From: John Beasley (beasley@austarnet.com.au)
Date: Fri Oct 04 2002 - 12:33:52 BST
Hi Squonk,
Thanks for your extended response to my deliberately provocative posting.
Your first point centres on this:
SQUONK: "your introduction of memes is strange, as memes are not purely
linguistic"
Correct. Memes are anything that can be imitated. But the 'linguistic
consensus' that Pols critiques in his 'Radical Realism' is also not purely
linguistic. As Pols puts it "the term language was applied not only to
natural language but to formal systems as well" (including logic and
mathematics). Pols argues that the term language should apply only to what
are now termed 'natural languages' and the other uses of the term 'language'
seen as metaphorical extensions of that home sense. He goes on, "analytic
philosophers ... have conflated the notion of language we derive from our
familiarity with natural language first with the notion of a formal system
and then with some other notions that are of great importance for natural
science - especially the notions of hypothesis and theory." (p 56)
Pols discusses seven dogmas of the linguistic consensus, one of which is the
dogma of the irrelevance of the subject, and another the dogma of linguistic
enclosure, which briefly means that "rational experience is linguistic ...
all efforts 'to break out of discourse to an arche beyond discourse are
fruitless'. Knowledge is a relation to propositions, and justification
consists in
'propositions-brought-forward-in-defence-of-other-propositions' - a regress
that is at least potentially infinite." (p68) You need to keep these
attitudes in mind when viewing my critique.
Your next criticism is more substantial. You say
SQUONK: "Memes are a second replicator. You must get this straight and
confront the magnitude of that which is being postulated: Culture is a life
form of its own; it is evolving.
When you say, 'As Susan Blackmore points out, there is no guarantee that the
memes are good for us' you gloss over:
1. You ARE memetic patterns evolving concomitantly with YOUR genetic
patterns.
2. The best memes survive of which one memeplex is that there is a YOU in
the first place. (In other words, it is valuable for you to believe there is
a YOU so that YOU can transmit the meme-of-self.)
3. The evolution of memes is motivated by the very same motivation that
evolves genes: DQ."
What you are saying I translate to be that "I am a thought in the mind of
culture." Your point 3 is a statement of faith and cannot be refuted, but
does not convince me. Blackmore points out that memetic evolution is very
new and not necessarily helpful to us as organisms. Do you suggest that we
are not also organisms? Daniel Dennett's metaphorical tower places humankind
alone on the top (Gregorian) floor, but Blackmore's response is that "Life
may be short on the top floor."
So I would simply assert that your first point is at best a partial truth,
confirming my view that there is an obsessive element in the current
acceptance of postmodern dogma, similar to that which almost overwhelmed
psychology for almost fifty years when behaviourism ruled most university
psychology departments. I argue for a developmental approach to the self,
which begins without memetic patterns or language, and unfolds in a
progressive manner, incorporating language and memes, but NOT restricted to
them. I further argue that the full development of the self involves the
undoing of those early childhood experiences that filter all subsequent
experience, and lead to the disembodied memeplex YOU that you describe in
your second point.
Finally, you say:
SQUONK: "If postmodernism itself is viewed in the meme paradigm, then what
we are witnessing is method memes have found for exploding into chaotic
profusion of convoluted patterns and shapes going crazy with little regard
to static latching.
You have to decide if you wish to be in the grip of this memetic storm, or
whether you should like to see it for what it really is and contemplate the
consequences of the storms progress?"
If I am merely a bunch of memes, as you suggest, WHO decides "if you wish to
be in the grip of this memetic storm"? Surely your argument is phony. You
seem to rely on a sentimental "there's still something in my heart, That can
find a way to make a start. To turn up the signal" as an answer. In terms of
your own argument surely that 'something' is just another meme.
I do accept the "magnitude of that which is being postulated" in memetic
theory. It is in my mind a deplorable outcome of a blinkered set of
postulates, but once you step within those you are quite lost. There is
indeed, then, no YOU, other than the current mix of memes in residence.
Fortunately, there is no good reason to accede to this nihilistic outcome,
and a little observation of the young of our species is the best antidote to
this obsession that I know.
Regards,
John B
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