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 | Story of Evolution - Spring 2005 Forum |
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| Testing the Papers Name: Ann Dixon Date: 2005-02-21 13:15:52 Link to this Comment: 13058 |
, BUT NOT BOTH). REFERENCES (IF ANY) GO IN A NUMBERED LIST AT THE END (SEE BELOW). TO CITE A REFERENCE IN THE TEXT, USE THE FOLLOWING AT EACH NEEDED LOCATION:
(YOUR REFERENCE NUMBER).
SUCCESSIVE REFERENCES, LIKE PARAGRAPHS, SHOULD BE SEPARATED BY BLANK LINES (OR WTIH
, BUT NOT BOTH)
FOR WEB REFERENCES USE THE FOLLOWING, REPEATING AS NECESSARY
REFERENCE NUMBER)NAME OF YOUR FIRST WEB REFERENCE SITE, COMMENTS ABOUT IT
FOR NON-WEB REFERENCES USE THE FOLLOWING, REPEATING AS NECESSARY
REFERENCE NUMBER) STANDARD PRINT REFERENCE FORMAT
| Testing Again Name: Ann A Date: 2005-02-21 13:18:28 Link to this Comment: 13059 |
, BUT NOT BOTH). REFERENCES (IF ANY) GO IN A NUMBERED LIST AT THE END (SEE BELOW). TO CITE A REFERENCE IN THE TEXT, USE THE FOLLOWING AT EACH NEEDED LOCATION:
(YOUR REFERENCE NUMBER).
SUCCESSIVE REFERENCES, LIKE PARAGRAPHS, SHOULD BE SEPARATED BY BLANK LINES (OR WTIH
, BUT NOT BOTH)
FOR WEB REFERENCES USE THE FOLLOWING, REPEATING AS NECESSARY
REFERENCE NUMBER)NAME OF YOUR FIRST WEB REFERENCE SITE, COMMENTS ABOUT IT
FOR NON-WEB REFERENCES USE THE FOLLOWING, REPEATING AS NECESSARY
REFERENCE NUMBER) STANDARD PRINT REFERENCE FORMAT
| Testing Again Name: Ann A Date: 2005-02-21 13:22:01 Link to this Comment: 13060 |
, BUT NOT BOTH). REFERENCES (IF ANY) GO IN A NUMBERED LIST AT THE END (SEE BELOW). TO CITE A REFERENCE IN THE TEXT, USE THE FOLLOWING AT EACH NEEDED LOCATION:
(YOUR REFERENCE NUMBER).
SUCCESSIVE REFERENCES, LIKE PARAGRAPHS, SHOULD BE SEPARATED BY BLANK LINES (OR WTIH
, BUT NOT BOTH)
FOR WEB REFERENCES USE THE FOLLOWING, REPEATING AS NECESSARY
REFERENCE NUMBER)NAME OF YOUR FIRST WEB REFERENCE SITE, COMMENTS ABOUT IT
FOR NON-WEB REFERENCES USE THE FOLLOWING, REPEATING AS NECESSARY
REFERENCE NUMBER) STANDARD PRINT REFERENCE FORMAT
| A QWERTY World Name: Brittany P Date: 2005-03-01 20:15:16 Link to this Comment: 13330 |
Brittany Pladek
A QWERTY World
Back in the days when typewriters were first being invented, the arrangement of the keys was determined by the need to prevent them from jamming. Keys that often followed one another---s and h, q and u, e and everything---were spaced widely apart to keep them from getting stuck. Today's keyboards, despite advances in technology that eliminate the need for such precautions, continue to use this arrangement. This has become known as the QWERTY phenomenon, and it can be found in many places besides keyboards.
One of the most interesting of these places is evolutionary theory. Writes Daniel Dennett in his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, "The imperious restrictions we encounter inside [evolutionary theory] ... appear to count as merely local conditions, with historical explanations" (Dennett 123). He gives the example of horned birds, which don't exist not because there is something inherently "un-birdlike" about horns, but just because birds missed the genetic off-ramp which would have once allowed horned birds to evolve. The first half of Dennett's book continues to chronicle more such nuances of biological evolution. The second half describes what Dennett calls cultural evolution (Dennett 140), in which he compares ideas to genes. Dubbing them "memes," he argues that these usually-discrete cultural units reproduce, develop, and undergo natural selection in almost the same way as do their biological cousins. Survival of the fittest, adaptation to specific niches, and change over time: all transfer over (Dennett believes) from the genetic to the cultural sphere.
QWERTY, apparently, does not. Or at least, in Dennett's book, its cultural parallel goes extinct through non-selection: once he moves from biology to sociology, he ceases to mention it. Why might this be? Dennett gives no explanation for the omission. Perhaps he never considered it. Or (more likely, considering the thoroughness of his book), he didn't consider it important enough. Or he didn't have space. Whatever the reason, it's an unexplored idea whose cultural ramifications are fascinating. Does cultural evolution obey the laws of QWERTY? If so, where? If not, what would it be like if it did?
The answer to the first question seems, at first, to be a no-brainer: yes. QWERTY itself is, after all, a cultural phenomenon. But a closer look at QWERTY's history proves that (at least when applied to genetics) it doesn't even follow its own tenants. When applied evolutionarily, QWERTY states that any sort of biological "backtracking" is so improbable as to be impossible. Back in the Mesozoic when lizards first started growing feathers, a random turn of genetics forever prohibited their feathered descendents from developing horns. Can the same be said of our current keyboard alignment? No: creating a new keyboard is easy, and in some places it's already been done. The perpetuation of QWERTY itself is rather a product of human laziness. It takes time, effort, and money to reorganize a layout that is now mass-produced for millions of machines and taught in typing classes across the country. So turning QWERTY to TEWQRY isn't impossible. Just labor-intensive.
The same goes for most other cultural memes. Ideas, unlike genes, aren't hardwired. Biological QWERTY works like a maze full of one-sided doors: once you've chosen, you can't go back. Cultural QWERTY is a maze, too, but all the doors are always open. For example, let's compare two very different types of "fashion": a giraffe's spots (to steal an example from Dennett) and the new Abercrombie and Fitch Summer collection. Mrs. Giraffe has been wearing spots for millennia. A very long time ago, one of her ancestors flipped a genetic switch which read "spots not stripes." This ancestor continued evolving, piling up more genetic mutations on top of that first switch, so many that today it would be nearly impossible for Mrs. Giraffe to flip the switch back to "stripes" and have a zebra-esque daughter. "There simply is no starting point in DNA that has such a giraffe as its destination" (Dennett 117), explains Dennett. Now let's look at Abercrombie's Summer 2005 Catalogue. It's featuring a crumpled collection of tea-stained peasant blouses, faded flare jeans, and ratted hemp jewelry. One suspects the designers found their inspiration dumpster-diving at Woodstock. Human fashion, unlike giraffe fashion, takes its cue from any era it pleases. If it wanted, it could lift a "Victorian meme" from the 1800s and attire next year's spendthrift youth in ruffles and petticoats. Like rearranging our keyboard, this move isn't likely. But it's not, as are striped giraffes, technically impossible.
This isn't to say that there aren't some cultural memes which adhere to QWERTY. There are always exceptions to the rule. For example, humanity's regrettable environmental policy. The meme: "use fossil fuels!" The evolutionary consequences: we continue to consume an ever-dwindling supply of a finite resource. In doing so, we simultaneously limit our own future options. Someday the fossil fuel meme will be forced to adapt into something more conservationist ("use solar power!") or else, due to lack of fossil fuels, it will become extinct. (Hopefully humanity won't be going with it). On the whole, however, QWERTY is much less applicable when it comes to cultural evolution.
Which leaves us question number two: what would life be like if QWERTY restricted memes as strictly as it does genes? The possible scenarios are myriad, fascinating, and more than a little frightening. When boiled down to basics, the two most important differences between biological and cultural evolution (with regards to QWERTY, anyway) seem to be the ability of memes to "reach back in time" and change a long-standing idea/practice---Abercrombie's bohemian inspiration, for example---and their ability to combine two completely separate ideas into a new "species" of meme---for example, writing poems about chemistry. If QWERTY heavily affected cultural evolution, memes would be denied these two crucial abilities. With regards to ability number one, much more would suffer than Abercrombie's spring line. For example, women might have never gained the right to vote. If the cultural meme which read "voting should be male only" somehow managed to evolve past the point where it was possible to "reach back" and change it (and culturally, this meme is ancient---it would have had ample time to do so), not only the achievement, but the very idea of women voting could never have entered public consciousness. Such an evolutionary cusp may have been the writing of the Bill of Rights; the liberal Roaring Twenties; the influx of women in the workforce during the war years; it might even have occurred further back, during pre-Biblical times when memes about women's place in society were first being formed. Wherever it was, if at that time the meme passed up the opportunity to mutate to "votes for everyone!", women would be eternally consigned to second-class status: like the giraffe, forever denied their stripes. This argument can be extended to virtually any idea which was "enacted" at a specific time: the polio vaccine, Karl Marx's philosophy, the Ford Model T, and "a rose by any other name." It's even more applicable to ideas which were born through great imaginative leaps, seemingly years ahead of their time. If QWERTY harnessed culture into the same reins of "smooth progression of improving models" which guide biological evolution, we (despite cultural evolution's comparative speed) might still be piecing together Newton's Laws. Newton himself would never have existed. Under QWERTY, ideas must evolve from other similar ideas, not through inspired flights of imagination and overburdened apple trees.
As dire as these consequences seem, the implications for meme ability two are even more dismal. The capacity to combine two seemingly disparate ideas is such a foundation of cultural evolution that one is tempted to ask whether without it, culture would have evolved at all. One basic example is language. Almost all of today's languages are composite, reflecting influence from a wide variety of language families. English is perhaps the best example of a linguistic mutt: its ancestors include Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin, Gaelic, and many more. Just imagine what language might be like had QWERTY been calling the shots! Like the DNA of incompatible species, languages which evolved separately would never be able to mix. Every time any given tongue split off from its main branch, then changed sufficiently enough to prohibit communication, a whole set of speakers would be isolated from the rest of the world. We would all be imprisoned in a global, eternal Tower of Babel. And even if one linguistic group grew big and influential enough to develop a rudimentary culture, it would be barred from any significant innovation by QWERTY. For a simple example, let's consider agriculture. Some bright little cavewoman at some point in (regular) human history made the connection between "I like this tree's fruit" and "if I stick this seed in the ground, I can grow a tree." Voila---the first farm. Now let's look at the same cavewoman in a QWERTY universe. The two memes "yum, fruit!" and "seed=tree" might exist together in her mind, but it's questionable whether they would ever mate to produce "I will stick this seed in the ground and grow fruit I can eat." These meme-species may not have been compatible enough to produce such viable offspring. With QWERTY at the helm, human culture might never have developed at all.
Again, this concept can be applied to a nearly-infinite range of cultural memes. Let's even pretend for a second that QWERTY culture managed to achieve something of today's complexity. It's still an impossibly segregated, hopelessly static world: science, art, politics, religion, would all be separate memes, separate species, utterly incompatible. No field would ever be able to lean across the interspecies divide and learn anything from any other field. The Modern Synthesis wouldn't exist; nor would Primo Levi's The Periodic Table. On the plus side, McDonalds movie tie-ins, reality TV, and the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile would probably never have been invented. On the whole, though, the world would be a much more rigid, dismal place. It would take millennia to get anywhere---if we ever got there at all.
In conclusion, we should all be grateful that QWERTY happens in our cells. After all, it prevents us from popping out kids with three heads, horns, or stripes. But we should be equally grateful that, while operative in every gene, QWERTY kindly stays out of our heads. Isn't it a comfort to know that we don't live in a QWERTY world?
Works Cited
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
| The "Promiscuous" Meme: A Look at Cultural Evoluti Name: Anne Sulli Date: 2005-03-03 09:28:27 Link to this Comment: 13374 |
Dennett opens his discussion of the meme with a story of evolution that identifies various symbiotic relationships as the engine behind biological change. The prokaryotic cell gave rise to eukaryotic cells when the former was "invaded by parasites of sorts [which] turned out to be a blessing in disguise" (1).. The parasite and host equally benefited from the other, and the eukaryotic cell—and thus multicellular life—abounded. A subsequent invasion of a "single species" of multicellular life occurred, which created what we call "a person" (1).. These parasites, called "memes," find ideal homes in this species precisely because they were produced by their hosts. While simply told, this story reveals the fundamental contradiction within Dennett's discussion of the meme. He first identifies the meme as a creation of its host, and one that is advantageous to—as much as it subtracts from—its creator. The memes, he explains, are "symbionts but not parasites," they facilitate evolution. In describing the behavior of memes, however, Dennet uses the language of invasion, attack, and infection. He produces an opposition while insisting on mutuality. Ironically, Dennett set ups the antagonism he combats:
In the next chapter, I will address the important theoretical questions about how language and the human mind could evolve in the first place by Darwinian mechanisms. I will have to confront and disarm the tremendous—and largely misguided—animosity to this story . . . (1).
Dennett positions himself against a mob of Cartesian thinkers who will fiercely defend the singularity of human culture and intelligence. Yet Dennett immediately fashions this resistance—while perhaps betraying his own argument—as he entitles the next chapter, "Invasion of the Body-Snatchers." Memes, accordingly, are not the "symbionts" he initially describes; they are "body-snatchers." We thus begin to see the haziness of Dennett's own posture in the meme debate. If he aims to show that memes are a viable unit of evolution—and a "symbiont, but not parasites"—why do his language and presentation place the human brain and body under attack?
In creating this perhaps unnecessary polarity Dennett ironically maintains a very human-centered perspective. The "personality" that he assigns to the meme certainly compromises kind of evolution he wants to promote. On the one hand, Dennett describes the meme as an unthinking replicator: "The first rule of memes, as for genes, is that replication is not necessarily for the good of anything; replicators flourish that are good at . . . replicating—for whatever reason!" (1).. The meme, like any apparatus of evolution, lacks intent or purpose. Dennett, however, subverts this claim by describing the meme as a vicious and aggressive "parasite." Meme replication, in Dennett's language, sounds like a dangerous plague attacking humanity:
We are all well aware that today we live awash in a sea of paper-borne memes, breathing in an atmosphere of electronically-borne memes. Memes now spread around the world at the speed of light, and replicate at rates that make even fruit flies and yeast cells look glacial in comparison. They leap promiscuously from vehicle to vehicle, and from medium to medium, and are proving to be virtually unquarantinable (1).
The meme is "promiscuous," and "unquarantinable;" it is an uncontrollable, invasive, and living organism. Humanity, living "awash" in a meme-controlled world, is merely a "vehicle" for meme replication. This language of contagion and infection challenges Dennett's claim that memes are neutral and unthinking replicators. In creating this antagonism, Dennett alienates mankind from other life forms, thus enforcing Cartesian systems of differentiation. If Dennett wants to reintegrate the human brain within a community of "life" in general, why does he place it under severe attack? Furthermore, in assigning the meme a "human" personality, Dennett engages in a process of anthropomorphism, offering a very "human" centered understanding of evolution. As described by Dawkins, memes are "tunes, ideas, catch phrases, clothes fashions, etc" (Dawkins qtd. Dennett 345); yet Dennett describes them as living organisms. He continues this language as he later goes on to describe "selfish memes." This is a dangerous tendency in the project of evolution, as humans yearn to impute a personality or motivation on nonhuman organisms. In his treatment of the meme, Dennett seems to slide into this human-centered vision of life, dangerously approaching the kinds of thought-patterns held by his opposition.
Dennett presents the meme in a way that detracts from a useful and perhaps more accurate understanding of cultural evolution. His language places the mind against other evolutionary processes and in so doing; Dennett stimulates his supposed opposition—those who believe in the "unique" Godlike human mind. Dennett, along with other Darwinian scientists, wants to demote the human brain from its exalted status, and to deconstruct the strict categorizations—of mind and body, and of humans and "animals"—that belong to Cartesian thought. He perhaps best accomplishes this task during his introduction of the meme, when he describes a collaborative, symbiotic evolutionary process: Culture certainly evolves in the Darwinian fashion (1)., and the meme is not antagonistic, but beneficial to human life. Dennett asks the question, "Who's in charge? . . . We or our memes?" and although he avoids explanation, the question itself seems irrelevant. Humans are not at war with the meme, constantly vying for control; rather, their relationship is one of constituency and mutuality. Memes ensure that culture—like all life—is fluid and always changing. This fact should be most comforting to human beings.
Dennett, however, offers an unnecessarily bleak portrait of cultural evolution, describing it as an uncontrollable process—one that occurs at an exponential rate in comparison to genetic evolution. The basic process of evolution—"descent with modification"—is radically hastened as memes pass through human brains. In describing this process, Dennett reaches for the most dramatic Darwinian terms, exaggerating the struggle for existence—the "great battle of life." Similarly, he suggests one of the most extreme interpretations of the "meme perspective:" (1). A scholar is just a library's way of making another library. Although it is poorly and perhaps inaccurately phrased, this statement may not be as "unsettling" as it appears. For a scholar should be involved in the production of other libraries (although it is not the library that is in control). Scholarship—like all other intellectual and cultural activities—is fundamentally about collaboration, change, and shared work. It is not an isolated pursuit, and it is certainly never the work of a single mind. In spite of Dennett's hyperbolic language, meme replication cannot be hostile to the human mind, rather; it is one that promotes dialogue and collaboration. Because a meme must always change before replicating, for example, there seems to be a higher guarantee for diversity. Yet Dennett ignores the positive aspects of cultural evolution as he describes the meme as antagonistic, erecting strict and unnecessary polarities. Memes do not halt human creativity and originality, rather; they offer new tools for a different kind of exploration.
1) Dennett Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
| Evolution of AIDS Name: Kelsey Smi Date: 2005-03-03 09:37:56 Link to this Comment: 13375 |
When and antigen–-such as a virus--invades a human host, the immune system works to destroy it. Some white blood cells–macrophages–serve to maintain immunity to foreign organisms in a process known as phagocytosis, a word that means "cell eating." Another role that macrophages play is that they attach to invaders and send them to be annihilated by other parts of the immune system. The lymphocytes are specialized white blood cells that identify and destroy invading viruses. Some of them, B-cells, produce antibodies that circulate through the body and inactivate antigens by binding to them. Another type of lymphocyte, T-cells, carry out the job of destroying cells that are marked with antibodies.
The HIV virus disrupts the immune system response by interfering with the T-cells. This allows the virus to replicate rapidly. It invades a T-cell and uses it as a place to reproduce. Ultimately, the cell becomes filled with HIV cells and it explodes, allowing the new virus cells to infect other cells. Though the B-cells initially identify the virus as "foreign" and the macrophages consume the virus cells, these components of the immune system ultimately lose the battle. When a person has a T-cell count that is below 300, that individual is considered to have AIDS. At this point, a person is incapable of fighting off a myriad of opportunistic infections that would not be a problem if encountered by a person with a normal immune system.
Meanwhile, the AIDS virus is continuing to multiply. As it does so, it makes mistakes and the characteristics of the virus change slightly, much in the same way as memes change as they pass from person to person. As a consequence, the virus cannot be identified by the antibodies that the B-cells have produced. Another consequence of the virus continually changing is that it is impossible to wipe it out with a vaccine.
Sometimes, some of the AIDS virus cells will refrain from reproducing. Instead, they will enter T-cells and remain inactive for a while before choosing to multiply. They can remain in this state for several years, during which they are not detected by B-cells or consumed by macrophages. This is another hindrance to eradicating the virus because though some of the virus cells may not be evolving, the fact that they remain inactive is an effective evolutionary strategy that allows them to concurrently stay alive and stay undetected.
Though AIDS is incurable, it can be treated with drugs to boost the immune system and allow patients to live longer. Currently, there are four classes of drugs that can be used against AIDS and the most effective treatment uses multiple drug types. Over time, the virus evolves and in the process, develops resistace to drugs. This process is inevitable, but it necessitates the use of different drugs for treatment and it occurs more quickly if a person neglects to take all doses of the drugs. This resistance is transmitted when new individuals are infected. In fall of 2004, a man in New York City was infected with a strain of HIV that developed into AIDS in four months. Normally, HIV takes ten or more years to progress to AIDS, but this one develops into AIDS in two to twenty months. It is also resistant to three of the four classes of drugs, so there is not much that can be done for the man.
The process of developing new drugs is lengthy and involves four phases. Phase I involves testing the side effects of a drug on a population of healthy individuals to discover the side effects of different dosages of the drug. The trials usually involve less than 100 people and are over within a year. At this point, phase II occurs, testing the drug against an infected person to collect more information about side effects and to see how the drug works against the disease. Several hundred participant are divided into two equal groups: the first is given the drug, the second–known as the control–is given normal treatment. Under normal circumstances, it is unknown to both the doctors and the patients about what option each individual receives. In this method of conducting a blinded study, doctors can be completely objective when they examine the patients. Phase three is a larger sample–often more than a thousand people–and can take one to two years. It continues to evaluate the side effects and effectiveness of a drug. With good results in this phase, the drug can be marketed. Sometimes, phase IV can occur to evaluate the drug's long-term effectiveness and side effects. It can also compare the new drug to others approved for the same condition.
Resources
Basic AIDS Information:
http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/newton/Aids.html
Detection of a New Strain:
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/280163p 240060c.html
Phases of Drug Trials:
http://www.aidsinfonet.org/articles.php?articleID=105&printVersion=true#anchor50580
| Hegelian Conflict in Evolution: An Intuitive Appea Name: Kate Shine Date: 2005-03-03 12:38:11 Link to this Comment: 13379 |
However, this view of evolution relies on an aggressive dichotomy which does not necessarily seem to be reflected in Darwin's theory of biological evolution, or in Dawkins' "meme" theory of cultural evolution. So why do we seem so desperate to cling to the Hegelian dialectic? Could this perspective be the result of something unique about the human brain? Or may it actually be possible to find an underlying dialectic in genetic and memetic evolution, salvaging our intuition about the evolutionary process? I believe the answer is a surprising combination of both of these possibilities.
There is no doubt that many have tried to link the image of primeval battle to Darwin's theory. Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" as part of his merciless theory of social Darwinism.(2)Although this phrase is not in itself far removed from certain implications of Darwin's theory, the images often used to portray it are not accurate models of the reality of biological evolution. Not only Spencer but many people today still view natural selection as a battle of types, with the strongest and best type surviving victorious. Although this view does not provide for the "synthesis" produced in a dialectic evolution, it still retains the favorable idea of a clash of essential essences.
The problem with this perspective is that natural selection usually operates within the gradual continuum of variation within one species. For example, Darwin observed that individual finches on an island naturally differ slightly in beak size. If during a certain period of time the environment shifts and more of a certain kind of seed is available which is best obtained by a larger beak, the larger beaked finches will have somewhat better nutrition and success at reproducing, passing on their larger beaked genes. Over time this will result in a population of finches with slightly larger beak size overall. Although there is competition, this illustration seems far removed from the idea of dialectic evolution, as well any sort of battle of opposing types. Dawkin's theory of memes; or cultural units of evolution, relies on the same principles of natural selection and descent with variation and in this sense is equally incompatible with a dialectic.
However, there is a fundamental dichotomy within certain types of biological evolution that I have as yet overlooked. This is the male/female dichotomy present in all sexual forms of reproduction. Evolution can and does occur asexually, but in the words of Daniel Dennett, "species that reproduce sexually can move through Design Space at a much greater speed than that achieved by organisms that reproduce asexually." (3) Evolution is a less gradual process in the context of sexual reproduction because the combination and reshuffling of genetic material allows for more variation in a population than asexual reproduction, which relies on rare and random mutation for variation. The unique offspring created as the result of the union of the male and female gamete is very much a synthesis resulting from the "clash" of two types. It seems we have discovered our Hegelian dialectic in biological evolution! But where is the violence and conflict which that is supposed to accompany this process? Ironically, outside the context of rape, human sex is commonly thought to occur in an environment of love and acceptance. Another snag in this solution is that Dawkin's memes are not described as reproducing sexually.
In order to find the source of the conflict Moraga sees inherent in cultural evolution, we must first consider the structure and function of the human brain and nervous system. There are two distinct parts of the nervous system. The first was developed comparatively early in evolution and is present in fish and amphibians as well birds and mammals. It receives and organizes information from the outside world. The second part is known as the neocortex and is not present in fish or amphibians. It is the home of the "higher" functions of the brain, and facilitates language, emotion, and personality. It is also known as the "storyteller" of the brain, and is fully functional during dreaming. To the best of our understanding it receives signals from the rest of the nervous system, and does something with them which presumably results in our conscious thought.
What does this have to do with our uncomfortable, violent dialectic? This can be illustrated by an optical illusion. One can look at a cube drawn on paper with a dot on it, and either see the dot as in front of or behind the cube, but never both at once. If a person commits themselves to seeing the dot in front of the cube upon being presented the image, he or she will most likely eventually see it this way, but it may take some time.
This phenomenon results from the fact that the more primitive part of the nervous system is telling the neocortex one "story," which the neocortex must then either accept or reject. Vital in this example is the inescapable idea of opposing types. For some reason the neocortex seems to endow humans with the need to categorize everything in the world with words, concepts, nationalities, etc. in this vein of opposing types in order to consciously conceive of them. This process may also explain our tendency to view the dialectic as difficult and violent, if for no other reason than that the concept of sex as a loving meme finds its necessary opposite in violence.
The only remaining problem is to fully apply the dialectic to memetic cultural evolution. In biological evolution we found the dialectic in sexual reproduction. Memes are not tangible entities, so they cannot reproduce sexually in any traditional sense. However, in a sense I believe they do. When a person senses two ideas clicking together in her head and finally making sense; a process that seems so often to underlie creativity, could it not be that two memes are reproducing? Perhaps memetic evolution is so much faster because it does not prevent an "extinct" meme from reproducing with a modern meme, since as long as memes are recorded in some way they can never truly disappear. There also may not be the restrictive speciation in memetic evolution present in biological evolution, which could make more hybrids possible. Since memes cannot yet (and may never) be described in discrete physical units this is all mere speculation, but it would explain the intuitive appeal of Moraga's statement.
1)Biology 223 Course Forum. Serendip website, 2005.,
2)Re: Survival of the Fittest. The Phrase Finder website, 2001
3) Dennet, Daniel. Darwins Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996
| Dennet's Treatment of Memes Name: Nada Ali Date: 2005-03-03 14:56:42 Link to this Comment: 13383 |
Dennett's book, "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," delves into the treacherous terrain of trying to apply Darwin's theory of evolution to other areas of scholarship and ideas. He describes "Darwin's idea- (as) bearing an unmistakable likeness to universal acid: it eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world view, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways." (Dennett. Pg. 63)As fascinating and this concept of universal acid is and sounds, its application in one particular instance is unsatisfactory. Dennett argues that evolutionary theory can be applied to the development of culture in the sense that "culture must have a Darwinian origin." (Dennett. Pg. 341) This cultural evolution occurs through Memes, defined as "the name for any item of cultural evolution." (Dennett. Pg. 342) Examples of memes include musical tunes, concepts, phrases and ways of building ornaments. Dennett claims that it is these very memes that separate human beings from the rest of the living world. It is the "special" capability that distinguishes starkly the differences between human beings and a fruit fly. This paper will try to explain why the way in which Dennett presents the idea of memes creates tension between evolutionary biology and its application to the evolution of culture. In addition this paper would like to discuss the implications of meme evolution as a part of the biological evolutionary process.
Biological evolution occurs when there is variation, heritability and differential reproductive success. Dennett states "that evolution occurs whenever the following conditions exist: (1) variation: there is a continuing abundance of different elements (2) heredity or replication: the elements have the capacity to create copies or replicas of themselves and (3) differential 'fitness': the number of copies of an element that are created in a given time varies, depending on interactions between the features of that element and features of the environment in which it persists." (Dennett. Pg. 343) The purpose of this quote is not to bore one but to notice the language used by him to make his point more plausible. The use of the word "elements" is an interesting choice that allows more flexibility than a more descriptive phrase such as "genetic variation." Dennett deliberately uses the word "element" to facilitate his persuasion that Darwin's idea can offer an explanation for human cultural evolution. Hence he is attempting to push the biological context further away in order to facilitate its use to his benefit.
To further illustrate this point consider his following quote. He states that "notice that this definition, though drawn from biology, says nothing specific about organic molecules, nutrition, or even life." (Dennett. Pg.343)He offers the reader information that implies that the theory in some way was meant to be understood within and outside the realms of biology. By presenting the case pervasively outside a biological context he unintentionally takes the focus away from implications of biology. The very implications that then give rise to the evolution of memes. It seems as though he is trying very hard to separate the two in order to make memes more plausible. However what he doesn't realize is that the biological context strengthens his argument because without it memes would not have come into existence.
Dawkins on the other hand claims more effectively that similar to the process that enabled the existence of genes in an environment of oxygen created by the evolution of plants, memes came into being after the evolution of the brain was conducive to their existence. Hence in some sense we can infer that memes are chronologically a part of the process of evolution. He argues that while "meme evolution is not just analogous to biological or genic evolution," but rather "a phenomenon that obeys the laws of natural selection quite exactly," (Dennett. Pg. 345)he suggests that meme evolution is an outcome and part of the process of biological evolution. It is important to note that Dennett's use of language when speaking of Dawkins relays a sense of hesitation. He spends a considerable amount of time explaining his use of Dawkin's theory of memes when it may not have been necessary. To the reader it seems as though he is creating a distance between Dawkins and himself in order to draw on this disclaimer if needed. For example he is skeptical of the creation of a science of memetics while he is rallying for the existence of memes. This internal contradiction is somewhat problematic to a reader, especially one that is learning about memes for the first time.
By presenting the idea of memes in a comparative way, Dennett and perhaps others that have written about memes, miss the most important point. This significance being that meme evolution as an outcome of biological evolution is more plausible because it takes into accounts a development of biology that facilitates the existence of memes. Therefore memes understood to be learnt behavior can be viewed as being biological in the sense that the brain developed the capacity to generate memes and transmit them upon other brains. This logic while not absent in Dennett's book, misses the point by constantly trying to be analogous. By doing so he takes away from the biological basis of meme evolution. This is not to say that memes are biological and physical but rather that their existence was facilitated by biological evolution.
Dennett argues that memes are what make human beings "special." He assumes that the ability to transmit culture makes the homo sapiens in some ways, I dare say, more evolved or differently evolved from other living organisms. This is not to say that I agree with him, but rather the way he uses the word "special" intuitively suggests that human beings are better evolved. This is problematic because biological evolution emphasizes randomness, common descent and lack of purpose, and here we are claiming that memes make us special. This incongruity is troubling. True or not, it is troubling because it brings forth implications of meme evolution that may add to the complexity of how we view meme evolution in light of biological evolution.
Since memes and genes are "just different kinds of replicators evolving in different media at different rates," (Dennett. Pg.345) doesn't that suggest that human beings are evolving at greater speeds than the rest of the living world. Hence if that is so then has the overall rate of evolution increased for human beings to such a degree that they are now in some sense controlling the evolution of the rest of the living world. After all, selective breeding of certain live stock results in the harnessing of 'better' cattle, genetic engineering helps create desirable genetic characteristics in certain animals and plants while cloning allows us to control what in essence is replicated. Therefore in some sense does this not create purpose? Since human beings are able to control evolution because memes have allowed us to develop intelligence and ideas, is not plausible to say that cultural evolution may have created purpose in biological evolution. This is a dangerous implication. Dennett may not assert this but isn't that a reasonable inference. If memes exist as an outcome of biological evolution, and we can now control evolution in some sense through the rejection and acceptance of memes, are we not in control of our own evolution.
Dennett's universal acid has the power to seduce, convince and amuse but his application in the form of cultural evolution via memes is problematic. While analogies are helpful, they are not literal. Darwin's theory of evolution can be used metaphorically to explain many things but its true place is in biology. While I agree with the notion that biology has everything to do with the existence of memes I do not believe that the analogy is helpful without a biological context. After all Dennett himself admits that "the truly dangerous aspect of Darwin's idea is its seductiveness" (Dennett. Pg.521) and perhaps it is this very "seductiveness" that has led him down this dangerous path. Memes are not an analogy but rather a part of evolutionary biology.
Bibliography
Dennett, Daniel C. 1995. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of life. New York: Simon & Schuster
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| Leaps of Faith: Accessing Possibilities Name: Lauren Tom Date: 2005-03-03 23:01:43 Link to this Comment: 13400 |
The most obvious leap of faith that Dennett takes is one that must be conceded, if the rest of his theory is to be considered. He assumes that the Libraries of Babel and Mendel can exist at all. The Library of Babel supposedly contains all possible books of certain dimensions, regardless of whether or not they have been imagined. This takes for granted that books can be possibilities when they have never been conceived of by their prospective writers, an assumption that Dennett never addresses. However, Dennett deals with the books as books – that is, as logical creations based on ideas that are either valid or invalid. If the Library is considered not as a collection of all possible books, but as a collection of all possible combinations of a collection of characters within a given page limit, the idea becomes conceivable. An idea does not have to exist to be possible – it just has to be able to be expressed by the given letters within the page limit. This expression of the Library of Babel – and by extension, of the Library of Mendel, with nucleotides being substituted for characters – is one that Dennett does not explore, though it contains steps necessary for the consideration of his ideas. Dennett's problem is not that he has created an inconceivable idea; it is that he does not express his ideas thoroughly according to the processes he endorses.
After Dennett establishes the idea of the Library of Babel, he extends it to create the Library of Mendel. This idea appears to translate well, since genomes can be written as a combination of four letters, but in his enthusiasm for the idea Dennett does not fully address the problem of applying a literary metaphor to scientific theory. Dennett assumes that the Library of Mendel will include a reader that can interpret all viable genomes, an assumption he does not sufficiently defend. A type of reader for the DNA is necessary, since without readers to interpret it any sequence becomes meaningless. However, just because DNA is read the same way regardless of the type of organism, it does not necessarily follow that the same reader can interpret all viable DNA sequences. Dennett points this out when he mentions that reproducing dinosaurs with Jurassic Park's technology wouldn't work without actual dinosaurs to begin with ((Dennett). 114,) but he never addresses the issue again. Instead, he creates an imaginary DNA reader that can interpret any genome considered viable, to create an organism.
By leaping over a hole in his argument, Dennett does not work within his theory of gradually building on small ideas to create larger ones. To refer to one of his other ideas, Dennett's DNA reader can be viewed as a skyhook, an unsupported image that is vital for the consideration of his argument. The DNA reader is imagined, but there is no reason given for its existence other than to prove Dennett's argument. By not giving more support for his DNA reader, Dennett leaves a gap in the progression of ideas he is trying to create.
Aside from the lack of explanation for this imaginary DNA reader, the idea has another flaw – it only interprets the genomes which Dennett considers to be viable. Since it can interpret genomes to create organisms regardless of whether it is scientifically possible, this DNA reader should be able to interpret any genome, even those that appear to be nonsensical. However, Dennett rejects the possibility that either genomes or books can have meaning that is not obvious. He brings up the idea of an imaginary language, which he refers to as Babelish, but he dismisses it without considering the implications ((Dennett). 115.) If it is possible that evolution could have taken different paths than it did, a possibility that Dennett concedes when he refutes determinism and actualism ((Dennett). 120), then it must also be possible that the development of culture could have taken different paths, leading to the development of different languages. The realm of possibility must contain many languages that never had the chance to be created, just as Dennett mentions the books in the Library of Babel that never had the opportunity to be written ((Dennett). 450.) Therefore, some of these books that appear to be incomprehensible may make perfect sense in these possible languages.
Abstract as the concept of possible languages is, it is merely an extension of the theory that all possibilities can be contained within a Library. The interpretation of a sequence, whether it is composed of nucleotides or letters, depends on the language the reader understands. Dennett's imaginary DNA reader only understands genomes that Dennett considers viable. Rather than expressing genomes, it is expressing Dennett's views on which genomes can be created and which are unreadable. This blocks the unfolding of ideas about the realms of possibility. Dennett's argument depends on creating a space in which all possibilities exist, but once he successfully creates it he immediately begins sectioning off some of the possibilities as meaningless. This narrows down the range he must address from all possibilities to merely some, but by doing so Dennett does not fully address the issues he creates.
While creating his image of Libraries of possibilities, Dennett leaves out elements of his ideas that contradict his ultimate point. The Libraries are meant to show that, from a set of all possibilities, ideas and organisms which currently exist built gradually on those which previously existed, without spontaneous occurrences to ease transitions. However, while writing about the Libraries, Dennett makes assumptions to further his argument without sufficiently defending them, following the very pattern that he sets out to discredit.
Dennett) Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Touchstone, 1995.
| Memory of the Storyteller Name: Jennifer G Date: 2005-03-03 23:54:39 Link to this Comment: 13403 |
Human beings possess the ability to interpret and tell stories about their surroundings. They are able to communicate these stories from the present and the past internally through the process of memory. Memory is not a unique trait for humans, though they have a broader ability to communicate their memory with others. Humans and other similar organisms have developed the neocortex, which is a part of the brain that facilitates more advanced thought, which leads to the ability to comprehend the environment as a storyteller and for the purposes of memory. It has been argued that the storytelling ability comes directly from the neocortex interpreting signals from the rest of the brain.
There are two main types of memory for humans implicit and explicit memory. It is the explicit memory that is generally thought of, since it is memory that one thinks of as conscious memory or rational memory. Implicit memory by contrast is memory that can not be recalled such as the knowledge of certain tasks. The hippocampus, a part of the midbrain, and the interaction of the medial temporal lobe of the cortex are necessary for proper explicit memory. (1)
Combining the idea of stories being interpretations of signals from the lower parts of the brain and the role of the midbrain in memory there is the complication of what exactly is remembered. If the memory is stored in the neocortex then it would follow that every time someone recalls a single memory the neocortex is reinterpreting the signal; however, memories are relatively unchanged through time. This would suggest that identical signals would be treated with similar stories from the neocortex.
Humans interpret memory from signals sent to the neocortex in the form of stories. It is in these stories that humans are able to know the past and learn how to act in the future. The ability to see a story allows for the person to know see different outcomes and know whether how to respond to a stimulus. Internal stories are important for the idea of free will that people take for granted. Without knowledge of an internal story of what might happen due to a specific choice there would not be the same idea of free will.
It is then important to determine whether animals are able to make the same conscious decisions and whether they are able to tell stories. Various animals have shown to possess the ability for learning and memory. Bees have the ability to learn and remember stimulus such as the distance and location of food through long term potentiation in their brains. (2) Bees do not have the signals reinterpreted in any feature of the brain similar to the neocortex. There are species more similar to the human, which do have a necortex, even if not as the human.
If the story told by the neocortex is always similar then it would follow that it is merely the presence of the neocortex might be enough for a species to be a "storyteller". There are experiments in animal models that demonstrate the importance of the hippocampus and the neocortex in memory. This shows that there is at least some neocortex activity, though there is no evidence as to whether animals are storytellers. Humans are not the only species to demonstrate the ability for the tasks of learning and memory.
The issue becomes when storytelling developed within the neocortex. Animal models demonstrate that the neocortex is needed for monkeys to control their emotion and behave in a "rational" manner. (3) The monkey appears to be in more control with the neocortex, signifying that there is some sort of function that helps to prevent more primitive behavior. This does not show that the monkey is given able to tell stories or to possess free will, but rather that the monkey has a higher brain function.
A higher brain function might be problematic if humans are trying too hard to anthropomorphize animals that are evolutionarily similar to them. It is possible for humans to think about memory in terms of storytelling; in fact humans are able to understand memory through the process of storytelling. The understanding of memory without storytelling is difficult because it is so foreign. There is evidence that learning and memory exist prior to storytelling, and that the neocortex begins to be associated with the processing at some point, but identifying the origin of storytelling remains a problem.
| Universal Acid? Name: Eleanor Ca Date: 2005-03-04 00:59:08 Link to this Comment: 13404 |
With a certain way of looking at the story of evolution, such as the one Dennett presents in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, much of traditional religion is lost, including our claim to being made in God's image and gifted with God's laws to govern our actions. Dennett makes clear that a belief in God is also not possible in light of what is known. The preservation of any part of the religious tradition as functional beliefs is presented in Darwin's Dangerous Idea as akin to denying, avoiding, and hiding from the truth (3 Dennett page 22). As the story of evolution is told by Dennett, the issue of a God with a hand in creation does appear to be lost to whatever kind of acid Darwin's story proves to be. To look at evolution in the way that Dennett asks the reader to look it requires that one look at it in a way that many do not wish to look at it.
This does not mean that the acid has infected everything about the world. Nowhere in the story of evolution is the idea that humans are not unique or that human culture must have evolved in a certain way. Nowhere does the story of evolution claim to have found what it is that makes humans special. Dennett asserts that humans changed when their minds were "invaded" and made "witting hosts" to memes (3 Dennett page 341). These memes, he says, make humans people. According to Robert Aunger in Darwinizing Culture, memes are ideas that become shared through social transmission (
This is where the problem of Darwin and danger becomes apparent in the discussion of memes. The ideas that Darwin presented and the ideas of evolution that have been developed since Darwin had his "dangerous idea" can enhance the discussion of changes in culture. These ideas can indeed be used in the consideration of the development of culture. The idea that "the world is made up of memes" (4Sperber p.163) is not an idea that one must take easily to if one wishes his own control of his thoughts and actions. Memes are generally described as "cultural replicators" and are Darwinian if they have heredity, variation, and selection (2 Blackmore page 25). We can certainly see that memes that succeed are frequently memes that provide for their replication whether they simply are very catchy songs or religious ideas that reward "hosts" who replicate them and threaten those who might not. This is done through ideas of heaven and hell in religion and threats of bad luck in internet chain letters (4 Sperber p. 164). Anyone who has played "telephone" knows that any idea that enters his head will likely leave it changed (variation), though one can trace the result to the original, frequently in little visible steps (heredity). This may be an interesting way of looking at culture and ideas, but it is not radical to the extent that our old ideas have been eaten through by the "universal acid. That our ideas change and spread and sometimes are forgotten is a fact that we have known for quite a long time. What could potentially be scary about memes would be viewing them as creatures that infect our minds and that have minds of their own. Because memes are not living creatures in the sense that other living creatures are, Darwinian though their "behavior" may be, the study of culture may be changed or enhanced by Darwinian thinking and memes but is not eating through what was previously believed.
Artificial Intelligence is an issue that is scarier to many people as evidenced by the many movies made about robots that escape the original intent given by their creators and wreak havoc or about machines taking over the world. That such movies have been made proves that people have for a good while thought that artificial intelligence could in theory surpass human intelligence and that people fear this possibility. People search for reasons that it cannot happen and for what it is that makes humans different from machines. Dennett asserts that because humans are artifacts and products of the algorithmic process of evolution, statements supported by theories of evolution. He then states that a robot could gain the same autonomy and "purpose" that humans have in the way that humans have. He can say this because he has established that humans have no special gift from God but are simply "survival machines" (3 Dennett page 426).
Dennett then asserts that contrary to claims that there are things humans can know that cannot be explained by algorithms (or concluded by an algorithm), AI is not possible to a great extent, algorithms can account for all our knowledge (
Dennett presents many interesting ideas and ways of using the theory of evolution in areas outside of biology. He makes a good case for the importance of the story of evolution and he makes the belief in God as well as in evolution a very uncomfortable position to defend. However, a person having read Darwin's Dangerous Idea must not necessarily come away from it regarding evolution as a "universal acid". In such subjects as memes, artificial intelligence, and even religion, much may still be preserved even in its original form.
2 Blackmore, Susan "The Memes' Eye View" Darwinizing Culture Ed. Robert Aunger. New York: Oxford University Press 2000
3 Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Touchstone 1995
4 Sperber, Dan. "An Objection to the Memetic Approach to Culture" Darwinizing Culture Ed. Robert Aunger. New York: Oxford University Press 2000
1 Aunger, Robert "Introduction" Darwinizing Culture Ed. Robert Aunger. New York: Oxford University Press 2000
| Morality of an Evolutionist Name: Austin And Date: 2005-03-04 01:18:19 Link to this Comment: 13405 |
Morality is learned through a lifestyle: either a religious one or and evolutionistic one. Morals are comprised of family history, intuitive senses, and federal laws. For now, that's as far back as the origin of morality can be traced. Even religious morality can only be traced back to religious texts. How did the people who passed on those stories decide what was moral and what was not moral? For modern evolutionists, many different sources can be used to aid in deciding how a life should be lived morally, but finding the foundation of these is a difficult task. Sometimes a beginning just cannot be found.
| Memes and Individuality Name: Haley Brug Date: 2005-03-04 01:48:52 Link to this Comment: 13406 |
One example of the control we have over memes is our taste in music. Rarely will someone force himself to like a song just because it is popular. Friends share songs with each other, in an attempt to discover new music they might like. If we're listening to the radio, and an unappealing song is played, we turn the radio off. We build libraries of music we enjoy, on the computer, or in the form of a CD tower. When a person hears a song, a conscious decision is made. This song cannot "invade" the brain like some "horrible musical virus" as Dennett puts it. The difference is that we can choose whether or not we want to store this meme permanently. Occasionally, a meme such as Dennett describes in the awful melody of "It Takes Two to Tango" will find it's way in, but it does not have staying power. Such songs are usually gone from our minds the moment we stop agonizing over their presence. Memes we like have that particular staying power. If any person on the street was asked randomly what their favorite song was, they could tell you not only the name and artist, but hum the melody, and recite most of, if not all, the lyrics. Our memories know the memes we like the best, and the rest, may have only temporary residence. We can discard them at our will.
In a sense, we choose which memes are important and useful to us and use them as we want to. Dennett concedes this on page 368, where he writes that memes cannot rule anyone completely. In this day and age, we are able to create playlists of music. This is a way of using memes as we see fit, and tailoring them to our individual style. For instance, a playlist of songs for the gym will most likely be full of songs the listener loves, that are energetic and upbeat enough to inspire him or her to run even faster on the treadmill.
As for Dennett's claim that we can rarely take credit for our "brainchildren" ("We would like to think of ourselves as godlike creators of ideas, manipulating and controlling them as our whim dictates"), and that this is a way in which memes catch us unawares, that is simply untrue. While many of us have been hit by what can be termed "divine intervention", or, "struck with an idea from above", we fail to realize that we have really just pulled a few different memes together. Perhaps our manipulation of memes is so unconscious, so back of the hand, that we do not even notice our own cleverness in combining them and using them to their full potential. Famous writers always speak of their inspirations, all memes in their own right. Some listen to a particular kind of music while writing a particular scene. Meg Cabot, a famous, well-liked young adult novelist, listens to loud rock music, "the kind teens of today like" while writing her infectious high school melodramas. If a writer is writing a scene set in Spain, he might listen to Spanish guitar music. Besides writing, when completing projects, we often watch a certain video to get inspiration or to "borrow" memes from. Really, all we are doing when we are seized with an idea that seems to come from nowhere is synthesizing all these temporarily "borrowed" and stored memes, and meshing them together. We are truly in control of what we create and the ideas that come to us, even seemingly out of the blue. At night the brain translates events that happened during the day into dreams. In a like process, the mind takes memes and changes them into ideas. A character that takes on a life of it's own or a painting that paints itself is a lucky, very special combination of memes. At that moment, the artist has hit on the perfect organization of the memes he chose to make his own. Perhaps these combinations are so intricate and so once in a lifetime, like a snowflake in it's uniqueness, that it is impossible to repeat them.
This gives way to individuality. What are the chances that the exact same memes will find their way into a human mind, and be combined in the exact same way, twice?; that is to say, in two different minds? Not incredibly likely, though the commonly heard phrase "That was my idea!" or "I had that idea first!" can certainly attest to the fact that it does occur. Memes are perfectly suited for the job of allowing us to create our individuality. Thus far, it has been illustrated that we choose the memes we allow to "invade" our minds and this manifests itself in something as simple as our taste in music and movies. We do in fact have mastery over our "brainchildren", as evidenced by the fact that we watch things or do things in order to be inspired. Finally, it can be said that memes allow us to create our selves. In the same way that music enriches the soul, memes enrich the person. We use memes to be creative and to expand our creativity. We control them and combine them. We manipulate them, and turn old ideas into new ideas. The musical West Side Story is a perfect example of this. The point is, we may not be in control of our destinies, and we certainly cannot control every detail of our lives, but we should take comfort in our control over our memes. Instead of alien menaces, memes serve as the building blocks we use to grow with each experience or idea, to enjoy and master the world around us.
Dennet, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Touchstone, 1995.
TeenReads.com: http://www.teenreads.com/authors/au-cabot-meg.asp (Interview with Meg Cabot)
| Are you there God? It's me, a Complex-Adaptive Sys Name: Arshiya Ur Date: 2005-03-04 03:06:44 Link to this Comment: 13407 |
Are you there, God? It's me, a Complex-Adaptive Story-teller
Dear God,
It's me. Again. This time, I am writing because I have been thinking about you. I have been thinking about my own life and the life that I see around me. I have been thinking about my origins and destinations, where I came from and where I will go. But more than thinking about myself, I have been thinking about how I created you.
It happened in 4th grade. It happened when I raised my hand in a classroom full of people that I had never seen before. It was my first day at a new school and I had come in a day late. Before I could finish introducing myself, a student interrupted me. He asked the teacher if she was able to identify whether I was a boy or a girl. He explained that it was hard to tell with my short hair and loose t-shirt. It was during that moment that I created you. It only took a couple of seconds and just like that I had shaped a story that took away all the confusion and made me feel better instantly. The mystery over my gender faded away quickly but my story of you stayed with me. I told myself the story to understand objects that I saw around me, birds, waterfalls, and courting vine snakes. I repeated the story over and over when I couldn't make sense of things. Since then, I have revised and retold my story many times, adapting it a little every time to suit each new context. I have rethought certain bits depending on what I have recently read or been taught at school. However, thirteen years after the 4th grade, I still have my story. I have believed in it in spite of the various threats that have challenged its existence. First, there have been those fundamentalist story-tellers who are certain that their own story is the only story and no alternatives exist. Then, there have been the occasional non-believers in stories, who try to convince me that all stories are false. But I seem to have held on to my story of you. Why? Blame it all on my biology.
My brain, along with my body is a complex, adaptive system. It recognizes patterns and regularities in streams of data that it is exposed to and then develops a belief or creates a story based on its structure. The stories act as models that allow me to make predictions about the future contents of the incoming data streams. My complex-adaptive system cannot seem to function when the pockets of data are too chaotic and disordered. Then, it is simply unable to recognize a pattern or model that can trigger off its story-telling process. Stories are my version of an algorithmic and adaptive process. They are evolutionary adaptations that enable me to survive in a world that I don't realize and have no influence over. My adaptation allows me to live with the conviction that I can understand what I see and can explain what I have just described. Like all evolutionary adaptations, my stories too boost my relative fitness in a population and increase my chances of survival. But what part of my complex-adaptive system automatically generates new stories in response to data streams?
My brain, they say, consists of two parts. There's the neocortex, which allows me an internal experience and the ability to feel emotional responses to stimuli. The neocortex functions as a semi-independent agent. It is a story-teller, analyzer, thinker, imaginer and an idealist (Grobstein 2005). The rest of my nervous system is much like a frog's brain. It permits many specialized skills and responds to changes in the external world around me (Grobstein 2005). The complex-adaptive neocortex is responsible for the mechanism through which I create my stories about you. It detects the various alternative stories that I can use and employs the information that comes from the frog-brain to mould a final and useable story. However, the presence of neither my neocortex, nor my frog-brain explains my urgency for creating stories. This is because it isn't particular sections of the brain that make me a story-teller but the gaps and distances between these sections. It is the gap between the neocortex and the frog-brain, the "existential gap", that is responsible for my innate need for building stories. My stories serve as adaptations that substitute for the uncertainties and ambiguities that I have about my existence. The existential gap prevents me from knowing who I am and understanding my place in the world around me. It limits what I know about my identity. The gap is real and my perception of the real world is clouded by its presence.
The real world is a rhythmic, oscillating, chaotic struggle of forces. It is an indifferent world, without purpose or consideration. The existential gap in my brain drives me to credit the external world with order. It causes me to operate under the illusion that the world is ordered and designed. And I do this through my stories.
My stories represent a labyrinth. In this labyrinth, I am incubated in the fantasy of an ordered world that can be explained through additional stories such as logic and language. My stories allow me to live in a world of explanatory delusions. Along with my stories of logic and language, my stories of God too shield me from reality and offer me chaos in a seemingly ordered package in the labyrinth. The stories created by my neocortex wander through the astonishingly complex network in the labyrinth. They hit dead ends. They turn around. Then the neocortex revises them and they continue to wander again. I haven't found my way out of these labyrinths yet. Perhaps this will happen only when the doors of perception are opened. Then, I will be able to step out of the labyrinth and into a realization of disorder.
I am writing to tell you that I have decided to take on this path to realization. I see this enlightenment as a state where the gap between my neocortex and frog-brain has been revealed. I imagine it as a place where my consciousness is aware of myself as an adaptive process. It seems as though in that state, I will be able to create stories about God that represent the deepest truths about the infinite, chaotic world of which I am a part.
Yours,
Arshiya.
Bibliography:
Although not explicitly cited, this essay was conceptualized based on the following material:
Birx, James (2001). Nietzsche, Darwin & Evolution. http://www.hichumanities.org/AHproceedings/James%20Birx.pdf Last accessed 3/2/2005
Cline, Austin. Existentialism & Darwinism. http://atheism.about.com/od/existentialism/a/philosophies_p.htm Last accessed 3/2/2005
Dennet, Daniel (1995). Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Simon & Schuster Publishers: New York.
Grobstein, Paul (2005). Stories of Evolution and Evolution of Stories: Exploring the Significance of Diversity. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s05/storyevolplus/
Huxley, Aldous (1954). The Doors of Perceptions; and Heaven and Hell. New York: Harper & Row.
Santina, Peter (2005). The Law of Karma. http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma1.htm Last accessed 3/2/2005 Skolnick, Michael. Seeking the Divine in Evolution: Implicit Parallelism & Nietzsche http://www.pscs.umich.edu/jhhfest/Papers/skolnick_paper.pdf Last accessed 3/2/2005
Trungpa, Chogyam (1975). The Tibetan Book of the Dead. 3rd Edition: Shambhala Publishers: New York.
Whalen, Liam. Chaos & Labyrinth. http://www.wpunj.edu/wpcpages/sch-mss/philosophy/COURSES/NIETNET/chaos.htm Last accessed 3/2/2005
| My Story Evolving Name: Tonda Shim Date: 2005-03-04 07:59:13 Link to this Comment: 13408 |
The fact that my story has changed so drastically in so short a time shows just how fast cultural evolution can take place within an individual. All it takes is exposure to a new idea – a new meme – and there is yet another concept that must be worked into our story in order to avoid the ever-stressful dissonance which would occur in the back of our minds. My story challenges the idea of complete individual creativity – it accepts that individuals can be creative, but argues that all ideas come from the memes we've absorbed throughout our lives, throughout our daily adventures, many of which we've no doubt forgotten even exist. And my story also attempts to do what many say is impossible – to bridge and cross the gap between science and religion. My story may not be unique, but it is mine to alter as I need.
Storytelling is a result of two things – experience, and a need to understand. In the beginning, people told stories to rationalize everything – fire, love and drought to name a few. Gods and goddesses were told of, spirits created to explain natural forces, and stories were born from human curiosity and creativity. Humans have the amazing capacity to think beyond what has already been experienced – we can come up with stories about other planets, other cultures, about future times, past times, even other dimensions. But as our knowledge about the world around us increases, our drive to tell stories decreases. We are very gradually losing our storytelling abilities to scientific text and machines run by algorithms giving us the facts we now desire. Darwin's idea was (and still is) a "universal acid," as Dennett claims, uprooting all of our beliefs about the world and forcing a new picture at us. Though this new idea creates more stories with its very existence, it drastically decreases the number which can now be told. I challenge you to imagine a time where our stories will no longer matter. Where the goings on of daily life will all be explained by human or perhaps even machine produced algorithms, and even our own emotional human reactions will no longer perplex us. I challenge you to imagine the end of storytelling.
I always picture it being dark and gray – smoky skies from hundreds of thousands of years of human pollution and waste. But perhaps it is a sunny day. The beautifully engineered flowers are in full bloom, and the carefully monitored sun is near the peak in its daily course. Children gather around a large screen, with strikingly realistic animation telling the world's last story:
The war was nearly over – thousands of years of research, and scientists fighting over which was the best way to go about the project's completion had almost finished. Scientists had finally caught up on all of the research. Diseases, which had not too long ago been an incredible rarity, were now completely extinct. All animals had been catalogued, and all new possibilities logged into a machine through algorithmic processes, entering in each chromosome and then carefully observing the species with special mechanic devices throughout their life-spans, which would log everything else into the machines. The only thing left to do was exchange research with the other scientists – which had been the issue sparking the fiery intellectual war. There were very few countries remaining, and what were held very little resemblance to what we know of now as countries. Language and culture had been unified as much as possible so as to avoid conflict at all costs, and it was within these entities that the last bits of unknown information were held.
The problem soon became evident. If scientists traded off their last bits of unknown – filling in those very last few holes in the story – there would be no more storytelling. Stories would still be told, but the human mind, after so many years, had told every possible story, and explored every possible creative space, and slowly, through the invasion of knowledge through science, proven almost all of them impossible, and so any stories told after this event would simply be re-tellings; with no new creativity. Scientists and philosophers realized that these last bits of information would completely end all storytelling, for all knowledge would be in existence, and human curiosity would cease to exist. And so the war began. Many believed that all should have access to the knowledge, so strongly that they gave their lives to ensure this right. Others believed that had long ago been in our nature as humans to tell stories, and to enjoy hearing them, and learning from them, and so we should continue this rapidly vanishing tradition of the human culture. Others still just wanted some answers. This last human conflict was fought to no beautiful ending, knowledge intact in the newly completed story, and humans could now go on living their lives joyfully, with the knowledge that no harm could become them.
Humans had, in effect, become very machine-like, working under the strict constraints algorithms, and leading very predictable lives. No new stories were told - this last story quietly depicted an end to an era of human creativity, of humanity itself, in many aspects. How far should we take this quest to know all? Is it necessary to know absolutely everything there is to know? Or can we ever be content knowing that we are blissfully ignorant of at least some things.
| Evolution of Altruism Name: Alexandra Date: 2005-03-04 11:51:43 Link to this Comment: 13411 |
The Evolution of Altruism
To love oneself is a beginning of a lifelong romance.
— Oscar Wilde
Does altruism exist? What is altruism to be precise? The dictionary provides two definitions: The first is an "Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness." The second refers to Zoology and defines it as an "instinctive cooperative behavior that is detrimental to the individual but contributes to the survival of the species." Surely then, we must make a distinction between the altruism which is observed in countless species of the animal kingdom and that idealistic "true" altruism that is supposed to be present in only ourselves. To my mind there are really three distinct behaviors that may be called altruistic to different extents. There is the purely selfish altruism of inclusive fitness based on a mathematical model called Hamilton's Rule. There is likewise the mathematically based tit-for-tat altruism that is certainly present in all living species. And then there is human morality and human altruistic behavior. The homo-sapiens have certainly achieved a higher complexity to altruistic behavior. Is this then "true" altruism? Where does it come from and can it be traced to evolutionary origins? Let us first look at the first two simple and straight forward explanations for altruistic behavior. We must start from the small in order to understand the large. From the simple, we will be able to grasp the complex and then perhaps come closer to understanding our own social values and altruistic ideals.
For an individual to be termed "fit" for his environment he has to be able to reproduce and pass his genes to viable offspring. If achieving reproductive success by being personally fit is the struggle for existence then the question of altruism is still an unexplained one. Enter the theory of inclusive fitness. This fitness is not just fitness for yourself, but fitness for your genes, and here we can create a mathematical model for understanding certain altruistic behavior. Apart from the fact that the idea depends on the slightly flawed selfish gene principle postulated by Richard Dawkins it is nevertheless superbly clear and simple. Altruism can be expressed in Hamilton's equation rB > C, where r is the coefficient of the relationship between two individuals, B is the benefit tot the recipient of the altruistic act and C is the cost to the altruist himself, measured in terms of the offspring he could not manage to produce because of his altruistic action. The model explains any altruistic behavior in terms of selfish genes. I do something for you but only if you are a close enough relative and if that relationship combined with the benefit for you, exceeds the cost of my own procreating abilities. This type of behavior is certainly selected for, and has survived to this day (Dunbar, 1988). However it certainly does not explain the human concept of morality or "true" altruism.
Now let us turn to reciprocal altruism, which Daniel Dennett in his Darwin's Dangerous Idea claims "isn't really altruism at all, just enlightened self-interest of one form or another: you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" (Dennet, 1995, p.479). This kind of altruism is illustrated perfectly in the Prisoner's Dilemma game where the computer is programmed to be nice to you if you are nice to it. The two of you are then able to both reap the benefits of niceness. This strategy, called Tit-for-Tat is often observed in nature, animals are nice to each other because they expect something out of it in return (Dennet, 1995).
Tit-for-Tat likewise appears in human societies. We engage in all sorts of activities that may be immediately detrimental to us, like paying taxes, but we do them anyway, expecting everyone else to pay the taxes and be "nice" to us in return. Thus by paying the taxes we can also reap the benefits that go along with this "altruistic" act. This scheme does have one problem. Once one comprehends that the computer is playing Tit-for-Tat, it is possible to beat it and get even more payoff than you could do playing altruistically. Dennett provides the perfect example of a seemingly altruistic society in his description of the Hutterite communities, which exist as human bee colonies and where each member works for a communal good. He goes on to state the difficulties that the upkeep of this society entails quoting a leader of the group, "Again and again we see that man with his present nature finds it very hard to practice true community" (p.474). He goes on to describe the social restrictions that must be implemented in order for the system to function properly. What we have therefore is a "forced" altruism, one that exists because the members of the society try their very utmost to prevent any selfishness. A study done in UCLA examined why it is advantageous to practice altruistic behavior in society and came to the conclusion that "those who play by the rules and contribute to the public good, will be included and out-compete freeloaders" (Sullivan, 2004, p.1). To put it another way, people are exhibit morality in order not to be cast out by society. It is evolutionary advantageous therefore to have ethics, because it is beneficial for everyone in a society to not murder each other. There will always be someone who wants to cheat the system to win more than he could under altruism. In general however, most people don't, for fear of being ostracized from the community.
So here again we have selfishness. If there is no true altruism in human species where then is our humanity. Dennet struggles with the idea of attributing human morals to an evolutionary algorithm. To him human beings are too complex for one to be able to explain their altruistic-like behavior on biological terms. To me however there is no danger in searching for the origins of morality. In fact it is those very origins that to me prove our uniqueness as humans.
What is it that separates us from other creatures who also exhibit altruistic behavior? The answer is crystallized in a story of a man jumping into a fire to save people he does not even know. What is it that enables him to risk himself for people he is not related to, for people he cares nothing about? In such a situation, there is no time for analysis, no time for weighing pros and cons. It is simply an instinctual altruistic act. For an instant the suffering and experience of those people must have passed before his eyes. Why? Because his superbly developed neo-cortex allows him to see this story before it happens. He can imagine himself in that same circumstance; he can anticipate the pain and social chastising he would experience if he did not rush to their aid and he can likewise already imagine that feeling of self-worth, and nobleness that goes along with doing a good deed. Yes, it is still not "true" altruism. It is still a selfish act. As my fortune cookie last night very humorously points out, "our first love and last love is self love". However, despite the fact that I am resigned to a rather pessimistic view on altruism, namely that truly self-less acts do not actually exist, I am still able to be in awe of the human mind and story-telling ability.
Works Cited
Dennet, D. (1995). Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Dunbar, R.I.M. (1988). Primate Social Systems. Chapman & Hall: London and Cornell
University Press: Ithaca.
Sullivan, M. (2004, November) UCLA Study Points to Evolutionary Roots of Altruism,
Moral Outrage. Ascribe Health News Service [Online] 24 paragraphs. Available: http://web5.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/244/548/62266970w5/purl=rcl_ITOF_0
| The Relationship between Storytellers and Language Name: Becky Hahn Date: 2005-03-04 12:22:52 Link to this Comment: 13412 |
In its broadest definition, language is a system of symbolic representation, or in other words modeling. Life forms come up with specific symbols (mental, verbal, gesture and/or written) to stand for aspects of their environments, experiences, and thoughts. The definition can be further narrowed to expression of abstract information. So is language only possessed by humans, or do other animals use a language of sorts? Most research on non-human "language," often referred to a "call systems" points to the idea that language as we know it does not exist for animals. We are the only species who can transmit information or "design" through culture (Dennett 371). Research indicates that protolanguage began for humans about 4 million years ago, stimulated by communal hunting and eating, which required cooperation and coordination. True language may have developed about 100,000 years ago (Bates 16). However, the important issue is that there appears to be a starting point for language within only the human species. There is a division between humans, who use language, and all other species, who cannot.
The development of life from abstract inanimate to model builder to storyteller, as Professor Grobstein explained it, is fairly straightforward in its parts. However, the divisions are nebulous when examined. The important aspects in this context are the identities of model-builders and storytellers, and the division between them. Model builders are organisms that have built in "models" for how to live—how to acquire food, reproduce, defend themselves, etc. They have no consciousness of their own life or possible alternative ways of living. They don't have a choice to try something different. Storytellers, however, are conscious of their own existence and models, and have the ability to recognize and even invent other models to choose from. They can take aspects of unrelated things or ideas and put them together. To put it simply, storytellers have more than needed to exist—they have internal experience. Professor Grobstein suggested that some non-human mammals are also storytellers, but this proves to be problematic.
The idea of language is complexly bound up with the idea of being a storyteller. The definition of language frequently parallels the explanation of a storyteller. Bates explains that for animal calls "elements of one call cannot be combined with elements of another to create a new message," but "with language, people can and continually do create entirely new messages" (Bates 14). Animal calls parallel the internal model of model-builders, and language parallels the internal experience (or infinite models that can be created) of humans. Bates adds that our language is "stimulus-free...we can discuss things that are not present... even things that are not real" (Bates 15). From these explanations, it would seem that use of language is equivalent to status as a storyteller, but the relationship is more complex.
So what is the relationship between the language and status as a storyteller? Language is an important tool for storytellers, quite possible the ultimate tool. Words are mind tools that help to express our inner environments. Words shape and enhance preexisting structures (Dennett 378-379), but does language create these structures that define us as storytellers? Dennett states that "only human brains have been armed with habits and methods, mind-tools and information, drawn from millions of other brains which are not ancestral to our own brains" (Dennett 381). If all of these abilities beyond simple survival are not due to genetics, they must come from language--the stories that we pass though our cultures.
Did language develop first and storytellers evolve from the use of it? Or did language evolve as a way to express the internal experiences of storytellers? Examples can be found to support both sides. One very common use for language is to communicate surprise about experiences or things that deviate from known models (Dessalles). The fact that we recognize certain models as different from typical ones induces our use of language. The ability of storytellers to make their own models is really much the same as the ability to use language. The ability to express oneself through language can therefore be viewed as an indication that there is internal experience, and the fact of having internal experience seems to necessitate the use of some type of language to express it. This would help account for the idea that language skills are "innate" in humans (as argued by Chomsky) because of the fact that we're storytellers would require that we use language to express our "stories". Perhaps the question of which came first is irrelevant since they're so intimately linked.
However, problems still exist in equating language with storyteller status and vice versa. The grouping of storytellers was described as broader than humans (including other mammals as well) while language has been described as belonging solely to humans. Therefore there is a group of non-human mammals who are left up in the air. There are two potential options—these mammals could have also have language, or they could in fact be model-builders. The first solution would require that all storyteller mammals have some type of language that is adequate enough for them to be able to make sense of their internal experience and perhaps share ideas. However, it would not necessitate that their language is as developed as human language. If the second solution is upheld, all non-human mammals must have no internal experience. Of course neither of these solutions is perfect, and the gap may serve to show a flaw one of the definitions or in the argument as a whole.
Hurford argues that there can be internal experience in the absence of language. He states that animals and babies have complex conceptual representations that are simply not categorized because communication lags behind mental representation (Hurford). But this is difficult to prove. It can't be denied that language adds greatly to internal concepts, through symbols to represent them and for categorization purposes. I believe that overall the concept of language correlates well with the group of storytellers. Although the boundary between model-builders and storytellers is not completely cleared up, it is helpful to study this transition as related to the development of language.
Bibliography
Bates, Daniel G. Human Adaptive Strategies: Ecology, Culture, and Politics. Boston: Hunter College, 2005.
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Dessalles, Jean-Louis. "Language as an isolated niche" abstract, 5th Conference on the Evolution of Language, Leipzig, 2004. http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/evolang/ABSTRACTS/PLENARIES/dessalles.doc
Hurford, James R. "Origins of the Meaning of Human Language" abstract, University of Edinburgh, 5th Conference on the Evolution of Language, Leipzig, 2004. http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/evolang/ABSTRACTS/PLENARIES/hurford.txt
Perfors, Amy. "Simulated Evolution of Language: a Review of the Field" Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 5, no. 2 (2002). http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/5/2/4.html
| Of Human Arrogance and Dennet's Support of it Name: Maureen En Date: 2005-03-04 13:45:36 Link to this Comment: 13414 |
Of Human Arrogance and Dennet's Support of it
A common ideology of certain Evolutionists and Biologists is the belief that the Human species is further developed and superior to all other known living organisms. Daniel Dennet would like to argue, in his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, that aside from certain physical or biological attributes, humans are superior to animals. Namely, that by the very existence of a certain for of human language, humans naturally surpass animals. However, just as there is the "human superiority" belief, there is also the belief in the equality of humans and animals. In enlisting ideas such as the effect of language, and in using such as narrow definition of the "intelligent" language, Dennet is opening up his argument for reasonable rebuttal.
Dennet opens up his discussion on language with the statement that the existence of human language is proof of the superior intelligence of humans, "We are not like other animals; our minds set us off from them. [...] but we are without any doubt at all the most intelligent. We are also the only species with language" (Dennet 371)(1) . However, Dennet is operating under a very limited definition of language. While he acknowledges the existence emotional, musical, bodily, political, and odor forms of language, he discounts these forms of communication as "less language" or not as intelligent a form of communication as the use of words in human language. Dennet says, "This admiration for language–real language, the sort only we human beings use—is well founded" (Dennet 371)(1) . Dennet also makes the unfounded leap, with the company of Darwin as support, from the use of language to express complex ideas to the notion that in order to express ideas, or indeed, for these ideas to exist, an organism must already posses the use of language. Presupposing the existence of language, and by language here Dennet is using the narrow definition of human vocabulary, before complex thought and imagination therefore claims that organisms without the human for of language are not capable of complex thought and reasoning. Dennet, in this most controversial "leap of faith" says,
[...] language was the prerequisite for "long trains of thought," and this claim has been differently supported by several recent theorists. [...] These authors suggest, plausibly, that the self-exhortations and reminders made possible by language are actually essential to maintaining the sorts of long-term projects only we human beings engage in. (Dennet 379-380) (1).
Dennet acknowledges, even in the beginning of his language argument, that animals, such as the Chimpanzee, do have a "mind"; the concept of "mind" being apart from the presence of a brain. Dennet sees in the Chimpanzee, "her soulful face, inquisitive eyes, and deft fingers, and we very defiantly get a sense of the mind within" (Dennet 371)(1) . Suddenly though, Dennet rips this compassionate picture from our mind and claims that the chimp is incapable of the "soulful" and "inquisitive" qualities she seems to have simply because Dennet believes that chimps, like all animals other than humans, are inferior due to their lack of the human form of language. Though he quite readily admits that this "leap" is simply a theory, he quickly tries to cover up his omission with an example of behavioral studies proving his point, as if these studies produced established fact. Dennet says, "Could a Chimpanzee do the same thing in her mind's eye? I wonder. [...] Could a Chimpanzee get to perform such a mental act without the help of verbal suggestion? [...] but nobody know the answers—yet" (Dennet 372) (1). Dennet is again presupposing the development and existence of verbal language before the advent of complex thought.
Further, in the topic of language discrimination, Dennet claims, as further "proof" of the superiority of human verbal communication, that animals cannot learn and developed complex thought because they cannot verbally "compare notes" with each other (Dennet 380) (1). Dennet says that while Chimpanzees may seem philosophical on their own, they are limited from progressing as intelligent beings because of the lack of communication of their thoughts. He claims,
[...] they nevertheless lack a crucial feature shared by all human natural psychologists, [...] they never get to compare notes. They never dispute over attributions, and ask to know the grounds for each other's conclusions. No wonder their comprehension is so limited. Ours would be, too, if we had to generate it all our own. (Dennet 380)(1) .
Is Dennet claiming that if humans had no verbal language, that humans too would be "limited" and ignorant? Take when a human cries, and through this emotional language, conveys ideas about state of being to another human, or concepts of happiness, sorrow, or pain, of which the other human was not previously aware; is this communication less worthy of intelligence and knowledge than is the verbal debate between two humans over which soft-drink is better? Animals, as Dennet previously admitted, do have forms of language in which they communicate to each other. These forms may be incomprehensible to us, as a foreign language might also be at first; but are these "languages" any less important than any other? Is the verbal "comparing of notes" of soft-drinks more intelligent or more worthy than a cat whimpering in pain from a broken leg?
Dennet's whole argument is based on prejudice; the assumption that in differences among organisms, one "method" is naturally superior to another. However, the concept of difference or diversity does not naturally denote the concept of "better" and "worse" or "bad versus good", concepts which Dennet uses freely. In his discussion on human morality and sociobiology, Dennet discusses in length, the conflict of treating all human beings equally despite differences in lifestyles, health, and gender. Human society has condemned discrimination coming from differences and yet is still apt to discriminate. "The Grass is always greener" is a common human phrase which states simply that humans always think of the "better" instead of just accepting difference. Perhaps then we cannot blame Dennet for his natural human error of assuming humans are better simply because we are different than animals. Dennet simultaneously wants to impose human concepts of existence on animals of different species to compare species, and admit that animals are completely different than humans; for example the studies of brain function.
Since there is, admittedly, knowledge humans will never have, such as the exact thoughts of animals, and since language can be taken to mean any number of forms of communication, verbal and nonverbal, Dennet has no right to impose a label or "better" to humans. Dennet, even when talking about scientific fields, cannot refrain from the language of value judgment, "There is plenty of good work in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, and there is plenty of bad work, as in any field" (Dennet 491) (1). Simply because two living organisms may not understand each other's language completely, there is no valid reason to claim one form of language is superior to another. When a baby cries from hunger, and is fed, and when a pet dog whimpers from hunger, and is fed, both organisms are understood; there is proof of the superiority of the baby's cry to the dog's whimper. Dennet may sleep better at night with his arrogant assumptions about the superiority of humans; he just will never know that the animals may very well be laughing at him.
1) Dennet, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Touchstone, Simon and Schuster Inc. 1996
| Free Will and Artificial Intelligence Name: Liz Patere Date: 2005-03-04 15:16:08 Link to this Comment: 13417 |
Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud both noted that there were inner human drives, namely survival and sexual, that never changed regardless of outside factors. Jung took this notion further stating that there were also intrinsic notions of good and evil (2). It seems clear biologically, that the section of the brain that interacts with the environment is fully algorithmic. For instance, humans have reflexes. These require no conscious thought (3). However, Jung's notion suggests that there is also an algorithm in the neocortex. This suggests that there are inborn senses in people, including the notions of morality and freedom that can dictate behavior.
There is a question as to where the line is drawn between things that are only following an algorithm to things can act outside the algorithm and whether anything truly is outside the algorithm at all. Self-awareness alone may not create free will because self awareness does not ensure the ability to make a choice. The movie AI suggests that self aware things may not always have free will. When the robots are a carnival in which they will be destroyed for entertainment, the David is the only one capable of begging for his life. He was not programmed to beg, but he did so because external input told him to feel fear. This allowed him to make what seems to the external observer to be a choice. However, his algorithm may simply be more complex. This scene represents the fear that if machines can imitate free will, then perhaps free will is simply an extremely complicated algorithm in humans.
People like the notion that free will did not arise accidentally. Although evolution would dictate that it must have, other theories such as intelligent design suggest an intentional creator that desired this outcome. If machines could develop free will, not only would it remove some of the uniqueness of humans but it would also show that free will is capable of arising without an intentional creator (2,4). People fear these concepts. The movies Westworld and Blade Runner both present this notion. In Westworld, the humanoid machines in a resort begin to behave outside their programming. They feel anger at being used as entertainment. The man running the resort becomes fearful when he hears that the machines are behaving freely and attacking guests. Blade Runner shows artificially intelligent machines that learn to feel emotion and begin to act of their own free will. Humans fear them because of this and limit their life spans. While both these movies show violent machines that use their free will to kill, the larger fear is rooted in unintentional development of free will by the machines.
There is the question as to whether or not two algorithmic systems can create free will. If so, then machines and humans could both have the capacity for free will. Free will is the capacity to make a choice based on stories that the neocortex generates. Because people show the ability to take different paths in similar situations, it suggests that choice is not something that is completely predictable (2). For instance, students can choose to study or not study for tests based on any number of factors. The positive reinforcement of a good grade may or may not prompt studying for the next test. The large numbers of variables that affect the decision are so subjective and complex that there is no set behavioral pattern even on an individual basis. People may follow trends; however, often they retain the capacity to deviate from these trends. This means that there is no set algorithm and free will exists.
Free will does mean that choices cannot be influenced by external factors. The stories that people are capable of creating are influenced by the society that they were raised in. The inborn sense of morality provides guidelines for behavior that will strongly influence decisions. People's personalities will also influence patterns of behavior. However, none of these factors are capable of controlling behavior entirely. People defy any inborn sense of morality when they commit murder, yet it still happens as a result of free will.
Free will can exist in both humans and machines through the interaction of a story telling algorithm with one that responds to the environment. Whether or not free will is an accident is not important provided that free will exists. Because humans retain the ability to choose between two options, they have free will. It is not threaten by the existence of free will in anything else. The concept that it arose in humans accidentally has been around for over 150 years and is gradually becoming more accepted. Like notions of Darwinian evolution and Copernican solar systems, humans will have to get over the fact that they are not as unique as they once thought (4). Once this happens people will become less fearful of artificial intelligence and the possibility that it could have free will.
Works Cited:
1) Dictionary.com. 1 March 2005
Available WWW: dictionary.com
2) Walleij, Linus. Chapter 11: Artificial Intelligence. Copyright Does Not Exist. 27 Feb 2005
Available WWW: http://home.c2i.net/nirgendwo/cdne/ch11web.htm
3) Ben-Joseph, Elana. What Are Reflexes. August 2004. 1 March 2005.
Available WWW: http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/reflexes.html
4) Teller, Astro. Smart Machines and Why We Fear Them. New York Times. 21 March 1998. 28 Feb 2005
Available WWW: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~astro/nytimes.html
| Frolicking Through Design Space, Evolutionary Choo Name: Jessica Ro Date: 2005-03-04 15:22:22 Link to this Comment: 13418 |
a) Continue with nothingness. It seems to be working.
More and more nothingness. Meanwhile, less and less nothingness. Because its nothingness. The End
b) You are now the Word. Create whatever it is you'd like.
As the Word, get the story started. You are with God, you are God, the nothingness behind you never even got to be nothing, because you are now the Beginning. Its not like being a person, a person can't be with God and be God like this. You are all Intent, Reason, Cause, Sayings, Tidings, Doctrine, Communication.
b1) Don't create anything. You're a solitary type of Word. The End.
b2) Create light by separating it from the darkness. By creating light and dark, you have separated the first evening from the first day. Congratulations, you have created Time! There are waters. Create an expanse to separate the waters, call this expanse Sky. You have created Space, and had a very productive second day. With your third day, gather the water in one place so that dry land is revealed. Let plants grow on your dry land. You've had a busy three days. You can:
b2i. You've made a delightful garden for yourself. Stop while you're ahead. The End
b2ii. Keep going. Use the rest of the week (a concept you came up with because all of these days were getting out of control) to create stars on the fourth day, birds for the sky and fish for the sea on the fifth day. The sixth day you really throw yourself into it. Create all of the beasts of the earth in the morning. In the afternoon, create Man in your Image. Command Man to populate the Earth and master it. You are beat. Take the next day off. Give everyone else the seventh day off, as well. It is holy.
Man follows your commandment, procreating like its his job. There are many, many more evenings and mornings. Man tells his sons how you put him there. Eventually, your Man gets together some surface area and something to stain it with, and writes down the story of how you put him there. Everyone likes this story. It is True.
People get better and better at making paper and writing things down. Stories are shared much faster. Man wants to hear more stories, and asks questions as a result of the stories.
On February 12th, 1809 a Man named Charles Darwin is born in England. In 1859, he writes down and shares a story called On the Origin of Species. He tells the story very well. People tell and retell and revise Darwin's story; they use other stories to convince people that there is truth to Darwin's story. For many people, believing in this story means that they cannot believe in you, your story, your Word or your Beginning. Though your story is still read, and many still believe it, it is no longer unquestionably True in the way it was before. This is The End for you in many ways. Though you picked B, C prevails. Time to read that story. The End.
c) Random bubbling leads to a sudden, brief, improbable explosion not of matter but of a space. In The Big Accident, all of the timeless nothingness explodes.
(You did not cause the Accident, nor were you there to see it, nothing was. You're just reading the story).
The Accident creates stuff. Something comes from nothing. As soon as there is something, it starts to fall apart. In doing so, something bumps into something, leading to Quarks, though they're not really quarks, that's just the name they are given millennia later. Quarks bumping into quarks lead to atoms. Atoms become molecules in the same way. Bumping of molecules results in mass. Eventually, someone will name all of these things the Active Inanimate.
At every given bump, something else could have happened. Every quark, atom, molecule and mass could have been something else, though once they were in existence, they became inevitable. One thing's appearance does not take away the other things.
Quarks, atoms, molecules and mass keep bumping into each other. A certain bump, no unlike the others, is unlike the others, because a prokaryotic cell happens. This is another almost as improbable Big Accident. Don't take this for granted. For example, prokaryotic cells have been bumping. Do they:
c1) bump together and stick, until they form a Six Flags Adventure Theme Park. You had previously thought that this would have been impossible, because physics didn't seem to be going in that direction, and what the hell is a theme park? But it happened, and you now have a theme park. The End.
c2) bump together and eventually eukaryotic cells are created. Eukaryotic cells do a similar bumping, resulting somehow in multi-cellular organisms. (This is all taking a lot of time. But there is nothing around that conceives of time, so no worries)
Down the line, someone classifies these prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and multi-cellular organisms as Model Builders, because they can deal with things outside of themselves, anticipating change. They can have communication, organization, choosing, purposeful behavior and cooperation, all without the internal experience of it, and without the ability to recognize or label any of those things or make anything of them. They just do it.
The model builders have, however, been reproducing themselves in interesting ways. Things are still bumping into each other, but with more force and purpose, and the things that are created from the bumping are more and more like the things that bumped. The multi-cellular organisms are sticking together with each other, forming social systems and ecological systems. They choose who to bump with baste on criteria such as fitness to bear offspring and pretty feathers.
Some of the multi-cellular organisms reproduce with each other in a way that takes them on a very special adventure. Just like the first Big Accident, there was nothing inevitable about this until it happened. Then, though it could have happened in every other way, it couldn't have, because it happened in this way. These organisms' brains get bigger and bigger, and it grows a neo-cortex.
The neo-cortex is very special. It is able to take what it sees around it, all the molecules and social systems and bumping, and create New Things. The neo-cortex can imagine, meaning it can make things that are not in front of it. One neo-cortex sees giraffes, and it sees a pack of cigarettes, and it creates a giraffe, asking someone for a cigarette, because the giraffe had a long day at work. Though no such giraffe, as far as that neo-cortex can tell, has ever done anything remotely like that, this giraffe now exists. These are stories. The neo-cortex's are Storytellers.
The storytellers use their power to create language, labels and symbols such as words, which express what they have in front of them and what they've created in a communicable way. They use language to tell their stories more clearly and quickly and to more other storytellers.
They tell story, after story, after story. The storytellers tell stories about Consciousness, Free Will, and Agency. These stories are terrifying to some of the tellers, but liberating to others.
Some of the storytellers start telling a story they call Creation. They had no way of knowing about the Accident and the quarks and such, but they know that the stories they tell must all have a beginning, and so the story of them must also have such a beginning. Creation becomes a very popular story. It calms the tellers who were frightened.
c2i) The storytellers like this story, and tell it forever and ever. On some level, the Accident might as well not have happened, because no one ever tells a story about it. You might as well have picked B. Go read it. The End.
c2ii) The storytellers tell this Creation story for a very long time. But eventually, many tiny stories are put together, and the tellers start to get a hint about the Accident. Using tools, more and more stories are gathered that agree with the story of Accident.
Some tellers are scared by the story of the Accident, still preferring Creation. Others find the Accident much more agreeable. Believing in the Accident or the Creation does not just involve those moments when they happened, either. Everything that followed after is part of story.
Even among those that believe in the Accident, there are differences of opinion about how it happened and what it means. Importantly, there are different versions of that issue of inevitability. Each step in the story preceded the last, but did it have to?
The tellers are very concerned with their next steps. Are there next steps inevitable, or are they only so after they occur? Some people like the inevitability, others want room for unpredictability in the story. No teller from either version of the story will ever be able to find what they call "empirical evidence," and prove their story True.
The very best storytellers know they'll never have any true story, because maybe on March 24, 2005, all of the giraffes will ask for cigarettes. They tell more and more stories, and the stories they tell all have Beginnings, Middles, and Ends. Except the story that is them, except for this story. It began in immeasurable nothingness, that is to say, it has no beginning, free from time and space. The words "immeasurable nothingness" are only symbols used to communicate the beginning. And their story has no end. If it ever came to and end, that is, if Everything returned to Nothing, it would be no ending at all, no storyteller would be able to tell the ending. And that return to Nothing would not be an end at all, but a Beginning.
Dennett, Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Simon and Schuster: New York, 1996.
JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Jewish Publication Society: Philadelphia, 1999.
Grobstein, Paul. "The Story of Evolution: Whence Cometh Purpose/Meaning/Language/Choice/Morality/Altruism/Comfort? ... and Memes?
(or do we just forget about them?)." Serendip: Bryn Mawr College, February 14, 2005. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s05/storyevolplus/
| On Science and Religion Name: Anjali Vai Date: 2005-03-04 15:36:05 Link to this Comment: 13419 |
A couple years ago my oldest brother Vivek decided that he believed in God. He had been riding on the bus one day, and as he was looking out the window at clouds in the sky he felt a presence and decided it was God. My brothers and I had been raised nominally as Hindus, and he thought he would try to accept Hinduism more fully. He would accept Hinduism, but with one condition. Hindus are not supposed to eat beef. All our lives my brothers and I have stuck to that: more out of habit, I think, that anything else. And Vivek said that if he was going to be a Hindu he would start eating beef. It didn't make sense to him to not eat beef for religious reasons.
I find it interesting that it is only now, thinking about this again, that I realize that some might see a contradiction there. Looking at the sky and feeling a presence is not logical or scientific or something that "makes sense". Some might even call it crazy. So why should anything after that make sense? Once you've left the realm of logic behind, why make any such half-hearted attempts to bring it back?
It seems to me that Dennett is one who would argue this: that to enter the realm of religion is to enter the realm of irrationality, of skyhooks, and that any attempt to bring logic into a belief in skyhooks would be ridiculous. Logic is the realm of Science. Belief in a higher being is illogical and outdated and apparently educated people should know better.
I constantly seem to run into this assumption that science is in conflict with belief in God. I must admit the assumption puzzles me a bit and has always made me feel a bit left out. I am in my way a very religious person, but I don't find my beliefs threatened by science. I never have. I'll admit I do not have conventional religious beliefs. My mother was raised Christian and my father is Hindu, and perhaps as a result my family is not very religious. When I was five years old my mother made a comment to the effect that humans came up with the idea of God to comfort themselves, which led me to decide in my five year old mind that God must not actually exist. I eventually changed my mind about this, but it gave me a clean slate, as it were, and I've been making things up as I go along ever since.
"Darwin's dangerous idea" apparently lets loose a universal acid that, when one embraces the idea, eats through such precious ideas as God and the soul and truth and meaning. Yet I find everything I hold dear still standing, and I struggle to explain how this could be if the opposite were meant to happen. I speak as a Biology major and someone who has been steered (rather unsubtly) towards the Sciences from a very young age. I find that the more that I learn about the world and the more that I understand the workings of the universe, the more it reaffirms my belief in God. And by God I do not mean a benevolent being up in the sky who directs all of our actions and takes care of us. By God I mean the underlying beauty that I see in the universe. By God I mean the thrilling patterns and the chaos that exist in this world. I find them fascinating. I find the beautiful logic of Darwin's theory of evolution fascinating, and I find the brilliant irrationality of human emotion and creativity fascinating. I see God in all of it.
There is a quote by the late physicist Richard Feynman that relates to this, and which I rather like. It's from a book called "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out". (1)
"I have a friend who's an artist and he's sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say, 'Look how beautiful it is,' and I'll agree, I think. And he says, 'You see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you, as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing."
He goes on to explain how untrue this is. He says that as a scientist he even sees more beauty in the flower than the artist does, since he knows of the intricate processes and structures within the flower, and other details such as the reasons why its petals have colour and the interesting implications of that. And he finally says:
"Scientific knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds; I don't understand how it can subtract."
And what of my brother and his irrationally feeling a presence when he looked at the sky? Such a feeling has no scientific explanation. Yet that doesn't mean it is not significant. I have such feelings as well, and I feel it would be irrational instead to pass them off as a case of indigestion or lack of sleep. I am reminded of a beautiful little passage in a book called Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, which occurs after the main character, Anne, has admitted that she does not say her prayers at night. (2)
"If I really wanted to pray I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or into the deep, deep, woods, and I'd look up into the sky--up--up--up--into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer."
Does feeling so moved when one looks at the sky make sense? Not really. Is it unscientific, then, to treasure the feeling as significant? I wouldn't say it's unscientific. What is unscientific is to ignore what one cannot explain. What is unscientific is to completely ignore strong feelings that there is a benevolent presence or universal spirit out there simply because right now they don't make sense.
I remember a few months ago I visited the church of a Catholic friend of mine. It was beautiful inside, empty and quiet and greatly peaceful, and I found myself deeply moved by the place. It felt holy and sacred and healing. And I do not intend to convert to Christianity anytime soon, but I treasure the memory all the same. The experience meant something to me, and I don't feel such meaning to conflict with science. Rather, I do not see how it is possible to use science as a tool for understanding the great chaotic mess that is this world and this universe without seeing God in the beautiful complexity that it reveals.
