mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (03/28/85)
In article <362@ihu1m.UUCP> gadfly@ihu1m.UUCP (Gadfly) writes: > Is there some comprehensible force behind the recent flood of > fascist fundamentaloid dogma which has been spewing like so much > raw sewage into nets dot religion, politics, women et al? No. There is no force. But the proliferation and spread of ideas like these is a good example of evolution in action on the level of ideas. Not evolution of genes, organisms, and species: evolution of memes, beliefs, and political movements. (Memes in the sense of Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene". A hypothetical unit of transmittable idea or knowledge.) For genes, there is inheritance (mostly), mutation (rarely), and transmission (sometimes). For memes there is transmission (much, as learning), mutation (much), and creation (some, through invention and observation.) Recombination of genes and memes takes place in individuals. Some selection takes place on the gene level, but most biological selection takes place on the level of the individual organism. Most selection occurs on the meme level, but some occurs on the level of the individual's beliefs. I need to be careful not to draw the analogy too closely though: perhaps it might be better to consider memes as niche-fillers in ecosystems which are our minds, and then study migration of memes between these ecosystems. Much like island biogeography, except that there is competition and selection between the islands. What I see in the extreme polarization of these groups is selection for mechanisms to prevent hybridization and drowning out of these group's memes in the larger pools of opposing groups memes. You could make analogies to hybrid infertility, lock and key mechanisms, and a host of other biological mechanisms of speciation and species maintainance. That's one reason behind the success of Big Lie strategies: by establishing memes in niches from which they can crowd out other memes and competitively exclude the introduction of memes that would fit their explanatory, behavioral (or whatever) niche, converts are protected from changing beliefs. (This is all off the top of my head. If anyone knows of philosophers who think along the same lines, I'd be interested to hear about them.) -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh