Sunday 24 May 2020

Synopsis of my replicator critique

For most traditional meme enthusiasts, memes are "the new replicators" - or are practically defined in terms of the Dawkins replicator-vehicle framework. I'm reasonably convinced by the critics that this is an unsuitable foundation for a general purpose evolutionary framework.

I've gone into this in a video/essay Against Replicator Terminology and in my 2011 memetics book, but here's a handy synposis:

Part of the problem is terminology. Dawkins (1976) defined "replicator" as follows:

"A replicator is anything in the universe of which copies are made."

One issue (1) is the "replicator"-"replicatee" distinction. You would think the appropriate term would be "replicatee" - and "replicator" would be the thing doing the copying.

Another issue (2) is copying fidelity. The "replicate" term suggests high fidelity copying. The corresponding term without that implication is "reproduce". A replica is normally a type of high fidelity reproduction. The Dawkins definition steamrollers over this distinction.

These are terminology criticisms - but my last critique is scientific - rather than just being about what words refer to which meanings. The "replicator" terminology suggests a modeling framework in which two inheritied entities are either idenitical or different. It represents a kind of binary view of inherited information. That works quite well for advanced systems of herediy because those have evolved to be digital. Nucleic acid and language are both basically digital systems which involve and use redundancy and error correction to avoid contamination by noise. However, not all systems involving inherited information are like this. In particular some of the systems I am interested in are those which exhibit Darwinian family trees in a more-or-less analog media. For example, electrical discharges, propagating cracks and fractal drainage patterns. These exhibit copying (of position and other attribuutes) with variation filtered by the environment, and a good number of Darwinian models apply to these systems. However the replicator-vehicle framework seems pretty irrelevant to their study. This consideration has the effect of displacing replicators from the foundation of Darwinism. They are still applicable to more advanced systems with error detection and correction, (but see points 1 and 2). As students of cultural evolution sometimes point out, not all cultural inheritance involves error-corrected systems such as language.

My personal preference is to just grant this point to critics of memetics and move on. The "m" word is still pretty useful, replicator terminology aside.

Tuesday 31 March 2020

Sylvain Magne: a new theoretical model

I've covered the work of Sylvain Magne here before, see:

Here are some updated thoughts from Sylvain about memes:

It is quite nice. I like what I would describe as the "information theory" perspective in these essays. However, I don't really agree with all of it. To go over some of the differences between our positions:

  • Sylvain likes and uses the "replicator" terminology, while I typically avoid it and think it is confusing.
  • Sylvain classifies varaints as identical or non-identical. IMO, that can work well for more digital systems, but isn't so useful for more analog ones.
  • Sylvain proposes that we divide evolving information systems into codes and readers. Readers classify and recognize codes. While readers are widespread for genes and memes I am not convinced that they are always present. It is often a useful idea - but "readers" seem non-fundamental to me.
  • Sylvain rejects memes inside brains. I like memes inside brains.
  • Sylvain proposes the term "transmemes" for memes that are routinely translated. For me that is practically all memes - so the terminology is not very useful.
Regarding brains: IMO, we ought to be able to agree that evolving systems include psychological ones - as well as organic and cultural ones. There is copying with variation and selection inside individual brains. That is where many ideas have sex. That is where many ideas are copied. There are lots of books and literature about within-brain Darwinism. Treating the brain as a black box, identifying it as a "reader" and then claiming that it doesn't contain memes is only one perspective. You could also open it up and consider how it works. I have a summary of the case for within-brain Darwinism here: Keeping Darwin in mind.

Regarding "replicator" terminology, I once explained my position in an essay: Against Replicator Terminology. The fight over the utility of the "replicator" term is now pretty well-trodden.

References

Saturday 28 March 2020

Jason da Silva: When fear goes viral

Jason offers a Coronavirus spiel with a heavy side helping of memetics.