Memetics

[Darth InSidious]

"Memetics is a pseudo-science and no memetic study has produced any useful result." Discuss.

[SilentScope001]

Memetics is a very useful scientific field of study.

 

Um...What is Memetics?

 

EDIT: Oh. Now that I checked...doesn't sound scientific at all, but I believe it nevertheless, as probraly so does Achilles. Makes sense. Memes (like Internet Memes) does spread, you know. But Memes can be destroyed, can be pushed back, can be forgotten.

[Achilles]

Memes themselves would seem to be obvious things (units of information passed within a culture). Memetics as an evolutionary thing will probably need a lot more support before it should commonly accepted as scientific theory.

 

To say that its pseudo-science is to imply that it is not susceptible to legitimate scientific study. Whether or not this is the case is beyond me at the moment. I guess I would need to better understand the argument before I could comment intelligently.

[Web Rider]

"Memetics is a pseudo-science and no memetic study has produced any useful result."

 

as I generally argue that such an absolute statement would be wrong, I would also question our general ability to actually measure, study, and produce easily replicateable results of any given meme. I would also argue that a "useful result" is not objective from any standpoint.

 

There are many scientific things discovered that aren't outrightly useful to the average person, but of great use to science, and vice versa. Due to these two things, our probable inability to accurately and repeatedly scientifically measure and study a meme and it's progression and the fact that what is "useful" is a variable and highly unobjective statement, the original statement of:

""Memetics is a pseudo-science and no memetic study has produced any useful result.""

is incorrect.

[Darth InSidious]

What I mean is, so far no memetic study has produced any valuable data. Memetics as a field is attempting to treat ideas as viri, which seems a position impossible to defend or attack, and lacking in any really viable scientific aim. It is a vague and ill-defined concept, lacking any substance, which seems to serve no purpose except as a rather weak prop for atheism. No investigation using it has come to any great, ground-breaking result, and saying that ideas are transmitted like viri seems foolish at best.

 

I suppose it could explain why certain themes crop up in different societies that had no contact with one another, but it relies on unverifiable idea-plagues.

 

How is it any different from saying that it is up to God?

[Achilles]

which seems to serve no purpose except as a rather weak prop for atheism.

Could you expand on this please?

[Web Rider]

What I mean is, so far no memetic study has produced any valuable data.

I addressed that already. What is or inst valuable data is subjective based on who you're asking. Due to this, it's impossible to say NO study has produced anything valuable. We may simply have not assessed one of the various studies results as valuable yet, or they may have value to X+Y people, but not G+H people.

 

Memetics as a field is attempting to treat ideas as viri, which seems a position impossible to defend or attack

You're clearly attacking it's position as a credible field of study. Therefore, You're assesment that the aforementioned position is impossible to attack is incorrect. Since ideas DO spread, though I personally don't know if they do so like viruses or otherwise, I would also contend that it is highly plausible that the memetic position is defendable.

 

and lacking in any really viable scientific aim.

Says who?

It is a vague and ill-defined concept, lacking any substance, which seems to serve no purpose except as a rather weak prop for atheism.

To echo Achilles, explain. I highly doubt that because the same guy who coined the term is a die-hard atheist means that anything else he thinks up is only good for atheism. Additionally, I do not agree that it is lacking substance or is an ill defined concept. It is clearly defined as ideas spreading through people and cultures in the same manner as viruses. How would you like it clarified?

 

No investigation using it has come to any great, ground-breaking result, and saying that ideas are transmitted like viri seems foolish at best.

A subjective statement in it's entirety. Much of science's discoveries are not astounding or groundbreaking. This has yet to become a determining factor in it still being, or not being science. And what is foolish to one could be a great scientific discovery to another. Remember gravity? Relativity? Evolution? The earth revolving around the sun? Much of science throughout history has been deemed "foolish", however, this has yet to be a determining factor in whether or not it's still science.

 

I suppose it could explain why certain themes crop up in different societies that had no contact with one another, but it relies on unverifiable idea-plagues.

And how are these things unverifiable? It's not hard to go through history books and note when certain ideas started entering people's minds and then slowly started affecting the rest of society. Yeah, we can't go back and ask some guy in the past if he was the first one to hear of a certain idea, but we can't go back and find the missing link either. For both, we rely on history books for the former, and the history buried in the ground for the latter.

 

How is it any different from saying that it is up to God?

Because they're trying to find a testable, repeatable process that's going on and causing all of it? Where as with God it's: Goddunnit.

[tk102]

What is or inst valuable data is subjective based on who you're asking. Due to this, it's impossible to say NO study has produced anything valuable. We may simply have not assessed one of the various studies results as valuable yet, or they may have value to X+Y people, but not G+H people.

Ah, so the study of astrology does produce useful results, it just depends on who you're asking. Does that mean it's a science depending on who you're asking? Likewise the moniker of pseudoscience is just someone's point of view? Hmm.

