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Ch. 1: Finding Your Inner Fish

#48: May - June 2008 (Non-Fiction)
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Robert Tulip

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DWill wrote: I'm wondering why, in view of problems you mention below with fascist interpretations, it's even a good idea to merge these two. I have difficulty seeing what advantage there is to a comparison that seems to apply only metaphorically. The huge difference is one of agency. In the case of Darwinian adaptation, the forces that produce the changes are seen to lie outside any intention by the organism. It doesn't matter for now what this force is, even if some would say it could be God.
Thanks DWill, my point is precisely that the comparison between cultural memes and physical genes is mechanical, not just metaphorical. Culture does in fact evolve by the Darwinian mechanism of cumulative adaptation. The free will of human agency is just one small factor in determining which strategies will prove adaptive. We do not decide which cultural forms will succeed
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That was awesome.
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Saffron

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I'm having an idea

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:idea:
I think I've finally got an idea of how to have this discussion about cultural evolution. First, we need to make sure we are all talking the same language. Let's begin with laying out the definitions of the terms and concepts we are using.

Here is the wikipedia blurb for meme:
A meme (pronounced /miːm/[1]) consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a "culture" in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus. As a unit of cultural evolution, a meme in some ways (my bold) resembles a gene.
I think we need definitions for adaptation and evolution. Any others? After we get past the semantics, I'd like to do a little experiment. It goes like this: we (Robert?) work through an example of cultural evolution in the very same way that Neil Shubin has step by step described the evolution of the ear or eye or any other example from his book.

Ok, let the games begin!

Saffron
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Rob,

I'm having a hard time with something of my own... making it work in my head. I have a belief that all change is ultimately towards an equilibrium (nothing to do with equality). I can't accept forced changes that take away the freedoms of individuals and how they force someone to accept a current meme.

Like human rights. Is this an inevitable change? Something that doesn't need to be forced because we are heading in that direction anyway (towards the equilibrium)? It's too early to tell if we are heading in that direction, but hypothetically speaking, lets say we are. Then wouldn't the effort to force change be rather pointless on a large time scale? Especially considering the fact that it could be 'wrong'?

(I'm absolutely pro human rights - I just needed an example)

Is it that the culture was ready for it and there was finally some burst to make it happen? Like when most notable evolutionary changes occur in nature - it is rather spontaneous.

Maybe you can help me fill in the blanks...
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Robert Tulip

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President Camacho wrote:Rob, I'm having a hard time with something of my own... making it work in my head. I have a belief that all change is ultimately towards an equilibrium (nothing to do with equality).
Camacho, reminds me of Comanche... I don't see how all change is towards equilibrium. Rather, evolution produces increased complexity, until a periodic crisis of destruction after which a new ecosystem stabilises and evolves. Life is counter-entropic, so time moves in a sinusoidal way around equilibria, from highly evolved complex systems which can sit in equilibrium for long periods punctuated by asteroid impacts and other apocalypses.
I can't accept forced changes that take away the freedoms of individuals and how they force someone to accept a current meme. Like human rights. Is this an inevitable change? Something that doesn't need to be forced because we are heading in that direction anyway (towards the equilibrium)?
PC, this is slightly confusing to me. Law is a forced meme, so your argument seems to imply an anarchistic opposition to property and stability. Are you arguing that views on human rights constitute a forced meme? This is true in so far as rights are upheld by law.
It's too early to tell if we are heading in that direction, but hypothetically speaking, lets say we are. Then wouldn't the effort to force change be rather pointless on a large time scale? Especially considering the fact that it could be 'wrong'? (I'm absolutely pro human rights - I just needed an example)
Perhaps my last sentence missed your point, but could you please expand on this? Some efforts to force change will be in synch with the times and will work, whereas others will not.
Is it that the culture was ready for it and there was finally some burst to make it happen? Like when most notable evolutionary changes occur in nature - it is rather spontaneous. Maybe you can help me fill in the blanks...
Stephen Jay Gould developed the evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibria, in which organisms and ecosystems are stable for aeons, with disasters creating new eras. We are currently in the fastest moment of evolutionary change since the extinction of the dinosaurs in 65 million BC, so I think you are right that large scale spontaneous bursts are inevitable.
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Robert Tulip

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Saffron wrote::idea: I think I've finally got an idea of how to have this discussion about cultural evolution. First, we need to make sure we are all talking the same language. Let's begin with laying out the definitions of the terms and concepts we are using. Here is the wikipedia blurb for meme:
A meme (pronounced /miːm/[1]) consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a "culture" in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus. As a unit of cultural evolution, a meme in some ways (my bold) resembles a gene.
I think we need definitions for adaptation and evolution. Any others? After we get past the semantics, I'd like to do a little experiment. It goes like this: we (Robert?) work through an example of cultural evolution in the very same way that Neil Shubin has step by step described the evolution of the ear or eye or any other example from his book. Ok, let the games begin! Saffron


This is a great idea. Examples of cultural evolution can be found in medical technology, sport, war, music, agriculture, computing, the internet... There are also areas analogous to genetic drift, such as clothing fashion, where the criteria for adaptivity are far removed from any utility. Good background is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptation and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
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Adaptation from Wikipedia:
An adaptation is a positive characteristic of an organism that has been favored by natural selection and increases the fitness of its possessor.[1][2] Of course, an adaptation must have been adaptive at some point in an organism's evolutionary history, but such an organism's environment and ecological niche can change over time, leading to adaptations becoming redundant or even a hindrance (maladaptations). Such adaptations are termed vestigial.
I hope no one minds the definitions being pulled from Wikipedia.


Evolution:
In biology, evolution is the process of change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. The genes that are passed on to an organism's offspring produce the inherited traits that are the basis of evolution. Mutations in genes can produce new or altered traits in individuals, resulting in the appearance of heritable differences between organisms
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I think if we keep these quotes in mind when we are posting it would benefit all of us.


Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
--Albert Einstein


Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.

--Werner Heisenberg
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Robert Tulip wrote: Culture does in fact evolve by the Darwinian mechanism of cumulative adaptation.
Robert, though I'm not setting myself up as as a Darwin expert, I do view myself as a strict constructionist where his theory is concerned. I would need to have a definition of "Darwinian cumulative adaptation," because right now I doubt that the first word belongs in the phrase for the context in which you want to use it. I also favor strongly Saffron's proposal to agree on terms, so that we are not using "adaptation," "evolution," and other words in their popular sense rather than the way I think the biologists understand them.
We do not decide which cultural forms will succeed
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DWill wrote:
Robert Tulip wrote: Culture does in fact evolve by the Darwinian mechanism of cumulative adaptation.
Robert, though I'm not setting myself up as as a Darwin expert, I do view myself as a strict constructionist where his theory is concerned. I would need to have a definition of "Darwinian cumulative adaptation," because right now I doubt that the first word belongs in the phrase for the context in which you want to use it. I also favor strongly Saffron's proposal to agree on terms, so that we are not using "adaptation," "evolution," and other words in their popular sense rather than the way I think the biologists understand them.
Darwinian thought is the antithesis of constructionism, which interprets all thought as artefact, rather than as reflection of reality. Cumulative adaptation is the essence of Darwinist thought. A review of Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker at http://www.geocities.com/a_and_e_uk/Bli ... htm?200822 states
"In Chapter 3 Dawkins starts to describe the processes involved in evolution. He shows, with the aid of computer programs, how cumulative adaptation vastly increases the probability of a structure developing. This is convincingly demonstrated by a computer which takes an input phrase, 'mutates' it and then selects the best mutant progeny to 'breed' the next generation of mutant phrases from it. In this case 'best' is defined as closest to the target
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