/sci/ - Science & Math

"Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off."

False analogy.

Euphoria

>>5904052
He failed in his demonstration of the theory, so... bollocks.

>>5905203
His theory is accepted and has been scientifically verified.

>>5904092
pretty much this.
there are certainly instances where the spread of ideas mimics evolution by natural selection.
But there are no mechanisms to constrain ideas to adapt and propagate in the same way as biological evolution.
It's an interesting theory but I think it won't pan out.

>Invented the word "meme"
>Pulled together ideas on the evolution of alturism
Yeah, he's not a perfect rhetorician in some debates or good at dealing with complete idiots but still a useful public scientist.

>>5905203
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tIwYNioDL8

you call this a failure?

>>5905566

And even animals use memes the way he described, right? At least that's my understanding from reading a few meme presentations by others on animals

I don't understand the purpose to memes, isn't it just information spreading and changing slightly? And isn't information spreading just a way species teach via intelligence? Is it just a definition of that or...?

>>5905588
what the fuck are you on about?

Memes are selected by the minds they exist within. They must appeal to the host for some reason (concious or unconscious). Never mind the fact some memes are dangerous to the host and thus their own survival.

In this sense the hosts are the environment for the meme. They also serve to change memes, although change can occur in transfer due to poor communication.

BTW there is no "meme theory" it's way to complicated. It's like saying "Weather theory"

>>5905598

"Information spreading" gives the impression of useful information. Doubles Guy isn't any sort of useful information, he's just a little packet of data that spread like a virus.

>>5905595
WOAH what the fuck! Hahaha that's awesome.
Was this done by a fan or d'ya think this is the result of Dawkins possible psychedelic exploration?

>>5905641
Richard Dawkins is not an anti-intellectual.

>>5905617

You could say as a species we find humor useful.

>>5905617
4channers find it humorous.

>>5905595
oh god my fucking sides

dawkins is a jew

he's an atheist darling so the militant atheists, materialists, and other close-minded militant-types go out of their way to deny his genetic jewishness but it's got a lot to do with his views.

atheism is a product of ashkenazi culture and genetics. at least the kind of atheism which dawkins subscribes to.

i like science and i'm not religoius, but this dawkins kind clings to every fucking jewish fairy tale that clogs academics and political science in general.

I hate all of the atheist darlings. They're all fucking marxists too. Death to all of them. You follow Dawkins and other atheist jewy lies? Death to you to. Lets clear the gene pool of these close-minded militant types on both sides of the polar spectrum. You are the problem, us middle path normals get along just fine without your ilk.

I have extermination fantasies like every five minutes. we just need to start exterminating people. entire low-rung races like the sub-saharans. all the liberals, all the fundies. all of these self-described "thinkers" and anybody who thinks that service and currency speculation is work.

death to all of you. eugenics rules

>>5907236
>dawkins kind clings to every fucking jewish fairy tale that clogs academics and political science in general
Not a stormfag here, but what fairy tales might these be?

>5907236
what

>>5905604

the theory is that memes replicated, change, and are selected by a process that looks very much like the processes for genes

>>5905595
I like that song.

>>5905641
he comes out at the end and plays a recorder. It was all Dawkins

>>5908061
Is he saying that knowldege acts like a living being, and we are the neurons of that being?

>>5908067
He is proclaiming that memes are mutations of the mind.

>>5908067
No, but I think Carl Sagan said this.

>>5905617
In what way does "information spreading" give the impression of "useful" information?
"Genes spreading" doesn't imply useful, adaptive, or even harmless genes. Genetic diseases can spread quite far before selection pressure catches up with them.

>>5910532
>Genetic diseases can spread quite far before selection pressure catches up with them.

Wouldn't that contradict evolution?

>>5911944
At first sight it would. The problem is remedied if you treat the genetic disease as a living organism.

>>5912908
You mean like a plant?

>>5904052

I'd take it farther than Dawkins. A joke or a rage face might be thought of as a single meme, but ideologies like feminism, nationalism and religion are memetic systems made up of thousands of memes evolved to work together. These systems are analogous not to genes but to whole organisms, symbiotes to be specific. Many are parasitic in nature for their fitness can often be enhanced at the detriment of the biological host (see martyrdom).