1)quote from Richard Feynman, (1999) The Pleasure of Finding Things Out : The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
2)Montgomery, L.M. (1908) chapter VII of Anne of Green Gables
3)The Science and Spirit website on Serendip (no specific ideas taken from here, but it provoked a lot of thoughts)
| On Artificial Intelligence: Dennett v. G Name: Ghazal Zek Date: 2005-03-04 16:44:30 Link to this Comment: 13420 |
Daniel Dennett, in his work Darwin's Dangerous Idea argues in favor artificial intelligence (1). Others, including Kurt Gödel and Roger Penrose argue otherwise. According to Dennett, Penrose's use of Gödel's theorem to discount artificial intelligence is fallible. Penrose believes:
"One might imagine that it would be possible to list all possible obvious steps of reasoning once and for all, so that from then on everything could be reduced to computation-i.e., the mere mechanical manipulation of these obvious steps. What Gödel's argument shows is that this is not possible. There is no way of eliminating the need for new "obvious" understandings. Thus, mathematical reasoning cannot be reduced to blind computation." (2)
To Dennett, there exists a set of algorithms that yield a mathematical insight "even though that was not just what [they were] 'for.'" (1) (p 441) Dennett poses the question, "how could Penrose have overlooked this retrospectively obvious possibility?" (1) (p 441) To "prove" the fallacy of Penrose' argument, Dennett outlines an algorithm for playing perfect chess. (1) (p 439) The result of this algorithm would be an artificial sense of "insight" in the machine that models the algorithm. Dennett claims that since chess is a finite game, there are a finite number of possibilities. Were a computer equipped with an algorithm to account for each outcome, it would essentially pass the Turing test. Suppose that the ever common "fatal error" occurred in the computer, or the chip containing the algorithm was destroyed, would the computer's insight be lost as well? Yes, however, this question is fundamentally incorrect in that something that never had insight to begin with cannot ever really "lose" insight. Were Bobby Fischer to break his arm, would he lose his insight? The answer is a resounding "No." Were Bobby Fischer to suffer irreparable brain damage, would he lose his insight? Before this question can be answered, an even more important one must be asked: would Bobby Fischer still be Bobby Fischer if he suffered irreparable brain damage? It is not necessary to have an answer to this question before arriving at the conclusion that Bobby Fischer's character traits, personality, and least of all, insights are a product of Bobby Fischer. An algorithm may not be written and consequently implanted into Bobby Fischer's brain to bring Bobby Fischer back. An analogous example is the story of Phineas Gage, the foreman of a railway construction gang, who suffered brain damage when a three feet seven inch long tamping iron blew through the front side of his brain. Although Gage miraculously survived, his personality was drastically altered after the accident. Prior to the accident, Gage was described as an efficient, congenial and well-balanced man. Afterward, however, he became irreverent, profane and obstinate and was described as, "No longer Gage" by his coworkers. (3)
Once again, would Bobby Fischer still be Bobby Fischer if he lost the qualities that made him Bobby Fischer in the first place? Yes, he would still be Bobby Fischer, but no, he would not be the same Bobby Fischer that he used to be. This case, although analogous to the Phineas Gage case, is not analogous to the damaged computer chip case. Will the computer chip still be a computer chip? Yes. Can its artificial insight be restored? Yes.
Dennett's mistake is his assumption that something as intangible as insight may be quantified. Though we may define insight to simply mean "perceptiveness" (4), it is not fair, or perhaps, equivalent to remove consciousness from the equation and replace it with artificiality. Further, what Dennett does may not realize is that he is making the kind of assumption that Kurt Gödel illuminates in his theory of incompleteness. Dennett presents his chess algorithm, which, in theory works fine; however, in practice, the case is not so simple. Dennett himself refers to his algorithm as so inconvenient that it would be finished "way past the universe's bedtime." (1) (p. 439) Gödel's first theorem of incompleteness will tell us that within a system (where natural numbers are described as a set, not just contained within the system), there is always a statement which may not be proven as true or false. (5) Although Dennett has proposed an algorithm which we are able to recognize and understand as workable, we cannot, in effect call it true or false.
It is peculiar is that Dennett criticizes Roger Penrose's use of Gödel's theorem to make the case against artificial intelligence. According to Dennett, "once we appreciate how an algorithmic process can escape the clutches of Gödel's theorem, we can see more clearly than ever how Design Space is unified by Darwin's dangerous idea." (1) (p 451) In trying to escape the "clutches of Gödel's theorem," Dennett, himself, became victim to Gödel's idea of incompleteness. To Dennett the "romantically inclined" will see Gödel's theorem as a mathematical explanation of the special nature of the human mind (1) (p 428). Dennett's refusal to see the mind in this way is even further perplexing. Gödel's argument is mathematically sound, and yet Dennett is asking his reader to suppose that there was something outside the equation. Isn't that what Gödel's theorem is saying, to begin with? As human beings, we are able to see truths (or fallacies) even if we cannot prove them. In fact, Roger Penrose makes this very claim, that "what can be mechanically proven" and "what can be seen to be true by humans" shows that our way of thinking is not mechanical by nature. (5) This idea can be further extrapolated to explain why artificial intelligence is so improbable. If we cannot mechanize thinking, then a machine cannot think. Furthermore, we can draw conclusions that the evolutionary process is far too important and complex to be mimicked algorithmically.
2)The Atheism of the Gaps , "Shadows of the Mind," Penrose book review
| Language and Evolution Name: Lauren Zim Date: 2005-03-04 17:01:04 Link to this Comment: 13421 |
Whether or not human language is an adaptation or a divine mystery is a colossal question to answer. Arguably, biology is not yet fully able to explain how the brain became equipped for language. For now, let us examine why Chomsky, and others are so reluctant to attribute language to evolution? Why is it so disturbing to us that language too is the product of Natural Selection?
First of all, language is so important to us because it is arguably our most human characteristic; it is "what separates us from the animals". Though other creatures may have the ability to communicate, they do not have the creative capacity unique to human language. Attributing language to the mindless algorithm that is Natural Selection, the same algorithm that produced all living things, exemplifies the fundamental problem posed by evolutionary theory: it destroys our beloved anthropocentric conception of reality. An evolutionary explanation of language implies that our most human characteristic is also the result of the same meaningless process.
Yet, human beings are unquestionably more advanced in regards to their capacity for language. Animals other than humans do not have the ability to invent stories that differ from actual experience. This illuminates the distinction between "story-tellers" and "model-builders" as put forward by Bryn Mawr College Professor of Biology Paul Grobstein. According to Professor Grobstein, model-builders are eukaryotic organisms that are only able to respond to their physical environment. Storytellers, on the other hand, have the added advantage of possessing a neo-cortex. This feature gives us the ability to foresee different scenarios, to dream (literally, and physically), and essentially to conceive of situations other than those that have happened to us. According to Dennett, language "opened up a new dimension of self-improvement—all one had to do was learn to savor one's own mistakes." The ability to tell stories, in turn has given us the ability to create and sustain culture. Thus, a biological account of language still leaves room for anthropocentricism.
Then where is the problem? Language conveys meaning, and we are still disturbed by the fact that meaning emerged from an originally meaningless process. This suggests that meaning, or "truth" is something artificially contrived, rather than something that exists onto itself. The implication is that the lack of an original source of meaning obliterates present meaning. Yet, this need not necessarily be the case. Must knowing that the complexities of human culture and creativity are the product of a physical and algorithmic process diminish their grandeur? In other words, do the ends justify the means? Instinct tells us yes. Knowing that cultural meaning has a meaningless origin does nothing to diminish our enjoyment of Odysseus' trickery, or our joy upon hearing Brahm's Requiem, or our sense of wonder gazing upon The Kiss.
Evolution is a Universal Acid in that it claims that even human language, and the culture that it perpetuates, are the product of a mindless, algorithmic process. Daniel Dennett vehemently accuses those who seek alternate explanations of language as seeking a skyhook. If we attribute language to evolution, we are not necessarily forced to sacrifice our unique human status as storytellers, and creators of culture; but we are forced to accept a world in which meaning is created, rather than given. This does not imply that the meaning that we do create is of any less significance.
References:
Paul Grobstein
Dennett, Daniel Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York, New York: Touchstone Publishers.
| An Act for Human Betterment by Voluntary Steriliza Name: Ariel Sing Date: 2005-03-04 17:11:07 Link to this Comment: 13422 |
eu yenus when translated literally reads as, good type, or kind. Eugenics (the Latinized version of the Greek) posits the idea that some individuals are "better" than others. The theory follows that these "better" individuals should be encouraged to reproduce, while "lesser" individuals should be discouraged, even sterilized, eliminating their "bad genes" from the gene pool. Eugenics may seem to be a far-fetched concept, but in fact it was respected scientist (and Darwin's own cousin) Sir Francis Galton who introduced the idea. Galton explains eugenics as "the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally."(2) Sadly this was later taken to excessive and inhumane extremes during the time of the Nazis in Germany. However before this development Eugenics had an already ugly past.
The theory of eugenics developed into a widespread movement throughout the United States, finding particularly fertile ground in Vermont in the 1920s and 1930s.(3) The leader was a man by the name of Harry Perkins, a native Vermonter, born in 1877. He was from a well-to-do Protestant family(4) and taught zoology at the University of Vermont.(5) Perkins eventually came under the influence of Charles Davenport, a leader in the human genetics field and a supporter of eugenics. Shortly after WWI Perkins learned of a study conducted by the US Army for the draft. The results from this study showed that men from Vermont had an inordinately high rate of "defects" (such as diabetes, epilepsy, "deformities" and "mental deficiency"). Perkins saw this as a problem that needed to be fixed.(6) He went about trying to "fix" this through investigation and social reform.
Eugenics was part of a greater progressive, and well-intended, social and cultural reform movement in Vermont. At the end of the 19th Century leaders in the state had begun to see an increased rate of what they considered "the 3 Ds": delinquency, dependency and mental defect. In response to this trend, surveys were conducted to gather information on the management and effectiveness of state programs implemented to help people thought to suffer from "the 3 Ds".(7) The Children's Aid Society, with the help of a social worker named Harriett Abbott (trained at the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, New York), gathered significant amounts of data on "undesirable families". A pattern began to emerge. Many of the children who had been removed from their homes due to abuse, neglect, etc. came from large extended families that were related to one another. At this the point Harry Perkins became involved in the project.
Perkins planned to use the compiled information to create "pedigrees of degeneracy that would help support a campaign for legalized sterilization".(7) To make this plan a reality Perkins had to convince Vermont citizens and their legislators that he had a viable and necessary system. He went about doing this by embedding sterilization into a greater, more encompassing project. This plan focused on collecting information from those with "mental defects", especially members of large, poor and inbred families.(9) Other groups were also considered to be eugenically unsuitable, such as the Abenaki Indian population, the "Gypsy" population (families of French Canadians and Abenakis who still traveled in wagons during the summer(10)0) and the so-called Pirates of Lake Champlain (an extended family of people who lived in houseboats traversing the lake(11)). The Vermont eugenics movement would take many forms and be viewed in a variety of ways for the following 12 years that it existed, culminating in the passage of a "voluntary sterilization law" in 1931.(12)
To understand why this sterilization program had an effect on biological evolution it is necessary to understand the basics of population genetics and the effects of gene-pool reduction on a given population (defined as a group of individuals of the same species living in a certain area). Evolution is "a generation-to-generation change in a population's frequency of alleles or genotypes - a change in a population's genetic structure."(13) (An allele is one form of a certain gene. For example, when considering the gene for eye color, brown would be one allele, and blue another. A genotype is all of the genes that constitute a certain organism.)
When evolution occurs on a small scale, affecting only single alleles, it is called microevolution. There are five conditions that all need to exist for there to be no evolution within a population. If even one of these conditions does not exist, that population is changing, evolving. The five conditions are: large population size, lack of contact with other populations, no genetic mutations taking place that effect the gene pool, only random mating occurring, and a dearth of natural selection.(14) Of these five, the one that relates to sterilization is the contact, or lack there of, with other populations, this is also known as gene flow.
Gene flow is found when alleles are transferred from one population of a species to another. This can effect a population either because it gains alleles or because it loses them.(15) In the case of sterilization a population is losing alleles, but not just random alleles. Although Perkins and his fellows were not aware of it (the discovery of DNA was not published until 1956, the year that Perkins died), they were attempting to alter gene flow. In this they succeeded; their cultural movement had an effect on the microevolution within the population of Vermont. By causing the non-random reduction of certain alleles, the application of eugenics created one of the conditions required for microevolution. The total number of reported "voluntary" sterilizations was around 200, cited from a report by Perkins in 1946. This included approximately 66 males and 146 females.(16) However John Moody, an ethnohistorian in Vermont, maintains that his research leads him to believe the numbers were actually in the thousands,(17) a significant portion of a state that only had 352,428 people.(18) This meant that the targeted populations - Abenaki, "Gypsy" and "Pirate" - were all but eliminated from the Vermont gene pool. It seems obvious that the genotypes of current native Vermonters would probably contain a significantly higher portion of genes originally from these marginalized populations if the number of people who could reproduce and pass on their genes had not been severely limited due to eugenics. Although this is on a relatively small scale, a cultural movement can been seen to have affected biological evolution.
The history of eugenics is a sad one, strewn with ruined lives and broken families. And the idea is not yet dead - it has simply evolved. Consider genetic engineering the next, and far more dangerous, step in eugenics. While it is most likely true that no one will be sterilized, they will just never be allowed to live. If certain genes are selected for, or against, before a child is even conceived, this is simply a more extreme version of Perkins' work. Our culture will continue to evolve, as will our biology, but perhaps the impact of the former on the later, while real, is not desirable. Perhaps we should select against it.
"Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990." The US Census Bureau,
"Vermont Eugenics: A Documentary History." The University of Vermont,
Barry, Ellen, "Eugenics Victims Are Heard at Last, Outrage Voiced Over State Sterilization." The Boston Globe, August 15, 1999, page B1.
Barry, Ellen. "Pages from Past Breed Uneasiness, Historian Chronicles Vermont's Project to Cleanse Bloodlines." The Boston Globe, August 7, 1999, page A1.
Campbell, Neil A., Jane B. Reese, and Lawrence G. Mitchell. Biology. 5th ed. Menlo Park, California: Benjamin/Cummings, 1999.
Gallagher, Nancy L. Breeding Better Vermonters: the Eugenics Project in the Green Mountain State. Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1999.
Zimmer, Carl. Evolution: the Triumph of an Idea. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001.
1) Carl Zimmer, Evolution: the Triumph of an Idea, (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001), 308.
2)Vermont Eugenics: A Documentary History
3) Ellen Barry, "Pages from Past Breed Uneasiness, Historian Chronicles Vermont's Project to Cleanse Bloodlines," The Boston Globe, August 7, 1999, page A1.
4) Nancy L. Gallagher, Breeding Better Vermonters: the Eugenics Project in the Green Mountain State, (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1999), 10.
5) Gallagher, 22.
6) Gallagher, 38-39.
7) Gallagher, 50.
8) Gallagher, 71.
9) Gallagher, 74.
10) Gallagher, 81.
11) Gallagher, 82.
12) Gallagher, 122.
13) Neil A. Campbell, Jane B. Reese, and Lawrence G. Mitchell, Biology, 5th ed. (Menlo Park, California: Benjamin/Cummings, 1999), 432.
14) Campbell, Reese, and Mitchell, 432.
15) Campbell, Reese, and Mitchell, 432.
16)1996, State of Vermont, Vermont sterilization statistics
17) Ellen Barry, "Eugenics Victims Are Heard at Last, Outrage Voiced Over State Sterilization," The Boston Globe, August 15, 1999, page B1.
Bibliography:
"1996, State of Vermont, Vermont sterilization statistics." The University of Vermont,
References
| The Dreams of 'Magnetic Sleep' and other Stories Name: Carolyn Da Date: 2005-03-05 21:48:54 Link to this Comment: 13430 |
On the scroll of my teeming mind:
The Creation and Flood
With our Saviour's Blood
And fat Silenus' flagons,
And every rare beast
From the South and East,
Both greatest and least,
On and on,
In endless, variant procession.
(Robert Graves, Poems of Sleep and Dreams p.130)
Franz Anton Mesmer was an intelligent and charismatic man. He was a peddler of memes, a manipulator of neocortices, a director of stories. Mesmer could heal hysterics or induce convulsions. Blindness, paralysis, ailments that medical doctors could not explain; all symptoms dissolved away with the wave of his hand. He was a celebrity, distinguishing himself by tending to wealthy French gentiles and Russian royalty. Patients would come from near and far to partake of his miraculous powers. Upon entering his abode, guests were ushered to a lavish saloon where a peculiar metal basin, an odd center-piece, dominated the room. This baquet was "specially designed to store and transmit magnetic fluid... [at the bottom,] arranged in concentric circles, were bottles, some empty and pointing towards the center, some containing magnetized water and pointing out towards the circumference... The tub was filled with water to which iron filings and powdered glass were added. Iron rods emerging through holes in the tub's lid were bent at right angles so that the ends of the rods could be placed against the afflicted areas of the patient's body..."(Crabtree) Butlers would escort each patient to their place at the bars and stand ready for the ensuing chaos. Once the room and her occupants were settled, dulcet music began to be heard. "The sweet, distant tones of a glass armonica (sic) played behind curtains covered with astrological symbols. Then Mesmer himself, clad in a long purple robe, would enter and touch each patient with a white wand, sending them into a magnetic trance from which they awakened fully cured" (Zeitler).
Mesmer proclaimed that he was a powerful magnetic conduit. By manipulating his own magnetic aura, he could realign imbalances in the 'animal spirits' of ailing guests. The corresponding fluids within his patients would respond through attraction and repulsion, until Messer had restored body equilibrium. After amassing a large amount of wealth and garnering much attention, suspicions began to arise. The French government grew dubious of Mesmer's abilities. A Royal Commission was assembled to investigate the magician. Upon examination, the scientists concluded that there was no scientific evidence for the existence of 'animal spirits'. Thus began the decline of Mesmer. His magnetic abilities were revealed as fabrications. His baquet was merely an enlarged Leyden Jar, his wand a metal-tipped baton. Mesmer's cure was simply a theatricized electric shock.
Though his methods and theories were scientifically unfounded, the melodrama of Mesmer's cures proved useful. Mesmer's demonstrations illustrated the power of suggestion on the human mind. His acolytes further explored his discovery. They soon found a way to commune with another person's neocortex, the 'story-telling part of the brain' (Grobstein). This procedure would later be called hypnosis. There are many accounts of healing which had taken place at the hands of Mesmer or one of his followers. Hypnosis is still used as a therapeutic technique, a form of alternative medicine that can alleviate a range of problem, from obesity to smoking. Through centuries of case studies, the amount knowledge and questions about hypnosis have dramatically increased. A patient of Marquis de Puysegur, a Mesmerist, was a particularly interesting case; Victor Race simple became a different person while in 'magnetic sleep'. "Normally subservient and quiet, he appeared more intelligent, more of an equal, and this new person spoke about the normal Victor as a third person" (Waterfield, p. 105). Just who was Puysegur talking to when Race was hypnotized? Who was that 'other being' inside Victor?