 

You're clearly attacking it's position as a credible field of study. Therefore, You're assesment that the aforementioned position is impossible to attack is incorrect.

DI's assessment was that memetics makes assertations (eg. that ideas multiply like virii) that are impossible to attack because memetics does not make hypotheses that are open to scientific scrutiny. This is a valid critique of any pseudoscience.

 

Since ideas DO spread, though I personally don't know if they do so like viruses or otherwise, I would also contend that it is highly plausible that the memetic position is defendable.

It is defensible as a simile perhaps, but how can it even be called even a soft science when its terms (eg. meme) are amorphous and it does not lend itself to experiment?

[Web Rider]

Ah, so the study of astrology does produce useful results, it just depends on who you're asking. Does that mean it's a science depending on who you're asking? Likewise the moniker of pseudoscience is just someone's point of view? Hmm.

 

it's not whether or not we have scientifically tested some thing, it's if it's possible. Can we test the psuedo-science behind lightsabers? no, because such tech doesn't exist so we dont have anything to test. Can we test for how the stars affect my destiny? no, we can't. Can we test to see how an idea spreads? yes we can. Anyone playing telephone can help you there.

 

And yes, "useful" is still as subjective as it always has been. Astrology is useful to some, and not to others, as I'm sure memetics is to some and not to others.

 

DI's assessment was that memetics makes assertations (eg. that ideas multiply like virii) that are impossible to attack because memetics does not make hypotheses that are open to scientific scrutiny. This is a valid critique of any pseudoscience.

 

I did not read what he wrote that way. But yes, if the assertations are not scientifially certifable(though I think they are), it can fall into an unattackable. yet undefendable position(short of "goddunnit").

 

It is defensible as a simile perhaps, but how can it even be called even a soft science when its terms (eg. meme) are amorphous and it does not lend itself to experiment?

 

*shrug* I'm not expert on it, I just took the opposite opinion from what i read.

[SilentScope001]

Memetics cannot be tested because the experiments required to test it would be considered inhumane. We need to grab a group of people, memory-wipe them back to the Stone Ages, and monitor their entire lives and their future generations to see if any ideas come, and if so, how those ideas spread, and how people deal with them. Scientists could do that, but they'll be lynched.

 

So, no, you can't prove it. So, yes, it's totally useless as a Science. You can't make any predictions that are testable, and you can't harness that technology. That does not mean it's wrong. I still believe in Memetics. But, well, you can't test it. It's not because it's not testable, but because the ways of testing it would be just plain immoral.

[Web Rider]

Memetics cannot be tested because the experiments required to test it would be considered inhumane. We need to grab a group of people, memory-wipe them back to the Stone Ages, and monitor their entire lives and their future generations to see if any ideas come, and if so, how those ideas spread, and how people deal with them. Scientists could do that, but they'll be lynched.

 

Couldn't we just get a couple of pregnant women and study their children after they're born? Save for instincts and stuff bred into them(which for the sake of argument, we can leave out), wouldn't they essentially be social idea blank?

[SilentScope001]

Sure, but then we have to place them in some area where they are unexposed to other social conditions? In other words, no moms, or dads, or anything. The babies have to live by themselves...or be granted all surivial from some sort of mysterious "God-like diety"...aka, some babysitters wearing mysterious suits to cover them.

 

Still sounds a bit unlikely. Ask a pregant woman to give up their future child for the sake of "science"...and they'll be quite upset.

[tk102]

Better to redefine a particular "meme" as a specific brainwave pattern that can be observed, recorded, and looked-for in experimentation. Then you can start to ask specific questions, like "why is this meme more 'contagious' than this one?" and formulate hypothesis: "The letters: 'O RLY' shortcuts the language center of the brain and relies more upon the visual assortment of the letters and the juxtaposition of an owl, a symbol of wisdom, against the nonsensical letters joins two otherwise disparate areas of the brain as seen by CAT scan. In short, the meme creates a new synaptic pathways... blah blah..."

 

Of course now we're talking about neuroscience and not memetics per se.

[Web Rider]

Sure, but then we have to place them in some area where they are unexposed to other social conditions? In other words, no moms, or dads, or anything. The babies have to live by themselves...or be granted all surivial from some sort of mysterious "God-like diety"...aka, some babysitters wearing mysterious suits to cover them.

 

Still sounds a bit unlikely. Ask a pregant woman to give up their future child for the sake of "science"...and they'll be quite upset.

 

I don't see why, we are attempting to see how existing and new ideas spread. Wouldn't their exposure to those ideas be important in studying how those ideas spread?

 

Yeah, scientifically, it would have to be executed in the manner of the Truman Show, as you couldn't miss a single moment of their life for you might miss something important. Unfeisable? yeah, probly, unethical? perhaps, impossible? nah.