Once memetic systems infiltrate a host they rewire its brain to modify host behavior in ways that enhance their own reproductive fitness. Parasites that rewire the brains of their hosts are not unknown in nature. They are quite common in insects and mollusks. The ones in humans however emerged out of our own brains rather than originating in a separate phyla.

Once one realizes the above, one realizes why humans have created a social and environmental system that does nothing to engender human happiness. The entities actually in control are not human and they do not care about and can not even comprehend emotions like human happiness. At one point our memetic symbiotes were mutualistic, but now they are out of control and over a short enough time line they will drag us into extinction for unlike humans memes can not think creatively and lack any foresight. They will pull us right over a cliff running their program.

>>5914231
More like a virus.

its really interesting, an eco-system of ideas, morals, culture and ideologies trying to survive, compete and adapt to one another. iTs like a form of life but its fucking nothing. Humans could end up being the components of some higher organism, one that isnt actually there physically....

Luis Benitez-Bribiesca M.D., a critic of memetics, calls the theory a "pseudoscientific dogma" and "a dangerous idea that poses a threat to the serious study of consciousness and cultural evolution".

>>5914284
that's simply mencius moldbug ideas theory

>>5904052
memes do not reproduce in an evolutionary sense and as such evolutionary theory cannot be applied.

Memes are emergent dynamic system behaviour of biology, which is an emergent of chemistry, which is emergent of physics.

Richard is wrong in stating that evolutionary theory can be applied to such concepts, however memes (ideas) do spread and we are evolved to in such a manner to be able to do so.

>>5915014
10/10

It sounds plausible to me.

>>5915141

>Organized system
>based on a digital code
>which reproduces
>with limited variation
>under selective pressures
>in a dynamic environment

Not evolving.

The only difference between the two systems in terms of their pattern is that memes have a creative intelligence guiding them. But the fact that memes are created and designed by humans does not negate the fact that they must reproduce and compete with other memes in order to survive.

>"pseudoscientific dogma" and "a dangerous idea that poses a threat to the serious study of consciousness and cultural evolution".

So does this argument continue to exist if no one buys it or does it go extinct and give way to more competitive arguments...

>>5915019
>serious study of consciousness

literally no proof or legitimacy of this theory. It is just just psychology and philosophy....stoner talk

"hey dude man, like what if our ideas, man, are like ALIVE bro, like they evolve and shit, like animals millions of years ago. Our consciousness is alive man! Like i have an idea to go buy food from taco bell, and you have the idea to get ice cream after. you, bro, like added to the idea, EVOLVED it bro, write this shit down so i dont forget when im sober"

basically meme theory is terrible

>>5919270
>literally no proof or legitimacy of this theory.
It is supported by a lot of evidence.

>It is just just psychology and philosophy
No, it is linguistics.

His theory is accepted

>>5919145

>>5921170
What animal is this?

It seems to work and makes sense. When I was reading The Selfish Gene (my favourite book), I personally enjoyed the game theory part more. And I think it's funny how the word "meme" became funny pictures on the internet. It makes me laugh.

>>5922199
It's a feel frog.

>>5922992
Wikipedia doesn't know that species.

I'll assume that poster >>5922992 was joking. So what's the real answer?

>>5921122
by?

>>5925455
By the scientific community.

>>5924062
Wikipedia is not the place to learn about such modern zoology.

>>5927369
What is the right place to learn?

>>5905596
potato washing among apes in Japan

>>5929046
university

ITT: People battling a man using his very own ideology.

>>5929911
But I don't have the time to study zoology.

>>5930976
Ask a zoology professor.

A really fascinating explanation. The video is great also.
His theory is plausible and should be investigated further.

The question is how in fuck would you be able to test this?

>>5932208
Are there any zoologists on /sci/?

>>5933679
hopefully not tonight

>>5905595
> head gets lasered
> brains with eyes come out

Jesus christ that's my deepest and darkest fear, kill it

>>5933679
I heard we have a tripfiend who has a PhD in zoology.

>>5933679
I'm just finishing up my undergrad with a Zoo and Botany double major.

>>5934768
oh was meant to add; Waxy Monkey Tree Frog

>>5934771
Thank you.

>>5934774
no worries.
I didnt need to spend 3 years working towards a zoology degree to know that though; I only needed to click the little [G] next to the image that reverse google searched it.

