Jay Hanson speaks up

MacG · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 1178

Nobody has mentioned memetics here yet? The second replicator. Suggested by Dawkins already in -76. Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine" provide a good review of what has been done since then. The theory of memetics manage to explain quite a lot which genetics fail to explain. There are serious reasons to belive that human genes has been in the back seat the last 150 000-200 000 years, while the second replicator -memes- has been in the drivers seat.

Ludi · Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 7:51 am Post subject: Re: Jay Hanson speaks up

Nobody has mentioned it because we're busy arguing about genetics! But I agree with you McG, memes are as important as genes, in human societies. Certainly modern society promotes "me first!" memes over cooperative memes, even though these "me first!" memes probably won't be successful in the long run. Without a massive infrastructure to support them, "me first!" individuals will have a hard time surviving unless they can learn to cooperate.
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Doly · Expert Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 4034

EnergySpin · Fission Joined: Jun 25, 2005 Posts: 2381

I do have a problem digesting memetics which certain people might dismiss as nitpicking. The theory of memetics is a theoretical tool devised by Dawkins along the lines of Mendelian genetics . Mendel Hypothesized that genes exist (no one knew about DNA) as hidden variables in statistical models that described his plant breeding experiments .
It took 50-60 years before they were given a physical basis (i.e. the work of Avery in the pneumoniococcus in the 40s).
The problem with memes is that by definition no such straightforward physical basis seems to exist. Hence at best "memes" have an epistemological and not an ontological basis i.e. they allow us to think about the natural world but do not exist in the real world (which is different than genes sicne they do have both these aspects).

This is not to be interpreted as an attack against the persistence or the influence of cultural norms over genes in certain circumstances. In fact I can think of at least one cultural practise that is manifesting it self with 100% certainty in succesive generations i.e. circumcision in Jews and certain other religious groups. There are other genes (genetic hemochromatosis for example) which even if present do not necessarily lead to the disease (the technical term is incomplete penetrance).
If one were to follow a naive genetic determinism (ala JH) he or she would have to conclude that genes harbour a gene that creates the behaviour of male circumcision whereas genetic hemochromatosis would be given a genetic or a non-genetic basis.
As it stands ... solutions to the equation gene+environment = behaviour
will be probably never be obtained in a clear form. We are complex systems, interacting in a complex world. It is foolish to assume that one could reduce everything to a small set of guiding principles. At the very best he or she can only arrive to heuristics . But heuristics and other approximative methods are only valid in a small domain. Walk out of the domain and you are saying non-sense
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"Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts.

EdF · Heavy Crude Joined: May 08, 2005 Posts: 189

Ludi · Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:28 pm Post subject: Re: Jay Hanson speaks up

EdF · Heavy Crude Joined: May 08, 2005 Posts: 189

rogerhb · Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:40 pm Post subject: Re: Jay Hanson speaks up

albente · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 20, 2004 Posts: 1356

Did anyone check on the credibility of the original post of the supposed "Jay Hanson"? I smell a rat here, just as ES did when wondering what made the fellow run to the hills 2002 (or possibly even before that) and out of the blue to start posting on an obscure site on a relatively ordinary premise (genetic determination).

To me this is complete BS.

gg3 · Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:52 am Post subject: Re: Jay Hanson speaks up

A certain amount of misunderstanding here is coming from implicitly different definitions of terms. Try this: there are five core dynamics in social ecosystems, as follows:

Cooperation: Sharing a resource. For example, two auto makers set up a fund for university researach on new powertrains, with joint licensing of the resulting inventions.

Competition: Vying for a resource within an agreed rule-set. For example, two auto makers each introduce their own models using the jointly developed powertrain, and vie for market share. Note, they do not attempt to blow up each others' factories because that violates the agreed rule-set (in this case criminal law).

Symbiosis: Voluntary trade for unlike benefits. I'm a farmer, you're a soldier, I help feed the army, the army protects me and others from foreign attackers.

Commensalism: Voluntary trade for like benefits. I have a bakery and produce cookies, you have a dairy and produce milk, we exchange, we both have cookies & milk.

Predation: Taking something from someone else in such a manner that disables or kills the other. A gang of thieves beats and robs (or robs and kills) an old lady at a bus stop.

Parasitism: Taking something from someone else in such a manner that allows the other to continue producing for one's own benefit. A freeloader comes to visit, overstays his welcome, and eats your food but does not rob and kill you.

Predation is not competition; and parasitism is not symbiosis; however, these are often confused for one another.

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Interesting to see so much arguement about predetermined will, and so little mention of free will and reasoning.

Evolution (genetic and social) has produced a state of affairs where the tendencies toward cooperation, competition, etc. are all present to varying degrees in each individual and in each population, and in the large majority of cases are balanced in such a manner that behavioral outcomes are not predetermined with certainty.

Behavior that is predictable with certainty is, after all, a choice target for predators and parasites.

The capacity of humans to engage in reason and to exercise choice gives us an advantage over a hypothetical species that can do neither.

The proximate factor that acts most strongly against reasoned choices in our present predicament is not genetics, it's enculturation reinforced by economic interests.

For obvious examples, look at coastal real estate development in Florida and other regions prone to hurricanes; look at real estate development on steep mountainsides in California that are subject to earthquakes and mudslides. Humans who live in such places are idiots waiting to darwinize themselves, and yet they flock to these places like herds of lemmings, not because their genes told them to do it, but because their cultural training did not equip them to use the observational and logical capabilities that are built into their brains.

The same case obtains for PO, avian flu, global climate change, and creeping authoritarianism in our own government.

The question for our century is: How can we get a critical mass of humans to use their observational and logical capabilities, and exercise their free will, in order to adapt to the coming changes?

Genetic determinism leading to defeatism is as much an abdication of responsibility as is willful and overt participation in the causes of collapse.

And as for mild depression and its concomitant attitudes: mild pessimists' forecasts of the future tend to be more accurate in the short term than those of optimists, but optimists tend to live longer.