Sunday 13 October 2019

Panmemetics?

An article by Maarten Boudry proposes that the term "panmemetics" be used for the memetics visualized by Susan Blackmore - which is contrasted with Daniel Dennett's presentation in his recent book on cultural evolution. Over to the author:

in Dennett’s current account, in particular his use of Godfrey-Smith’s (2009) Darwinian spaces to make sense of the “de-Darwinizing” of culture and the conscious domestication of memes, moves away from panmemetics, perhaps more clearly than his earlier Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Even though memes initially evolved by blind and unguided evolution, claims Dennett in his new book, many were gradually domesticated by their hosts, who became more reflective and self-conscious about them. As culture gradually moves in the direction of the “intelligent design” corner of the Darwinian space (top-down, foresighted, directed), the meme’s eye view loses traction and becomes less interesting. Let me try to spell out the differences between the two approaches, as I see them. First, unlike Dennett’s account in BBB, panmemetics leaves little or no room for human autonomy and creativity. Panmemetics suggests that we are not in control of our thoughts; if anything, the reverse is true. In the words of Robert Aunger: “Do we have thoughts, or do they have us?” (Aunger, 2002, loc. 120) A second and related problem with panmemetics is that it threatens to level all distinctions between harmful and useful cultural inventions. If the whole of human culture is seen as just a set of swarms of viruses bent on exploiting our brains as a breeding ground for their own reproduction, we no longer have any theoretical resources to distinguish between good and bad memes, between beautiful folk songs and annoying earworms, between science and superstition.
The distinction might be an interesting one, but I don't think I can stomach rechristening memetics, "panmemetics". I am not a big proponent of the "de-Darwinizing” of culture that Dennett proposes. My conception of Darwinism is big enough to include all cultural evolution. We can have a picture involving degrees of intelligent design without dragging the rather vague and subjective "Darwin"-based terminology into it. IMO, panmemetics is just memetics. Dennett's idea that the "Darwinism" fades out as the intelligent design fades in doesn't seem interesting enough to warrant a big terminological shift. We can just use the "Darwinian" term for the more general framework that includes ID.

Regarding the criticisms of panmemetics: I don't see much impact of memetics on the issue of human autonomy and creativity (as mentioned in the quote). It is true that memetics suggests that we are not in control of our thoughts - but surely that is hardly news to most psychologists. I don't agree that memetics "threatens to level all distinctions between harmful and useful cultural inventions". The most obvious distinction between "good" and "bad" memes is between meme interests and the interests of DNA genes of the nuclear DNA of the host. The host is likely to have more than one gene, and there could be more than one host, but these issues can be deal with by averaging - as in the "parliament of genes" concept.

The author raises the issue of personal host interests - and where they fit into the picture. My favored approach to this is to have three spheres involving Darwinian dynamics:

  • DNA gene evolution;
  • Meme evolution;
  • Psychological evolution;
The last one is the least well understood - but information is copied with variation and selection in the brain, and we can use Darwinian models to represent the resulting dynamics. Psychological evolution is more obviously multi-level - since copying takes place at the level of branching axon impulses as well as at the level of ideas, and probably at multiple other levels in between. Personal interests can then be discussed in terms of copied information patterns - using the same modeling framework as with memes and genes.

Maarten Boudry goes into some more details about what is wrong with "panmemetics" in another paper titled "Attack of the Memes". Overall, I'm not seeing it.

Another exhiibit from the latter paper:

Memes that are parasitic from the perspective of my genes may simply be the outcome of deliberate human choices. Talk of "selfish memes" and "rogue culture" can be misleading here, as if humans are the hapless victims of the ideas of modernity. These are not novel memetic purposes but distinctively human ones.
Well, maybe, but maybe not. Selfish memes / rogue memes are a possible and valid answer too. It depends on the circumstances. One must also ask where those humans got their preferences. Some come from genes, some come from memes and some come from psychological forces (e.g. alcohol addiction). Memes are on the list. They can influence host preferences via manipulation from within hosts minds. Because a human has some preference, that doesn't mean it didn't ultimately come from memes.

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