On Fri, 29 Sep 2000 23:33:11 +0100, you wrote:
>re: Ian Greely's last:
>evolution of ideas: the term associated with this is "meme", as in
>"meme-pool", which is sort of analogous to genes and gene-pool. but, in
>evolution, I don't agree that concious decisions are a major (or even
>neccessary) factor. So, I think that "evolution" is the right term here,
Actually I believe the term is "memetic drift". That is that ideas
become corrupted over time. That most modern people believe that
Darwin's seminal work "The origin of the species" boils down to
"survival of the fittest" is a perfect case in point. The subtleties
of what Darwin observed dumbed down to "spin doctor" slogans that are
illustrative but incomplete and shallow...
That people believe that Humphrey Bogart's greatest line was "Play it
again Sam" when the phrase was never uttered in Casablanca.
Perhaps there is a certain poetical license to allow the germ of the
idea to propagate however if this _replaces_ the <idea> communication
has *FAILED*.
The catch phrase slogan has it's place but we must preserve the
original otherwise we can tear down the temple of science. It's not
possible to stand upon the shoulders of one sided Giants unless we
become a one legged people.
>complete with the randomness of slight imperfections accumulating with
>succesive reproductions, eventually amounting to something which is
>completely different to the original, yet not entirely (or even at all)
>chaotic ( which from an information point of view is totally uninteresting).
>Popper wrote some about the evolution of ideas.
I have nothing against the evolution of ideas. It's a wonderful thing
to watch. However, the original should be preserved. In natural
selection there are thousands of <attempts/random changes> which are
tested for and fail before a positive benefit occurs. If you destroy
the template then the process will tend towards decay. The old adage
of "Don't fix it if it aint broke" must be kept in mind whilst
striving for innovation.
The thinking behind the "all change is good" hypothesis seems to be a
modern epidemic. The TV I buy is out of date before I take it out of
the box. The dress I buy my girlfriend is out of date before we get to
a party.
We have huge concerns trying to tell us that genetically altered
foodstuffs are of benefit to those of us who live in a portion of the
world where we find it cheaper to destroy foodstuffs than to transport
it to the people on the planet whom are suffering from malnutrition...
The actual goal being for those <hungry> people to grow food for us
cheaper than the stuff we are burning so that they can buy our out of
date TV sets... <arrrgh>
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
All ideas that are <communicated> are the past. Their innovation and
perfection is the future. To suggest that failure to transmit
information is a <positive> in and of itself strikes me as an odd
assertion unless one believes there is something behind the
corruption/failure other than "randomness"...
Just my thoughts on this...
regards,
Ian
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