User:Woozle/Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Notes for eventual organization into coherent critique

• p.352 "a science of memetics?"
  • another difference: genetics requires extremely accurate copying of very large data
    • ...but this is only because we now understand the mechanism, long after the theory was devised
    • Dennett points out that the (real) "data" is at the "intentional" level (which maybe brings memetics and genetics closer together, as far as bandwidth requirements?)
• p.357 Sperber objects to the idea of "abstract, intentional objects" as the main subject of a scientific project (what about math?)
• p.358 Dennett replies:
  • Sperber prefers to think of cultural transmission as epidemiology rather than genetics:
    • How do they not both apply?
    • How are they substantially different in approach, when applied to cultural transmission?
      • Dennett says much the same: the direction of his theory is very much the same as Dawkins' -- to the point of near-indistinguishability
• p.361 Dawkins' qualifications of memetics
• p.362 "Advantageous to iteself" -- somehow this kind of epitomizes the idea of survival-trait thinking necessary to understand genetics and memetics
  • for evolution page: the fact that diseases ultimately need to spread, and this is why only "newbie" diseases tend to be quickly fatal
• p.363 Is it perhaps the essence of the gene/meme-based view that there is a discoupling between {what benefits the gene/meme} and {what benefits the host}? (Maybe this explains it more clearly than "advantageous to itself") While there is always a relationship, it is often inderect and counter-intuitive
• p.363-4:
  • "good" ideas spread because they are true or beautiful
  • successful memes spread because they are good at spreading ("good replecators")
  • just as gene-centered view can explain features that aren't "good for the organism", so memetics can explain the popularity of bad ideas (memes that aren't good for the host)
• p.366 memetics vs. autonomy
  • a thought: isn't all of science "reductionism"? At least in the non-greedy sense
  • footnote: LR&K claim that memes presuppose a "Cartesian" view of the mind; Dennett says that memes are a key ingredient of the best alternatives to this
• p.376 "researchers unhesitatingly and uncontroversially rank species in terms of how intelligent they are." Is there a Master Species Intelligence Ranking somewhere? Does JERS have any comment on the Skinnerian failure to prove that pigeons are non-Popperian?
• p.378-9 some semi-hard-wired concepts
• p.383 "levels of (in)comprehension", perhaps? (this would seem to relate to the plausibility of God's motives being "beyond our comprehension")
  • can respond with a correct answer
  • can respond with a wrong but reasonable answer
  • can't answer, but can understand the question
  • can't answer and can't understand the correct answer (not sure about understanding the question)
  • can't understand the question (e.g. paraphrase it), but can understand where it gets lost (understands at least some of the premises)
  • can't even begin to understand -- doesn't understand the underlying concepts, or doesn't know where it gets lost in trying to understand the question (failure to even break the question down into its component assumptions?)
• p.383 footnote relates to AI as a controversial issue
• p.386 Noam Chomsky's peculiar philosophical position:
  • in favor of algorithmic analysis of language
  • against... not sure exactly what Chomsky is against, but it's something that seems to appeal to mystical/romantic humanists; see p.381, maybe?
  • against AI ("unwaveringly hostile" p.386)
  • anti-"crane", p.397: "he has vigorously discouraged us from thinking of it as a crane"
  • against the idea that the "language organ" (or language ability) could be a product of natural selection
• p.388 the supposed "effortlessness" of learning to speak, even for "slow" children - but what about nonverbal autistic kids?
• p.390 it's not at all clear, at least from the text quoted by Dennett, just how Chomsky thinks language ability came to exist
  • definitely built-in (hard-wired?) rather than being learned/deduced from first principles
  • but not evolved either
• p.391 "...by-product of selection for other abilities or as a consequence of as-yet unknown laws of growth and form...": this seems rather like "God moves in mysterious ways" -- ignoring the explanations pointed to by the evidence and asserting instead that "whatever it is, we don't have the knowledge to understand it yet".
• p.392 list of bizarre assertions at MIT language meeting; failure to correct a statement attributed to you is a "dog that hasn't barked"
• p.393
  • social darwinism is "an odious misapplication of Darwinian thinking in defense of political doctrines that range from callous to heinous."
  • the question arises of whether intellectuals are responsible for the applications and likely misapplications of their work; Gould and Chomsky say yes.
• p.394 "difference between reductionism and greedy reductionism" comes up again
• p.395 Spencerianism, anti-Spencerianism, Skinner's behaviorism, empiricism... "Skinner was a greedy reductionist"
• p.398 Searle says automata don't have "real" intentionality
  • What defines the difference between "real" and "as-if" intentionality?
  • Does a robot have to swear eternal vengeance upon those who thwart its intentions before the Searle mindset would take those intentions seriously? Is it some other mere anthropomorphic cue (such as vengefulness) which makes it difficult for Searle to accept "real" intentionality in an algorithmic machine?
  • Chomsky: the language organ has an algorithmic structure, but we can't ever understand it
  • Searle: the language organ works in mysterious ways; attempting to describe it algorithmically is just plain wrong
• p.399 Searle basically argues that intended functionality is the only "real" functionality; nothing that is not designed has a real "function" (sounds like he wants to believe in intelligent design -- otherwise humans have no "function"; also sounds a bit like argument by definition)
• p.478 rate of same-species killing is several thousand times higher in mammalian species than in any American city (blatantly contradicting the popular idea that humans are bloodthirsty killers and nature is basically peaceful); should be in human nature and possibly popular myths?
• p.492 sexually "deviant" practices in other species
• p.502-3 decision-making process: possibly use as basis for designing internet-based decision-making process (might also be used to refine Issuepedia:Wiki Issue Exploration Structure)
• p.515 "Darwin's Dangerous Idea helps to create a condition in the memosphere..."
• p.526 unacceptable memes