What is important in this context is not the "stuff" it is made out of, but the arrangement, the "information".

>>People devote their lives to other people or ideas because they have marked expressions of genes or gene combinations that either pose reproductive advantages to themselves or which are linked statistically to other genes which do this for them. Most people have the genes to appreciate/admire self-sacrifice, but these genes must not normally express themselves through actual self-sacrifice or they would kill themselves off.<<

That's one theory, and it is certainly a hot one right now, but it can not yet be substantiated. The idea that people act in a sort of pseudo-altruism for the purpose of furthering the reproduction of similar genes or combinations of genes is entirely hypothetical, and I think theory is full of holes. I tend to find more validity in the group selectionist paradigm which suggests that humans function more often than not in service of collectives than simple individual interest.

Ideas (read, memes) unite individuals who have very little in common genetically speaking, and it seems that people are at least as driven by memetics as genetics. Furthermore, I am unaware of any evidence to support the idea that admiration of self-sacrifice is a genetically-determined behavior (please share if you have been exposed to any, though). Simply put, it seems distinctly improbable and unlikely that human behavior and indeed "all biology" is simply in service of the reproduction of the individual's genetic code. A broader view that suggests that behavior is in service of individual and collective interests, expressed both genetically and memetically, seems more probable and requires less "faith" than pure "reductionism" (a misnomer, I think, as "reductionists" generally tend to be of *one particular type of reductionism* which has usurped the term).

If DNA is in service of the basic laws of organic chemistry (which I agree with), then it is an expression of those laws, which are themselves expressions of the laws of physics. The potential for life, then, is inherent in those laws; it is an expression of the very laws of physics.

Here's a cross-post from my contribution to a discussion on the cognitive science tribe. I'd normally avoid cross-posting, but this is relevant to semiotics and tribe hasn't had much activity anyways.


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June 05, 2004 - 07:42 PM
Re: The Blank Slate

In sort of general response to what I've read here (trying to prevent the thread from getting any harder to read):

I think it is important to consider that basic biological drives (status, sex, etc. and debatably cognition) are themselves, to varying degrees, types of "culture" that have become hardwired over time. What I mean is that these drives are the products of evolution, which is a process of responding to the changing environment with a series of hypotheses. Our natural drives seem to be themselves ultimately not more than incredibly successful hypotheses.

E.g., not all living beings are sexual, but evolutionary theory still claims that we share a common ancestor with them. Sex evolved as a procreative strategy, which suggests that it is itself an expression of a more fundamental drive: the drive to multiply, which could be considered a strategy in service of the drive to perpetuate/expand. That is, the best way to perpetuate/expand is to make a shitload of copies. It seems, though, that the thing being perpetuated is the form of "life" (i.e., "biological extropy") itself, not the individual per se but the forms of organization that create the individual. From this perspective, our basic drives seem to be evolved forms of expression of this basic drive, which itself could be an expression of basic physical laws (inertia, etc). This brings us to more tricky ground, more the realm of chemistry and physics, and even philosophy and information theory, than biology as we know it.

Anyways, I don't want to digress too far on that particular tangent. I mean to suggest that "culture" and "nature" are not entirely separate and opposing forces. Culture seems to be something like the aggregate of collectively gathered experiential data concerning the success/failure of certain hypotheses. While our natural drives, as incredibly strong hypotheses, have become "hard-wired", their modes of expression have not. Successful memes (i.e., adaptive behavioral patterns that allow for the satisfaction of basic drives) spread throughout a culture and shape the neurological activity of its constituents. This is absolutely crucial to a species that has hardwired certain things. Bacteria can biologically adapt to almost any environment in a few generations. Humans, operating within tighter biological constraints, must adapt behaviors by socio-neurological means (i.e. "cultural"/memetic); we can't directly modify our DNA with the incredible freedom of bacteria*.

This is why we need an aggregate of data on hypothetical modes of expressing basic drives. Basic drives must be channeled effectively for success; without such tweaking and channeling, sometimes in ways that temporarily demand "restraint", we would be much less likely to survive.

Cultural, subcultural, scientific, philosophical, etc competitions are the processes by which these aggregates are pitted against each other and they provide the diversity necessary to prevent us from stagnating. What some on both sides of the postmodernist/positivist arguement seem to miss is that we *need* our enemies and learn the most from our engagement with them. To say that postmodernism is responsible for stagnation in the social sciences is certainly a legitimate attack in this type of competition, but it does, however, miss the larger picture. Pinker is as much in the competition as anyone else... and so are we, for that matter. In this case, I just happen to put my chips on a manner of combat more like aikido than philosophical blitzkrieg. Seems more effective and enduring, at least on an individual scale**. ;)

On a side note: It seems unfortunate that the defeat of a culture or subculture often results in the loss of many very successful hypotheses that die out due to the failure of the overall "super-hypothesis". Some widespread, cross-cultural hypotheses even become stigmatized due merely to their association with a failed "superhypothesis". Examining ideas associated with any of the recent "failed" subcultural movements provides an example. However, it seems that modern cultural eclectism and pluralism are means of picking out the diamonds in the rough... And one of the fundamental postmodernist ideas, that we ought to be able to accept and entertain apparently contradictary positions simultaneously, seems to be a perfectly healthy evolutionary strategy.

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*Bloom argues that bacteria were the inventors of the first "biological internet" by being able to swap genetic information over great distances in incredibly swift time, and that the internet we are currently using has been in the works for thousands of years. Obviously, our internet operates on a memetic level rather than a genetic level. But we are swiftly approaching a time, via the exchange of methods i.e. higher-order memes and data, when we may be able to modify our genetic code.

**Though it seems quite obvious that the memetic blitzkrieg tactics of advertising, sound bites, propaganda, and "common sense" have the upper hand on a mass scale, at least in the short run...


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the original thread can be found atwww.tribe.net/tribe/servl...iewThread.vm

or by finding "The Blank Slate" thread in the Cognitive Science tribe.