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2/1/2004 3:30 PM
(2) On the use of the term “catalytic indexical”
(3) On the notion of catalytic as a cross scale mechanism
(5) On the confusion that the meme metaphor creates
(6) On “evolving information
patterns that affect brains and cause behavior”
The notion of invention of
terms in language is odd here. There
are many deep assumptions about what is right and correct and lawful. My sense is that scholars who know several
literatures do want to make reference to the actual history of a term. But more important than terms are the
subject matter to which the term refers.
Michael Lissack’s need to make reference to a subject matter, which is different from what Blackmore and Dawkins, are talking about. Some of us feel that the Blackmore and Dawkins subject matter is not as good science as it could be. Specifically the metaphor to the “replicator” function of genes is weak. Also the sense I get is that many informed scholars interpret the Dawkins Blackmore subject matter as being reductionist and dualist. Going into the “definition” for “reductionism” and dualism” might not be productive here. It is the reader’s task to make interpretations that draw on the reader’s background and experience. Of course, there are many on either side of the issue of reductionism and there re many nuanced viewpoints.
Some of my research is in the area of micro-catalytic environments in biochemistry, where a process involving the aggregation and conformation (shaping) of process environments at the molecular scale, leads to production pathways designed to serve functions that a large biological organization needs. All kinds of structure/function issues arise and most of these involve real complexity (which I will define here to be a type of “response degeneracy” to use the term that Gerald Edelman uses in “Neural Darwinism”.)
I will refer here to an on-line book that details an approach that I have worked on and to the references to other scholarship contained in the on-line books references.
http://www.bcngroup.org/area3/pprueitt/book.htm
Arel Lucus says in her note:
I
agree that causing or accelerating chemical change is essential to the definition
of the action of memes on the brain. However, a catalyst is not
permanently affected by the reaction it causes. This is where I disagree. It
leaves out the evolutionary aspect that is the basis of the definition of the
word "meme" and the reason for the creation of the concept by
Dawkins, an evolutionary scientist.
The problem that I see here, and others many see other problems, is that the meme metaphor has to be remembered as a metaphor. The subject matter that Dawkins is referring to, when he is using language to speak about the mechanisms of cultural expression, is at the level of the social system. The mechanisms express via the “platform” of chemical changes and structural features such as brain region functionality. But the mechanisms are not at the biological level, they are at the social system level of organization.
I say these things as part of a conversation with the hope that the conversation will be mutually beneficial.
(Quoted phrase from Arel Lucus’s note)
Part of work that my group is doing is to create a retrieval of subject matter from document repositories and chat room log files. So we say that if we do not ascribe formal meaning to co-occurrence patterns that one might create nice retrieval algorithms that bring informational patterns to a user for examination. What we are proposing is that five tasks would lead us to a new intelligence technology that can examine social discourse for harmful “memetic expression” (if this is an ok use of the term?)
http://www.bcngroup.org/area2/KnowledgeEcologies.htm