of complexity with an essentially constant mode
>> close to low complexity and a few high complexity organisms.
>
>What measure is he using?
Yes! exactly my point as well.
>
>> In contrast, cultural evolution (or change), he defends, show an active,
>> rapid, change and directionality (or progress).
>
>And what about punctuated equilibria and other fast biological
>evolutionary events?
Yes, I think all the claims Gould makes about the distinction are
arbitrary, except that they represent different "mechanisms" but even at
that, the mechanisms are the same but it is the medium of inheritance that
is different.
>
>> He points out two main
>> differences between cultural and biological evolution (in the following,
>> text in between quotes is from Gould's book above pages 221 and 222):
>>
>> 1) Topology. Biological evolution through natural selection is a
>> "process of constant separation and distinction". Species interact
>> ecologically, "but they cannot physically join into a single
>> reproductive unit".
>
>How does he address symbiosis and other multi-species ecological
>entrainments, even predation?
Again, many counter-examples such as this.
>
>> Species do not amalgamate, join, or crossover
>> systemic information: "once a species becomes separated from an
>> ancestral line, it remains distinct forever." Cultural evolution (or
>> change), on the other hand, is defined by amalgamation and crossover of
>> traditions, ideas, information, etc. This cultural proliferation is of
>> an active, explosive nature. The impact of this process "powers cultural
>> change by a mechanisms unknown in the slower world of Darwinian
>> evolution". Examples of this abound, such as the introduction of fire
>> arms into Japan by portuguese sailors, which caused a long lasting
>> period of multi-partite civil war to change into a more unified
>> shogunite rule.
>>
>> 2) Mechanism of Inheritance. Natural selection provides local adaptation
>> to an environment by elimination of most variants and preservation of
>> those individuals fortuitously better adapted (not necessarily more or
>> less complex) to changing local environments. "Local improvement rises
>> upon the hecatomb of countless deaths; we get to a 'better' place by
>> removing the ill-adapted, not by actively constructing an improved
>> version." In contrast, cultural evolution potentially follows a more
>> active mechanisms of Lamarckian evolution: the inheritance of acquired
>> characteristics.
>
>Turchin has described the difference very well (pespmc1.vub.ac.be
>appears also to be down at the moment, or I'd find the appropriate PCP
>nodes). The mechanisms are similar, namely the generation and testing
>of the expressions of various informational structures. For biology,
>the generation is through sex and mutation, and the expression is
>through growth of the phenotype. For psychology, the generation is
>through THOUGHT, and the expression is through the behavioral
>consequences of thought, whether in human action or communication.
>
>The point is that the generation and death of biological organisms is
>turned into the generation and death of IDEAS, WITHIN an
>individual.
Yes. I totally agree here. This is a critical piece of the process.
This can answer both of Gould's points. First, ideas are
>(generally) expressed in language.
Yes again, however I want to go much farther than the anthropocentric
studies to date, as a theoretical matter. Language may be broadly defined,
perhaps, but it is probably most common to think of it as a later
evolutionary phenomena. Ideas are expressed by everything. That's the key.
Things are both physical "dead" things according to our classical
(objective) model of them, but they are also non-physical ideas at the same
time. These are two incompletely correct worldviews. We are used to the
former one and not so used to the later one in science. Non-scientists are
much more used to the second view. They are not wrong, just as the
classical scientists are not wrong - but both are incomplete views that are
necessary to understanding the whole.
A centeral element of my concept of "autevolution" is the medium of
inheritance of a meme, or idea. Evolution requires "descent with
modification" and "descent" involves inheritance, and that requires
identification of the medium of inheritance. Clearly genetics came along to
do this for Darwin, who did not have the medium identified when he proposed
the theory. That's the physical mechanism. I suggest that the medium of
inheritance of ideas/memes is the environment. It is "coded" through
behavior and interaction. It is "readable" by all organisms.
The distinctness of demes is
>mirrored by the distinctness of language groups. Of course, linguistic
>groups are growing to swamp out smaller groups, but this is a very new
>phenomenon, at least at the global level. Maybe it's similar to the
>proto-biological stages of the coming to dominance of the current
>universal biochemical structure?
>
>Then, the movement of the evolutionary mechanism within the lifespans
>of individuals means that the relative rate is vastly higher: the
>"generation time" of ideas vs organisms.
Again, I advocate a more integrated view of this. Organisms evolve by both
means. That is obvious in the human case and apparent in many non-human cases.
Taking that view, the higher rate of the "cultural" mode certainly appears
to be the case with humans. With insects, say bees, culture is very
important in their ecology and thus evolution, however it appears to
incorporate very little if any cultural innovation at each stage. In other
words, it seems to be strongly dominated by physical/biological evolution.
The cultural component is still there, but it is not very innovative. So in
the case of bees, I would say physical evolution may be faster.
Taking this more general perspective seems like better science to me.
Speaking of "cultural" evolution and using only the human example as if it
were something different leads one to silly conclusions, like there is
something in the mechanism of cultural evolution that is inherently faster.
No, its the organism's capability to innovate ideas that makes it faster.
Otherwise physical evolution is faster. But to think this way you have to
accept the idea that the organism is not the result of something else
(although many other processes have been involved in evolution), but that
the organism is primary in nature. That's the leap needed to resolve the
paradox of these other compartmented views.
This can also address the
>seeming directionality of cultural vs. biological evolution (assuming
>you don't buy Gould's basic complexity argument): it's much
>faster.
Yes, and also internally based on organism intentions. So it can have
pathways that are influenced by intent and purpose, to whatever degree the
organism is organized on that level.
Finally, cultural evolution appears Lamarkian because we can
>only observe the results after it expression out of an individual. The
>trial and error took place out of site within the organism.
I think is appears Lamarkian because it is. Lamark believed in the
inheritance of acquired characteristics. Innovation of ideas is the process
of acquiring new characteristics. These are expressed in behavior and coded
in environmental change (or location), and then decoded in future
generations. The inheritance of acquired characteristics. Where Lamark
missed it was in assuming the medium of inheritance was within the organism
instead of recognizing that organisms are part of a larger system. The
medium of inheritance that is unique to the organism, the Darwinian
mechanism, does not appear to be directly affected by acquired ideas of the
same organism, but by previous organisms, through the larger system.
>
>> Now, if these two types of semiotic selected self-organization are so
>> distinct -- I re-emphasize that one leads to a passive form of evolution
>> while the other to a complexifying, potentially progressive one -- why
>> do we insist on blurring the differences?
>
>I still don't think that conclusion is clear.
I think they are two modes of evolution and evolution itself MUST be
treated as a singular result. So the differences are regarding the
mechanism and medium, and the "blurring" is part of the fact that they
affect the same organism and lead to one combined result.
>
>> Why refer to symbols,
>> language, and ideas as memes, when the cultural mechanism of
>> transmission of the first is so very different from that of genes?
>
>Again, have you demonstrated that the differences are more than the
>similarities?
Again, differences in mechanism and medium, but not difference in what they
operate on. Both operate on organisms and organisms involve both processes.
>
>> Furthermore, from a semiotic perspective, we can see genes as symbols
>> and genotypes as descriptions of organisms, but what about memes? Is the
>> meme of the firearm the human language symbols for this concept, or is
>> it the firearm itself? I cannot find in the notion of meme any
>> distinction between signifier and signified (memotype and ????). Aren't
>> we better off explaining cultural evolution with the more traditional
>> semiotic categories of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics?
>
>I agree with this key conclusion: memetics is nowhere without
>semiotics, or maybe memetics is simply trying to reinvent semiotic
>wheels, or maybe memetics is really "evolutionary semiotics". In the
>end, what is the difference between a meme and a sign?
>
>My basic conceptual problem with memetics is the connotation of a meme
>as a distinct, atomic entity. Even "symbol" and "sign" suffer from
>this weakness. I suppose the same is true for "gene", in that they do
>not exist distinctly, and do exist within a complex interpretive
>system, from which they cannot be separated. It's easier to see in
>semiotics, where a sign is simply any phenomena which CAN be
>interpreted, and can be hierarchically compsed of other signs.
Good point. This seems to demonstrate that genes and memes are not so
epistemologically different. Both DO involve the larger system for their
definition. The real distinction is physical vs. non-physical.
>
>O--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-->
>| Cliff Joslyn, Member of the Technical Staff (Cybernetician at Large)
>| Computer Research Group (CIC-3), Los Alamos National Laboratory
>| Mail Stop B265, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 USA
>| joslyn@lanl.gov www.c3.lanl.gov/~joslyn (505) 667-9096
>V All the world is biscuit-shaped. . .
>
>
-----------------------------------------------
John J. Kineman, Physical Scientist/Ecologist
National Geophysical Data Center
325 Broadway E/GC1 (3100 Marine St. Rm: A-152)
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(303) 497-6900 (phone)
(303) 497-6513 (fax)
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