Memes are pretty funnyXD so i guess is theory is alright aha!

>>5905595
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT

>>5905617
heptas get

>inb4 5904085

>>5904052
Appealing thought. Compelling rethorics. In the end the specific brand of memetics Dawkins advocates, ever since his revision to the definition of the meme as information in the mind, is based on a somewhat uncomfortably hard dualism. Vehicle-replicant.

Doesn't work well, neither in genetics (on which this memetics is modelled), nor in cultural studies (similar problem as form-content, medium-message). The meme is supposed to provide a grasp on cultural phenomena, so it's kind of akward that it forces us to think in these problematic oppositions.

>>5935163
http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/
Journal of Memetics, so succesfull it closed in 2007.

>>5905595
Full clip can be found here:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/24/richard-dawkins-meaningless-meme-viral

>>5904052

ITT: how /lit/ perceives /sci/
>Natural scientist says something about cultural phenomena: instand classic.
>Geisteswissenschaftler says something about natural phenomena: lol gtfo.

>>5935197
I don't see anything wrong with that.

He is a god sociologist.

>>5925431
Since it is obvious that you are too lazy to use reverse google image search, I'll be generous and tell you. It's phyllomedusa sauvagii aka the waxy monkey frog, and since the frog is normally green I suspect it is an albino. It's has "monkey" in it's name because it prefers walking and climbing to hopping.

>>5915019
>Luis Benitez-Bribiesca
>Listening to Mexicans

>>5935189
>Artistic creation is always a result of a "mutation in the mind."
Nope..jpg

>>5935189

Why is it that the Guardian Comments section always has shitty articles by self-important faggots that are literally nothing but whining about what Dawkins did on the internet.

They literally have an article that is entirely about Dawkins making a rude comment on twitter.

>>5939277
Because Dawkins is a shithead camwhore?

>>5904052
I like its implications for the copyright and patent systems. Other than that...

>>5939249
"Nope..jpg" is not a valid argument. You have zero credentials on 4chan.

>>5939474

U Jelly.

>>5940655
Have you ever made something? Like a drawing or slapped together some play-doh? The creation and endurance of (new) cultural objects (which memetics seeks to provide an account of) never is simply a matter of a "mutation in the mind." For example, more often than not, choices are forced the medium with which the artist (amateur or not) works. Say, the lines in wood that the engraving needs to follow or the maximum forces clay bricks can carry, limiting the height of brick buildings. Etc. There is very little mind involved in these choices/mutations/whatever. They are neither truly random, nor all that designed.

Also, what is a meme? Physically I mean. According to Dawkins they are brain patterns. Thing is, a change is the state of culture (say, tamagotchi's are hyped again) is insufficiently explained by an appeal to brain patterns. In fact, an appeal to brain patterns avoids an answer to the question scholars of culture ought to be interested in.

For example a simple one: how many tamagotchi's are out there? Ans: well, I dont know, but I do know that there are brainpatters.
Or: what is the dominant style in the design of tamagotchi's? Where does this style derive from? Answ: brainpatterns man...

Bollocks.

>>5941298
Do you have a better theory?

>>5942572
There are tons of better theories about the transference of culture than Dawkins'. LLook at Henri Focillon for a classic art history, that does its best to work with biology. You may also want to check out Boyd and Richardson for a thourough, mathmatical analysis of the the claims of memetics.

>>5942572
Also, whereas memetics might have an appealing theoretical framework. It lacks a scientific metho to test its claims. Method > theory.

>>5904052

Haven't read his book yet. I am reading The God Delusion right now and soon I will read his so called Meme theory. My impressions of him is that he seems like a smart man.

>>5943978
Can you recommend the book?

>>5944428
Depends on wht you're looking for

>>5945897
I'm looking for science and math.

>>5946601
just neo/darwinian biology there. no mathmatical back up.

>>5946628
Has it been peer reviewed?

>>5946601
Evolution and the Theory of Games by John Maynard.

game theory and population dynamics. mathy.

>>5946628
Published by Oxford Unitversity Press, if that's enough of an authority for you.

>>5946601
Boyd and Richardson on the evolution of culture has some cute statistical analysis bits.

>>5947811
Do I have to have prior knowledge of game theory?

Are memes just mutations of the mind?

>>5950970
no