🚀 go-pugleaf

Nick Maclaren <nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> In article <aoff0a.162.ln@linuxsys.ii01.org>,
> Robin Faichney  <robin@ii01.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I agree that the weebling in that chapter (and it IS weebling) is
>>> not generally accepted, but back in the 1950s and 1960s even
>>> Lamarckism was not really accepted.  It is now generally accepted
>>> as being a valid model (and perhaps the correct one) for the huge
>>> amount of mammalian behaviour that is taught rather than innate.
>>> And the step from that to considering ideas as inheritable is not
>>> large.
>>
>>Memetics has nothing in common with Lamarckism!  Except that that's a
>>common misunderstanding of it.  In fact, the biggest single advantage
>>of memetics is that it explains how phenomena that would appear to
>>require the inheritance of acquired characteristics -- behavioural
>>patterns arising in one generation and recurring in subsequent ones --
>>in fact, don't.
>>
>>Memetics is certainly a valid model for the cultural as opp. genetic
>>transmission of behaviour, but I'd be interested to know in what context
>>you got the impression that it is "generally accepted".
>>
>>And I know only a couple of people who take seriously the concept of
>>heritable ideas -- and I don't take *them* seriously!  That is very,
>>very far from mainstream memetics.

> Hmm.  I think that there is a lot of terminological confusion here :-)

> The serious papers that I have seen have used none of the above terms,
> and have actually not referred to the concepts directly.  But they
> HAVE shown that they were using them.

Don't you think that sort of assumption is highly questionable?  In
scientific writing everything remotely debatable is supposed to be
entirely explicit.  Are you sure these papers could not be interpreted
in any other way?  I've read all the big names who've written positively
about memes, and none of them, as far as I can see, views the inheritance
either of ideas or of acquired characteristics as a valid part of the
memetic model.  Perhaps it's time to name names?

> I was referring to the
> inheritance of intelligence (e.g. some papers in Nature) and similarly
> language and technological concepts.

"Similarly"?  There's an enormous difference between the genetic
heritability of intelligence and that of any concept.  Can you offer
any citations re the latter?

> It is now generally accepted that
> such "taught inheritance" is very important in the higher mammals and
> probably as important as genetic inheritance in humans as far as brain
> function goes.

"Such 'taught inheritance'"?  Now you seem to be conflating genetic
and cultural transmission -- which, of course, is perfectly consistent
with your view that memetics implies Lamarckism.  But it doesn't.
Maybe "inheritance" should be used only in reference to genetics, to
avoid this confusion.  On a proper understanding of memetics, we do not
inherit anything -- we are merely the hosts of the replicating entities.
It's their fitness that matters, not ours, except to the extent that
our fitness contributes to theirs -- but most arguments for memetics
hinge on the fact that some successful memes compromise genetic fitness.
That's why another replicator is required.

-- 
Robin Faichney
alt.m: "Memes do not exist. Tell everyone you know."
inside information -- http://www.ii01.org/