From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Sat Dec 28 1996 - 01:31:19 MST
At 06:36 PM 12/27/96 -0800, you wrote:
>>On a macroscopic level historical memes seem to follow some very basic
>>patterns and models. Can this be applied on a microscopic level to
>>influence specific targets?
>
>I would be suspicious of the temptation here. To put it crassly,
>we're talking about patterns of vibration within (neuronal vibratory
>firing) and without (vocal chord and tympanum vibration, real as
>in speech or virtual as in literature) human brains, and human
>brains are intractably complex if any physical system is. And even
>the above description is a drastic oversimplification. Personally,
>I think the role played by example is far more powerful in memetic
>evolution than the role played by language. This is why we have
>the maxim "Practice what you preach". This is probably why someone
>around here uses the Gandhi quote "You must be the change you want
>to see in the world" in eir sig.
I may have misrepresented myself here. I have no designs to control people.
I am trying to ascertain, based on what we know of memetics, to what
granularity a generalized (as opposed to individually targeted, e.g.
deliberate brainwashing) meme can be focused. In other words, is it
practically possible for a meme to propagate only within a very narrowly
defined segment of the population? Say for example, a meme which only
propagates amongst white females, ages 34-37, who live in the Pacific
Northwest. There does seem to be instances of fine grained memetic
propagation occuring. I am interested in the factors that control
susceptibility to memetic propagation. What aspect of human cognitive
function is responsible for memetic susceptibility? Some people seem to be
more susceptible than others (bandwagoneers? skeptics?).
Also, would it be possible for a person to detect a meme carefully targeted
at ones self?
>>Would it be possible to build a piece of software that could simulate and
>>predict the evolution of a meme? Would it be possible to build a piece of
>>software that could aid in the design of complex memes? Or a piece of
>>software that could model memes?
>
>Well, you'd want a very sophisticated adaptive computing system.
>Probably something with an Edelmanesque combination of genetic
>algorithms and sophisticated unsupervised-learning feedback neural
>networks. For instance, your brain would make a good prototype for
>such a software system. I hope this doesn't sound snide, because
>I'm being entirely serious. The people who are playing this game
>are applying so much of their brainpower to the problem that they
>develop reputations as "absent-minded professors". Sometimes they
>get lost in the 24th century (is that what happened to Reilly?)
>and they say stupid things like I heard Baudrillard say on the
>radio a few months ago: "We must serve language." Bah!
I don't actually plan to build software. Building truly effective software
of this nature would potentially more heinous than the invention of the
nuclear bomb. 99% of the people who would interested in it would more than
likely be unsavory characters at best. And besides, historically there have
always been some people who naturally possessed the capability to
effectively create and propagate memes effectively anyway.
I suspect that it would probably *have* to be done using some type of fuzzy,
genetic algorithms because I am not so sure humans will ever have a good
model of this phenomenon. It's not just that; how do you represent
something as abstract as a meme in the concrete environment of a computer in
such a way that it could be useably processed?
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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