Hm, well, its neither the genes not the memes that procreate - its the organisms/minds that hold them. Maybe this sounds like nitpicking, but this whole gene-meme equation is full of conceptual problems - something that even Richard Dawkins who initially coined the term lucidly acknowledged. If you put it like memes are something with an life of its own this leads people to assume they are a kind of unresistable force leading an own life and steering your life without you being able to intervene (which is what quite a few evolutionary scientists actually do).Trinity wrote:Actually you've hit on something one of my professors in college told us about (this was for a class about marketing).
Memes (NOT me-mes, meems like the word gene) are a form of thought "genetics". Like genes they "procreate"
What do you mean with 'until recently'? Memes are constantly changing - and even genes can change (mutate to use evolutionists jargon). True, genes doesn't change easily as it wouldn't be very adaptive if genes could be as easily changed than cultural traditions - a term which I prefer over 'meme', because I personally think this gene-analogy is a misleading one in the whole run.Trinity wrote:But unlike physical genes (until recently), memes can be changed through the course of human mental/emotional development.
Very true - our capacities not only rest on our genes and the therein specified instincts, but also on the ontogenetically created configuration and modeling/reshaping by extensive cognitive indoctrination which is heavily influenced by the surrounding culture (enculturation as its called) - and has a very real effect on the very functioning of our brain, resulting in a literally rewiring of it.Trinity wrote:For humans raw genetics and pure instincts are only part of the equation. How we cope with those instincts versus what our community expects of us shape who we become as a person.
Indeed, there are so much more resources than the internet and its never too late to improve your own 'Bildung'. If you want to know more about the evolutionary contingencies of human behavior I highly recommend to you 'Darwin Machines and the Nature of Knowledge' by Henry Plotkin. Its a very well written and lucid book - to me it was a real revelation. And heck, I could recommend (and send) to you tons of good articles about human evolution and related fields. Maybe we could even create some time in the future a kind of 'science/education'-section on the boards where packmembers can share their thoughts on exactly these kinds of things and improve each others knowlegde thus step by step. I think there would be a high potential for this here.Trinity wrote:With how much information is out there to learn, it's not a bad thing. There are plenty of people willing to share what they know. Heck look at what we managed to do here with The Pack! If it weren't for the internet, how successful would this have been?Figarou wrote:There are times where I wish I went to college. But I have to rely on the internet for my knowledge.
Well, anyways ... back to topic: Individual behavior of any living creature is really all about developmental factors - be it phylogenetically, ontogenetically or culturally influenced ones. Like Trinity so nicely put it with her very good 'case studies' - in the end you will always have to look very closely at the given behavior under scrutiny and, yeah - treat it like a profiler would do.