Humans have a bipartite brain setup; in this arrangement, sensory information is collected in lower brain structures and transmitted to the neocortex. The neocortex is in charge of interpreting the data it has received and gives us a 'story' about the world, perception. The presence of the neocortex allows us to have multiple 'stories' to tell about the world, it gives us the option of choice. In hypnosis, however, we are no longer really bipartite. We are reduced to a point where we are just our neocortices. When we are hypnotized, who is in charge of us? It is easy to dismiss this question, to say that we are under the control of hypnotists. They commune with the neocortex and suggest a certain story, but all a hypnotist can do encourage a story, not import something new. We already have ruling stories in our heads; that is why people under hypnosis will not do anything they would not do in a normal state. How are these story generated? Who or what are we when we are in a hypnotic trance? What is the neocortex, a part of us or some independent entity?
What are the stories that lives inside us? How did they get there? Dennett calls them memes; they are all of everyone's ideas, thoughts, theories, heuristics, any higher level thought. "On the scroll of my teeming mind:/...And every rare beast/ From the South and East,/ Both greatest and least,/ On and on,/ In endless, variant procession" (Graves, p 131). Have we suggested our stories to ourselves, we have invented them, or are they imposed upon us in the form of these 'beastly', incubus-like memes? Do we have free will? Who are we? Are we independent beings or are we meme-operated mechanical hosts. "[M]emes can act as "memetic viruses": collections of ideas that behave like independent life forms which continue to get passed on even at the expense of their hosts simply because they are good at getting passed on" (Wikipedia-Meme). Are we nothing but this 'memetic virus'? Are we our memes, or are they us? If we think of ourselves as collections of memes, we do we "rob [the] mind of its importance... Who's in charge- we or our memes?" (Dennett p. 346). Do we have any control over whether we embrace or banish them?
A hypnotic trance is a link to our internal storytellers, a direct connection to our memes. Hypnosis is similar to dreaming, both involve the neocortex. "Hypnosis is... a dissociated state of waking into which many of the features of sleep have been inserted. In a sense it is the precise reciprocal of lucid dreaming, where some features of waking have been inserted into sleep" (Hobson, p. 98). In REM sleep or in a hypnotic trance, people are reduced to their neocortex. Each state, however, has a different method of achieving this 'super-neocortical' state. "Hypnosis moves subjects down toward the... upper limits of REM sleep... [but] the two states do not converge...To move from wake[fullness] to deep trance, subjects must deactivate the cortex... the same structure must be reactivated to move from non-lucid to lucid REM dreaming" (Hobson p. 101). The 'deactivation of the cortex' in hypnosis allows the therapist to the control of suggesting memes. The 'reactivation' in REM sleep means that the neocortex is highly active while the rest of the brain and body is not. Dreams, therefore, are a manifestation of our memes.
In hypnosis people lose control of the neocortex and during dreaming, the neocortex seems to become a separate entity. The bipartite brain system frees us from algorithmic bonds. We have a neocortex which allows us to collect and choose different stories. This freedom, however, may be an illusion. The neocortex which given us choice has rules that it must follow. The neocortex is just a different algorithm, and its existence has made us a pliable container for meme. By evolving a neocortex, have we developed a new form of confinement or have we taken a leap into the realm of skyhooks? Does meaning, purpose and agency naturally exist, or do human just fabricate them? What does meaning really mean? Is it just an alternate story? If so, is story telling simply an attempt to give meaning where none exists? On the flip side, maybe we have broken free from the confinement of algorithms. Perhaps the neocortex is the algorithm to subvert all other algorithms. Does that make us our own gods? Why couldn't we be Gods? "Why couldn't the most important thing of all be something that arose from unimportant things? Why should the importance or excellence of anything have to rain down on it from high, from something more important, a gift from God?" (Dennett, p. 66)
If our lives are to create meaning, we must be Gods, right? But what does 'God' mean anyway? Defining ourselves in the form of language is limiting. 'God' is just a word we have created; a word in a story. How can we ask if we are Gods if we can't even define the word? Is story telling the limit of the neocortex? What are the restrictions of stories? Are memes the limiting factor? Evolution is about adapting ways to break through limits. We could be the stepping stones to 'Supergod' or 'Superdupergod' (Dennett, p. 71). Or perhaps we are already but we are unaware of it. Are quarks or atoms or molecules or bacteria or fungi or earthworms or crickets or lizards or owls or cats or anything aware of the roles and traits that we have assigned to them in our stories? The story of evolution to tell us how we got to who we are, but who are we is a much larger question. We are stories... so many stories.
1) Crabtree, Adam. From Mesmer to Freud. p.13-14. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1993. http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~dylanwad/morganic/bio_mesmer.htm. Date of Access: March 3, 2005.
2) Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Touchstone, 1995.
3) Hobson, Allan J. The Dream Drugstore: Chemically Altered States of Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
4) Occultopedia. http://www.occultopedia.com/h/hypnosis.htm. Date of Access: March 3, 2005.
5) Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2001.
6) Washington, Peter. Poems of Sleep and Dreams. London: Everyman's Library, Random House (UK) Ltd., 2004.
7) Waterfield, Robin. Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis. London: Macmillan, 2002.
8) Wikipedia. "Incubus." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus_%28demon%29. Date of Access: March 4, 2005.
9) Wikipedia. "Meme". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme. Date of Access: March 4, 2005.
10) Wozniak, Robert. Serendip. "Trance and Trauma: Functional Nervous Disorders and the Subconscious Mind". http://serendipstudio.org/exhibitions/Mind/Trance.html. Date of Access: March 3, 2005.
11) Zeitler, William Wilde. "Franz Mesmer". http://www.glassarmonica.com/armonica/mesmer/. Date of Access: March 3, 2005.
| Beyond Turing: Exploring the Inner Workings of Hu Name: Rebekah Ba Date: 2005-03-06 16:58:09 Link to this Comment: 13434 |
| Mammals, Memes, and Mechanism: The Evolution of "M Name: Michael He Date: 2005-03-14 02:26:30 Link to this Comment: 13482 |
It has been thoroughly documented that, in humans, the neocortex is responsible for all higher-order thought, or what we commonly call "consciousness". As Paul Grobstein has noted, it makes it possible for us to create stories which, rather than reacting to and predicting the environment in a metonymic way the nervous systems of a reptile would, actually allow us to metaphorically create things that would not have otherwise come into existence (Grobstein 1). Though it may be initially hard for us to comprehend how the cornerstone of what we now call "culture" could have evolved out of a necessity for physical survival rather than emotional fulfillment, examining the behavior of wolves will help to make this more clear.
Wolves, being mammals, possess the traditional model-building nervous system, which allows them basic survival functions such as locating predators and prey through smell, sound, and sight. To be clear, the system is a model-building one because input from the environment is sensed by this nervous system, and using this data, external change in this environment is able to be predicted, such as in the case of lone prey being detected from far away through the wolves' sense of smell. Yet this sense alone could not explain the wolf's exceptional strength as a predator, in terms of the synchronization of its hunting packs, the accuracy of its biting attacks on exposed tendons and other weak areas, and especially the ability of wolf pups, being born in such vastly limited numbers compared to reptiles, to survive long enough to become skilled adult hunters. Unlike, say, snakes, wolves must hunt together to kill prey that is much larger, smarter, faster, and harder to kill than your typical rodent. Also, wolves, like all mammals, are warm-blooded, and so require feeding much more often than cold-blooded reptiles like snakes. Yet the neo-cortex makes this all possible. The first and perhaps most fascinating manifestation of its rudimentary story-telling ability is seen when wolf pups commonly exhibit what we have termed "play". One can see a remarkably advanced evolution in its content as the pups mature, as Kopliani noted in the role playing of certain pups as "prey" and others as "predators":
Initial playing movements of wolf pups are...nipping various parts of the body, muzzle hooking, pawing... [eventually] It becomes evident that biting made in the neck area helps wolf pups to acquire the exact orientation for committing a killing bite... Bite-and-shake - appeared relatively early, at 26 days of age... similar to an adult wolf's movement as it tears pieces of meat away from the bone...When pups are 60 days old they follow the route of the prey; by 80 days of age they had begun to cut off the route of escaping prey with a certain ability to predict. If we analyze basic predatory movements of the adult wolf, comparing them with basic playing patterns of wolf pups, we trace common features, though motivation is quite different for the two activities. (2)
Such behavior serves multiple functions for the pups that they would not be able to experience in a model-building paradigm that could not distinguish differing motivations, nor even have the capacity to create such a divide between reality and fantasy. Importantly, such adaptation gives the pups a greater chance of surviving when they are old enough to participate in actual hunts, wherein they develop more specific skills related to hunting. The metaphoric does not replace the metonymic, but both complements and complicates it . Similar patterns of play and other fantasy/reality abstract/concrete distinctions are found in many other mammals, particularly apes, dolphins, and common house pets.
The ability to distinguish between two different stories to account for what would seem from afar to be one single kind of bellicose behavior is clearly a highly adaptive behavior. It is also an early example of what has evolved into our tendency to naturally disavow the possibility of simultaneously contradicting stories; after all, the wolf pups whose neo-cortexes were perhaps not as well developed, and thought that a real hunt was actually play or vice versa were not selected for, since such behavior would get them killed. Thus it is conceivably more understandable that, in the development of Western thought over the past two thousand years, notions of essentialist model-building have been given hierarchical primacy over relativistic story-telling. It is unfortunate, however, that in western thought story-telling has been largely denigrated as fiction divorced from objectively modeled reality, since our capacity for story-telling is what makes Western thought possible, gives meaning to the term objectivity, and allows for such distinctions to even be discussed.
Before going too deep into intellectual history, let us first clarify our terms. Essentialism is to say belief in a static singular "whatness" of a thing, while model-building still implies the aforementioned mutually exclusive, metonymic view of reality, though now it takes on a more deterministic light being discussed primarily in a cognitive, rather than behavioral, sense. On an individual scale, when a human being first sees a snake or marauding lion, their nervous system relates this data into the model of fear, which causes biological changes such as increased adrenalin and cortisol levels, which in a primal environment would allow the human to better adapt to the situation, via increased speed and stamina for running away, heightened reaction time and strength for fighting, and so on. Animals do not have a choice to experience the "fight or flight" reaction; it is merely their nervous system modeling the reality of the environmental situation. On a larger scale, Ants building anthills are programmed genetically to act in such a way to survive; though their synergy can accomplish the goal in unique and unpredictable ways, it is clear that they are not individually conscious of their greater emergent accomplishments, if for no other reason than that no ants decide to stop working and enslave other ants to build vanity pyramids out of trash to the detriment of the species as a whole. All model-building behavior can be traced to a single cause: evolution, or the gradual selection, variation, and speciation of genes over time. While relativistic story-telling can be traced to the same cause, it is, to use Dennet's language (though he would disagree with this notion), a "skyhook created by cranes". Relativistic means belief in the evolving, pluralistic nature of our perceptions of things (though not the automatic dismissal of everything as meaninglessly constructed), while story-telling here means non-deterministic, simultaneous, metaphoric means of perception.
Advanced to the degree that the neocortex is for human beings, and also being viewed in a more conceptual sense, the story-telling faculty becomes our primary means of salvation from a deterministic, meme-dominated, model-building universe. Human beings possess the self-insight to review the memes (ideas which have evolved over time and retroactively are considered fit from a combination of logical and psychological cohesion) which are positive and those which are negative in their lives. They have this ability because, as the most evolved of story-tellers, they can actually alter their model-building nervous system with the awareness that its input is actually just a story, just a transmission of algorithmic signals which can be falsely related to the true situation at hand.
This process forms the crux of cognitive psychotherapy, and many peripheral elements of all psychotherapy involved with treating neuroses. The patient is helped to gradually realize that just because they feel a fight or flight reaction in certain phobic situations, say around people or outside spaces, that they do not have to believe their nervous system's story that these stimuli constitute a saber-toothed tiger sized threat to their lives. Even automatic self-defeating memes can be replaced with self-actualizing ones, in such ways as irrational thought-mapping, where the patient keeps a journal of automatic thoughts and is then instructed to logically counter each cognitive distortion and to recognize it as a certain type. Examples are "shoulds, ought-tos, musts; magnification, minimization; personalization, blaming; fortune-telling; all-or-nothing thinking" (Low 4). By changing the memes which malfunctions in their nervous system and environmental stressors have created, the person achieves a physiological and emotional change that is both observable on E.E.G tests in terms of brain activity and oftentimes equal in effectiveness to the use of psychotropic anti-depressant drugs as measured by patient input, standardized depression ratings, and rate of relapse.
Though the idea of "consciousness" is a meme with fluctuating meanings, the actuality of consciousness is not; its physical reality is the gatekeeper of all memes. Ultimately, the very act of my writing and you reading this paper proves human agency can establish a bulwark against the onslaught of memes we face every day, from friends to teachers to television commercials. This is because the paper has examined, selected, and rejected numerous pre-existing memes, sewing them into a new pattern of thought which will hopefully be disseminated to others, who in turn will make their attempts at improvement, their alterations of selection, omission, and variation. This infinite act of dialectic story-telling does not invalidate the notion of objective validity; in fact, it strengthens it, since if such ideas persist, then retrospectively their heritability can be measured in terms of logical and emotional fitness, and in so doing one can attempt to have a better understanding of what kind of truth and/or deceptions they convey. While it is true story-telling has been denigrated and regarded as a subject suited solely to the arts and humanities, while model-building has been claimed for the sciences , an ideal philosophy must necessarily, in my opinion, involve them both.
It must weather the straits of nihilistic relativism and myopic essentialism, preserving normative standards of inquiry while still recognizing in any given idea multiple levels of horizontal relativism (in terms of the multiple simultaneous plausible explanations for systems, i.e that the non-teleological evolution due to the big bang and emergence/evolution could still be caused by a God or original source of energy from which all subsequent energy decayed as per 2nd law of thermodynamics) and vertical essentialism (in terms of "magnification level" ladder of essentialism, for example perceiving state-sponsored genocide while remembering its made up of individuals with minds susceptible to memes because of environmental and genetic factors). To use a common cliché, or in other words a particularly fit meme, such a philosophy must believe both that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and avoid losing sight of the forest from the trees.
Sources Consulted:
1. Grobstein, Paul. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s05/storyevolplus/
2. http://www.nacres.org/old/proj/play.html. Article by Natia Kopaliani. References
used from Spencer, cited in Fabry, 1976, Badridze 1987.
3. Dennet, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York:
Touchstone, 1995. 79.
4. Carol B. Low. http://www.centerforconsciousliving.com/nf_rebt.html
| Mammals, Memes, and Mechanism: The Evolution of "M Name: Michael He Date: 2005-03-14 02:26:36 Link to this Comment: 13483 |
It has been thoroughly documented that, in humans, the neocortex is responsible for all higher-order thought, or what we commonly call "consciousness". As Paul Grobstein has noted, it makes it possible for us to create stories which, rather than reacting to and predicting the environment in a metonymic way the nervous systems of a reptile would, actually allow us to metaphorically create things that would not have otherwise come into existence (Grobstein 1). Though it may be initially hard for us to comprehend how the cornerstone of what we now call "culture" could have evolved out of a necessity for physical survival rather than emotional fulfillment, examining the behavior of wolves will help to make this more clear.
Wolves, being mammals, possess the traditional model-building nervous system, which allows them basic survival functions such as locating predators and prey through smell, sound, and sight. To be clear, the system is a model-building one because input from the environment is sensed by this nervous system, and using this data, external change in this environment is able to be predicted, such as in the case of lone prey being detected from far away through the wolves' sense of smell. Yet this sense alone could not explain the wolf's exceptional strength as a predator, in terms of the synchronization of its hunting packs, the accuracy of its biting attacks on exposed tendons and other weak areas, and especially the ability of wolf pups, being born in such vastly limited numbers compared to reptiles, to survive long enough to become skilled adult hunters. Unlike, say, snakes, wolves must hunt together to kill prey that is much larger, smarter, faster, and harder to kill than your typical rodent. Also, wolves, like all mammals, are warm-blooded, and so require feeding much more often than cold-blooded reptiles like snakes. Yet the neo-cortex makes this all possible. The first and perhaps most fascinating manifestation of its rudimentary story-telling ability is seen when wolf pups commonly exhibit what we have termed "play". One can see a remarkably advanced evolution in its content as the pups mature, as Kopliani noted in the role playing of certain pups as "prey" and others as "predators":
Initial playing movements of wolf pups are...nipping various parts of the body, muzzle hooking, pawing... [eventually] It becomes evident that biting made in the neck area helps wolf pups to acquire the exact orientation for committing a killing bite... Bite-and-shake - appeared relatively early, at 26 days of age... similar to an adult wolf's movement as it tears pieces of meat away from the bone...When pups are 60 days old they follow the route of the prey; by 80 days of age they had begun to cut off the route of escaping prey with a certain ability to predict. If we analyze basic predatory movements of the adult wolf, comparing them with basic playing patterns of wolf pups, we trace common features, though motivation is quite different for the two activities. (2)
Such behavior serves multiple functions for the pups that they would not be able to experience in a model-building paradigm that could not distinguish differing motivations, nor even have the capacity to create such a divide between reality and fantasy. Importantly, such adaptation gives the pups a greater chance of surviving when they are old enough to participate in actual hunts, wherein they develop more specific skills related to hunting. The metaphoric does not replace the metonymic, but both complements and complicates it . Similar patterns of play and other fantasy/reality abstract/concrete distinctions are found in many other mammals, particularly apes, dolphins, and common house pets.
The ability to distinguish between two different stories to account for what would seem from afar to be one single kind of bellicose behavior is clearly a highly adaptive behavior. It is also an early example of what has evolved into our tendency to naturally disavow the possibility of simultaneously contradicting stories; after all, the wolf pups whose neo-cortexes were perhaps not as well developed, and thought that a real hunt was actually play or vice versa were not selected for, since such behavior would get them killed. Thus it is conceivably more understandable that, in the development of Western thought over the past two thousand years, notions of essentialist model-building have been given hierarchical primacy over relativistic story-telling. It is unfortunate, however, that in western thought story-telling has been largely denigrated as fiction divorced from objectively modeled reality, since our capacity for story-telling is what makes Western thought possible, gives meaning to the term objectivity, and allows for such distinctions to even be discussed.
