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Re: Some question about Memetics
>5. Are the memes alive? In what sense?
I would like to start with the last question. Before we can say whether memes are
alive or not we have to define what a meme IS. (I.e. posit an ontology) In my
view this is a very weak point of memetics since the meme is primarily an
_analogy_. It is easy to state that a meme is virus of the mind. The hard part
is to define _precisely_ what that means. I won't try to define a meme here, but
only reiterate my position that a biological analogy in the social sphere should
include the whole panoply of biological phenomena, not just a perihperal entity
like the virus.
Are memes alive? Depends on your definition of life. As of today life is
very poorly defined. It is contingent and at best incomplete. If we, however,
rephrase your question a bit then we can answer it: do memes have properties
which are typical for systems of life? Yes, no doubt. Memes evolve, form
symbiotic relationships and engage in machineries of self-production.
>1. Is it possible to claim that a complex system of memes exist as every
>adaptive and dynamic complex system in the reality?
Yes.
>4. Are these memes only _virus of the mind_ or something more complex?
In my opinion they are more than just viruses of the mind. Or we can of course
restrict the definition of memes to only meaning viruses, but then we have to
define a whole lot of other concepts to put memes in contexts.
>3. What's the place for human intentionality in this sphere of evolving ideas-memes?
I would say that it is the engine of cultural evolution. Even though cultural
evolution can display quite diverse behavior it is still bound to not "violate"
human nature. In a sense we can say that human nature plays the same role in
cultural evolution as the laws of physics plays in biological evolution.
Before I stop I will present an argument to show that the meme-as-a-virus
concept is at best insufficient. It is namely related to a famous problem
of philosophy: "is color a property of a thing in itself or of the observer?"
When I look at the grass I see that it is green, but its greenness is
a sensation that arises in me as an observer. We can say that the grass filters
lightwaves in a particular way, but this is not the same as saying that it is
green. Color is a phenomenon of consciousness, and must therefore be a property
of the observer rather than the thing itself.
This is a rather trivial realization, but even so people frequently and
repeatedly make the mistake of assuming the grass is green. This error of
projection is exemplified by the church during the inquisition. It was the
policy of the church that women were intrinsically dirty and immoral beings. This
idea (which is prevalent in large parts of the world today) is justified by the
notion that women _causes_ dirty and immoral thoughts and behavior in men. (i.e.
sexual arousement) Hence, women must be dirty and immoral. This is exactly the
same argument as saying that grass causes us to see green, hence grass must be
green. In other words, the argument is flawed. To illustrate this flaw I will
give a third example, namely the idea of a _poison_. Is a substance poisonous in
itself? No, because a substance that is poisonous to one organism may be food for
another. I.e. the poisonness property lies in the organism, and not in the
substance itself.
What has this got do with memes and viruses? A virus is not a living being in
its own respect. Alone it is just a complex inanimate molecule. It is only in
relation to a host that we can view it as a living being: a virus has no
biological existence independent of its host. This is identical to the problem
outlined above. Just like greenness is not a property of grass, aliveness is not
a property of the virus. From a philosophical point of view this cools down the
excitement about memes-as-viruses considerably. For when we see life-like
behavior in viruses we are really looking at a mirror-image of the host. In a
sense a virus is kind of like the shadow. My shadow behaves very life-like, but
this does of course not mean that my shadow is alive. So too with viruses.
Viruses are shadows of the reproduction process. Similarly memes-as-viruses are
shadows of the communication process.
With this I have shown some of the ontological problems with memes. The
moral of this argument is that memetics is not a viable field without a proper
understanding of the host.
Onar.