Before going too deep into intellectual history, let us first clarify our terms. Essentialism is to say belief in a static singular "whatness" of a thing, while model-building still implies the aforementioned mutually exclusive, metonymic view of reality, though now it takes on a more deterministic light being discussed primarily in a cognitive, rather than behavioral, sense. On an individual scale, when a human being first sees a snake or marauding lion, their nervous system relates this data into the model of fear, which causes biological changes such as increased adrenalin and cortisol levels, which in a primal environment would allow the human to better adapt to the situation, via increased speed and stamina for running away, heightened reaction time and strength for fighting, and so on. Animals do not have a choice to experience the "fight or flight" reaction; it is merely their nervous system modeling the reality of the environmental situation. On a larger scale, Ants building anthills are programmed genetically to act in such a way to survive; though their synergy can accomplish the goal in unique and unpredictable ways, it is clear that they are not individually conscious of their greater emergent accomplishments, if for no other reason than that no ants decide to stop working and enslave other ants to build vanity pyramids out of trash to the detriment of the species as a whole. All model-building behavior can be traced to a single cause: evolution, or the gradual selection, variation, and speciation of genes over time. While relativistic story-telling can be traced to the same cause, it is, to use Dennet's language (though he would disagree with this notion), a "skyhook created by cranes". Relativistic means belief in the evolving, pluralistic nature of our perceptions of things (though not the automatic dismissal of everything as meaninglessly constructed), while story-telling here means non-deterministic, simultaneous, metaphoric means of perception.
Advanced to the degree that the neocortex is for human beings, and also being viewed in a more conceptual sense, the story-telling faculty becomes our primary means of salvation from a deterministic, meme-dominated, model-building universe. Human beings possess the self-insight to review the memes (ideas which have evolved over time and retroactively are considered fit from a combination of logical and psychological cohesion) which are positive and those which are negative in their lives. They have this ability because, as the most evolved of story-tellers, they can actually alter their model-building nervous system with the awareness that its input is actually just a story, just a transmission of algorithmic signals which can be falsely related to the true situation at hand.
This process forms the crux of cognitive psychotherapy, and many peripheral elements of all psychotherapy involved with treating neuroses. The patient is helped to gradually realize that just because they feel a fight or flight reaction in certain phobic situations, say around people or outside spaces, that they do not have to believe their nervous system's story that these stimuli constitute a saber-toothed tiger sized threat to their lives. Even automatic self-defeating memes can be replaced with self-actualizing ones, in such ways as irrational thought-mapping, where the patient keeps a journal of automatic thoughts and is then instructed to logically counter each cognitive distortion and to recognize it as a certain type. Examples are "shoulds, ought-tos, musts; magnification, minimization; personalization, blaming; fortune-telling; all-or-nothing thinking" (Low 4). By changing the memes which malfunctions in their nervous system and environmental stressors have created, the person achieves a physiological and emotional change that is both observable on E.E.G tests in terms of brain activity and oftentimes equal in effectiveness to the use of psychotropic anti-depressant drugs as measured by patient input, standardized depression ratings, and rate of relapse.
Though the idea of "consciousness" is a meme with fluctuating meanings, the actuality of consciousness is not; its physical reality is the gatekeeper of all memes. Ultimately, the very act of my writing and you reading this paper proves human agency can establish a bulwark against the onslaught of memes we face every day, from friends to teachers to television commercials. This is because the paper has examined, selected, and rejected numerous pre-existing memes, sewing them into a new pattern of thought which will hopefully be disseminated to others, who in turn will make their attempts at improvement, their alterations of selection, omission, and variation. This infinite act of dialectic story-telling does not invalidate the notion of objective validity; in fact, it strengthens it, since if such ideas persist, then retrospectively their heritability can be measured in terms of logical and emotional fitness, and in so doing one can attempt to have a better understanding of what kind of truth and/or deceptions they convey. While it is true story-telling has been denigrated and regarded as a subject suited solely to the arts and humanities, while model-building has been claimed for the sciences , an ideal philosophy must necessarily, in my opinion, involve them both.
It must weather the straits of nihilistic relativism and myopic essentialism, preserving normative standards of inquiry while still recognizing in any given idea multiple levels of horizontal relativism (in terms of the multiple simultaneous plausible explanations for systems, i.e that the non-teleological evolution due to the big bang and emergence/evolution could still be caused by a God or original source of energy from which all subsequent energy decayed as per 2nd law of thermodynamics) and vertical essentialism (in terms of "magnification level" ladder of essentialism, for example perceiving state-sponsored genocide while remembering its made up of individuals with minds susceptible to memes because of environmental and genetic factors). To use a common cliché, or in other words a particularly fit meme, such a philosophy must believe both that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and avoid losing sight of the forest from the trees. Sources Consulted: 1. Grobstein, Paul. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s05/storyevolplus/ 2. http://www.nacres.org/old/proj/play.html. Article by Natia Kopaliani. References used from Spencer, cited in Fabry, 1976, Badridze 1987. 3. Dennet, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Touchstone, 1995. 79. 4. Carol B. Low. http://www.centerforconsciousliving.com/nf_rebt.html
| Nietzsche, Hobbes and the Evolutionary Theory Name: Iva Yonova Date: 2005-03-14 11:29:26 Link to this Comment: 13486 |
My first point of confusion was on why Hobbes uses evolutionary thinking and logic to explain the creation of society, the social contract, and in turn – morality, but in the end his story remains too materialistic to be a good tale about the origin of morality. All Dennett explains about Hobbes' theory is: "Once upon a time [...] there was no morality at all. [...] [There] are Qualities, that relate to men in Society, not in Solitude [and this is] "the state of nature". [...] And then, one fine day, a mutation happened to arise. [...] [There came] a new idea: cooperation for mutual benefit." (454) And then he drifts away explaining how a multicellular organism can be viewed as a society. Furthermore, just after the reader begins to understand the reference to the Leviathan, he concludes the excerpt by pointing out that even though this is a very nicely fitting analogy it actually doesn't work because humans, unlike cells, are free of restrictions in purpose and course, and thus our society is never going to be even close to that perfect one which we observe in an organism.
After scrutinizing chapter sixteen - part one, and further reading into Hobbes I realized that Dennett was using him to build a base for his own interpretation of the idea of the origin of morality. Hobbes states (but Dennett does nott tell us that) that morality should arise from the sovereign and it should be never questioned: "but the judgement of what is reasonable, and of what is to be abolished, belonged to him that maketh the law, which is the sovereign assembly or monarch". (chapter XXVI) He sees morality as what will keep the Leviathan functioning, but yet is something "inflicted" upon the Commonwealth (the people making up the Leviathan). What Dennett points out to the reader, however, is that this sounds legitimate, but it could work only for a society made up of individuals whose faith, behavior and actions are predefined and constant. To explain that he involves in a long discussion of how the human body works, taking Hobbes' metaphor of the Leviathan literally, and looking at it as a society made up of cells. The main flaw of the principle is that it assumes that the members of the Commonwealth, Dennett says, is that they are "ballistic intentional systems, whose highest goals and purposes have been fixed once and for all, with no chance of reconsideration or guidance." (458) As he points out, that is true for a Commonwealth made up of eukaryotic cells and that is why the principle Hobbes develops can be applied to a multicellular organism, but since humans are "guided missiles, capable of altering course at any point, abandoning goals, switching allegiances, forming cabals and then betraying them" a Hobbesian Commonwealth made up of men (women) will never function and prosper. Thus, what Dennett does in the first part of "On the Origin of Morality" is that he explains that a morality which is created at a single specific moment by an authority and inflicted on people in society is inapt, and therefore, we can conclude that the Hobbes' story about the origin of morality is not plausible.
The other point of confusion I encountered was in the second part of chapter sixteen: "Frederich Nietzsche's Just So Stories". Dennett begins with explaining Nietzsche's first essay from the On the Genealogy of Morals, ""Good and Evil", "Good and Bad"", and showing how great a theory it is. Then he refers to the second essay "Guilt, bad Conscience and Related Matters" and claims it a skyhook.
Reading the first and second essays from Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals gave me a new perspective of Dennett's work. In his first essay the German philosopher builds and develops the idea that a word and its meaning are two different things and that with the course of time although the word remains the same we attach different meanings to it, and yet, we never realize that and accept that the word has always had the meaning that is currently attached to it. Then he uses this idea to explain how the concepts of good bad and evil came to be, involving his theory about slave and aristocratic morality. In his second essay he explains that the principle that makes his theoretical society work is the "will to power" – every action the people undertake is urged by some form of the desire to dominate (not necessarily literal domination). Dennett views the first essay as a application of evolutionary thinking: things do not have a singe origin but are rather product of slow and barely noticeable evolution. He praises Nietzsche for being the first sociobiologist who instead of committing the "genetic fallacy" of "inferring current function or meaning from ancestral function or meaning" uses "Darwin's own fundamental insights to the realm of cultural evolution". (465) Nevertheless, Dennett does not approve of Nietzsche's theory of the origin of morality and points out as its major flaw the idea of the "will to power". He asserts it has no firm basis and denies it completely: "Nietzsche's idea of will to power is one of the stranger incarnations of skyhook hunger, and fortunately, few find it attractive today." (466) the main purpose of Dennett is to show that this other story is just as implausible as Hobbes' and is therefore by no means the answer to the question of the origin of morality.
How to those two "Just So Stories" fit into Dennett's frame? In chapter sixteen he sets out to find the origin of morality. He applies his fundamental principle of the cranes versus skyhooks to build a firm ground for his own story. He uses Hobbes' story to disprove one possible theory of the origin of morality, and then Nietzsche's to show another theory which is more plausible but is still not good enough. Now, having shown what the origin of morality is NOT he is free to build and develop his own theory and Hobbes and Nietzsche are two of the cranes that are going to support that new theory.
Dennett is obviously a brilliant puzzle-solver, but he definitely lacks the approach to the reader that would grant his theories and ideas the appreciation he deserves. The logic behind his work could become obvious to the reader only if he/she has an extensive background in what Dennett uses as his basis to develop his arguments. Reading Nietzsche and Hobbes however gives a good perspective on Dennett's argument building: he sets a few principles in the beginning – that of the evolutionary way of thinking and of cranes and skyhooks – and strictly follows them throughout the development of his idea and what he ends up doing is showing the evolution of stories from Hobbes' to Nietzsche's to his own.
| Earth-centrism? Name: Britt Frem Date: 2005-03-16 12:50:27 Link to this Comment: 13546 |
"If it weren't for carbon... Probably any sort of life would be impossible."
—Paul Davies
"Other worlds may harbor beings thankful for their silvery lakes of mercury and drifting clouds of ammonia..."
—Bill Bryson
It is difficult enough for any Homo sapien to imagine living in the dusty desert, walking for miles without water, all the while carrying people on her humped back. Even harder is to imagine calling your tattered kitchen sponge home, as millions of bacteria are right now . At least, however, these so-called harsh environments hold the same mild air we humans are so accustomed to. Extremophiles' environments may not, which is one reason the tiny organisms weren't discovered until thirty years ago. Employing a human-focused mindset while searching for potential new organisms on Earth hinders the pursuit. Similarly, does employing an Earth-centered mindset when searching for life on other planets impede that important quest?
Back in 1965, a married couple of biologists conducted a stellar experiment: they scooped some yellow scum from the top of a hot spring in Yellowstone and discovered that it contained living microbes. The water these microbes were apparently thriving in was acidic, sulfur-intense, and 100 degrees Celsius! The species became one of many so-called "extremophiles." That is, an organism whose natural environment is extremely hostile. (This is, naturally, the human definition. Some extremophiles, had they internal experiences, might deem they environment quaint or comfortable.)
In 1977, the University of Illinois' Carl Woese expanded the conversation about these "extreme" microbes. Having worked with bacteria for some time, he realized that some "bacteria" were chemically different. Woese argued that despite archaea's physical resemblance to bacteria, the structure of its tRNA (responsible for decoding DNA meaning) and phospholipids (used to define cellular membranes) stood apart. Thus, he founded a new theory concerning the classification of organisms. Previously, scientists had classified all organisms as prokaryota or eukaryota. Woese named a third domain: archaea and drastically altered the story of science.
Not all scientists today accept Woese's concept of a three-fold world. Ernst Mayr, in fact, refuted Woese's argument by insisting there were merely two "empires"—the prokaryotic and eukaryotic. In laymen's terms, Bill Bryson argues that Mayr was basically supporting the status quo due to the small percentage of known archaea and bacteria. Together they total several thousand species whereas known eukaryotes total something-million. Adjusting the foundation of the Tree of Life is never taken lightly.
Regardless of whether these extrmemophiles are part of a whole new domain, their existence is proof that life can exist in what human consider the harshest of environments. (It should also be noted here that not all archaea are extremophiles, and some bacteria are extremophiles.) Before moving on, some more examples of these extremophiles are befitting. The Thiobacillus concretivorans, lives in concentrations of sulfuric acid strong enough to liquefy metal. Micrococcus radiophilus blooms in nuclear reactor waste tanks by consuming plutonium and whatnot. A similar microbe, Deinococcus radiodurans can survive an atomic blast—and then eat the leftovers. Some extremophiles live at depths of 2,000 feet feasting off the iron, sulfur, and manganese in rocks. Reproductive cycles can be equally shocking. Some microbes reproduced once a century, if that. (Then again, why shouldn't evolution select for such energy-efficient models?)
Not surprisingly, extremophiles are particularly useful to scientists searching for life on other planets. Observing how these microbes survive in freezing, boiling, acidic or radioactive environments helps scientists imagine how microbes might do similar things on Europa (Saturn's moon), Titan (Juipiter's moon), or Mars. Indeed, recent speculation about high methane levels on Mars being related to organisms living deep in the planet's crust seem more valid in light of Earth's own extremophiles.
Still, scientists habitually relate the possibility of life to the presence of water and carbon. From what I understand, it is the properties of these two elements that scientists deem crucial to the formation of life. Water allows for the fluid mixture of molecules. That is, it makes bumping into other molecules all the more likely, the story that Professor Grobstein gave to explain the formation of life. Carbon is easily impressed and attracted to almost every element, even itself. Furthermore, it forms tight bonds with other molecules, creating a strong backbone from which more complicated forms can diverge. Thus, carbon floating in liquid water substantially heightens the possibility of life being created. Are there other elements containing similar properties that are being overlooked? Silicon has been considered as a possible alternate to carbon and not only by science fiction writers. However, competitively speaking Carbon is more prevalent throughout the universe and more flexible, as well. NASA has deemed the chances for silicon-based life "slim", but not entirely impossible.
So, are scientists being too "earth-centric" in their search for life "as we know it"? Probably not. Although looking at extremophiles as a metaphor for life on other planets is interesting, the differences between extremophiles and sponge-infesting bacteria are not significant enough. I must agree that "life as we know it" would have to be based on carbon, and using Earth as a comparison is relevant in studies. This is not to say, however, that the search for "life as we don't know it" wouldn't be an interesting quest. Such a quest, however, would be infinitely more complicated.
References:
1) Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything. Broadway Books, New York; 2003.
2)Bacteria in kitchen sponges
3)Silicon-based life
| The Evolution of Pictorial Representation Name: Maria Scot Date: 2005-03-17 07:41:21 Link to this Comment: 13576 |
Some of the earliest known examples of pictorial art are located in Chauvet Cave and which date to roughly 32,000 years before the present. The images are located on the walls of the cave and depict lions, rhinoceroses and mammoths. These animals were not hunted at that time, which seems to suggest that the images are not simply the pictorial depiction of daily life. All three of the animals are large, powerful and potentially quite dangerous. The animals may have then be chosen as subjects because they served as a signifier for fear, awe or concepts of power. The figures depicted might not be signifiers as the term is used today; but they were of significance to the person who created the images. The images continue to be of significance today but that significance is now derived from the observations they allow us to make about that phase in the evolution of pictorial representation. This is an important distinction that exists between the scene/story that the image depicts and the constantly evolving cultural story that is told about the art object itself. This difference between looking at an object and seeing an object; the artist looked at the same image 32,000 years ago that I can look at today but we see very different things.
Nearly all cultures have a tradition of sharing stories through pictorial representation. Throughout most of history communities around the world developed in relative isolation from one another. As a result within a given culture a fairly individualized story could emerge as to what constituted appropriate uses for and styles of artistic representation within the society. A contact between previously distant cultures increased so too did the opportunities for the cross-cultural sharing of stories. One's style of story telling is part of one's culture and the way in which European artists incorporated foreign influences into their work and what the identifiable presence of such influences is meant to signify to the viewer can often provide insight into the general attitude towards the artistic style of non-European countries.
The same cultural impulse to question and challenge previously accepted stories of that the early modernist painters acted on when they acknowledged in their work the physical quality of their medium also led them to challenge other aspects of the previous stories that Europe told about art. as pigment on a flat canvas also contain iconographic or stylistic references to these other methods/stories of visual representation. Such gestures indicate an increasing awareness of the European tradition as simply one of a variety of equally valid traditions of visual representation. The changes that take place within pictorial storytelling during this time is simply the visual representation of a larger cultural trend. Sometimes the references to foreign artistic traditions are subtle, such as the exotic eastern screen located behind the female nude in Manet's Olympia. Sometimes they are quite obvious such as the easily identifiable influence of Iberian and Oceanic art in the faces of the female figures in Picasso's Demoiselles D'Avingnon. The stories told by both these paintings challenged not only the traditional story of what constituted art. They raised a number of issues regarding class, gender and power politics that existed in Europe at the time. The artists are using the new stories of artistic traditions both spatially and temporally removed from their own to force viewers to see and traditional subjects in new ways.
The act of creating or interpreting a picture is, like all storytelling, experimental by nature. Abstract expressionism is a particularly good example of this because it was characterized by an ongoing attempt to discover what elements of pictorial representation could be eliminated without lessening painting's evocative power. This is not to say that abstract art is simply an intellectual exercise or that movements like Modernism or Expressionism are planned. The emergence of such movements is unintended and the movements themselves are the stories that we tell about a certain time period after the fact. Ultimately, what determines the enduring contribution of a given painting to society is the painting's ability to articulate or exemplify something meaningful about the story of pictorial representation beyond simply the moment in which it was created.
1) A Timeline of Art History: Chauvet Cave
2) Greenberg, Clement. "Towards a New Laocoon," in Pollock and After: The Critical Debate: Second Edition , Francis Frascina, ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1985) pp. 60-70
3) Greenberg, Clement. "Modernist Painting" (1961) in Art in Modern Culture: An Anthology of Critical Texts , Francis Frascina and Jonathan Harris, ed. (London: Phaidon, 1992) pp. 308-314
4) Varnedoe, Kirk. "Open-Ended Conclusions about Jackson Pollock," in Jackson Pollock: New Approaches (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1999) pp.233-45
5) Varnedoe, Kirk. A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern. Abrams. New York 1990
