Crank linguistics

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"Many of the writers in question here have never studied linguistics, and some apparently do not know that the subject exists"

isn't that the best quote describing self proclaimed "experts" in every field when real experts go "what the fuck are you writing about???"

Pink mowse.pngGodotoi, putain, genial, merci18:16, 13 March 2012

Symbol thumbs up green.svg Armondikov liked this!

Scarlet A.pngmoral18:24, 13 March 2012

I did too, I guess.

Finally read both pieces. I really don't get why people think language evolves once, and only once from a proto language. We know, from finding language isolates, or from studies of deaf kids, that it is human to create language. We do it necessarily. we will do it with or without assistance though the language we invent may be 'primitive' in teh sense that it functions to convey what we need, and might be incapable of conveying too much more. but that's of course all speculation. This proto-world theory just seems... unintuitive, much less as this author points out, nonacademic.

That said, i really need to remember not to read the bottom half of the internet.

Pink mowse.pngGodotoi, putain, genial, merci18:53, 13 March 2012

Yeah, I think it's likely that a bunch of different 'primitive'-languages evolved and memetic evolution took over from there.

GodothasArrived (super crazy fun time!)18:57, 13 March 2012

I think it's likely that memetic evolution is a load of bullshit.

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)19:09, 13 March 2012

I was using the term because I don't know what else to call memes.

GodothasArrived (super crazy fun time!)19:35, 13 March 2012

The dude who invented "memes" should be shot. should have stayed in biology where he's nice and smart, and stayed out of linguistics, cognative theory, and theory of mind all toghther. now everyone runs around talking about "memes" and I'm dubious any of them know what he meant, or what it means.

Why not just call them "ideas", or "philosphy" or "culture". just saying...

Pink mowse.pngGodotoi, putain, genial, merci19:50, 13 March 2012

Dawkins' reaction to the reception of memes always seems to come off to me as "Oh, someone took that seriously? Okay, then." The real prime offenders are Blackmore and Dennett. Admittedly, Dennett's formulations are probably the most sensible of the ones I've seen, though it's really grating because you can be right in the middle of a great piece he's written and then, all of a sudden...memes, memes, memes!

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)20:14, 13 March 2012

I just think 'meme' is a good word for a unit of information. 'Memetic evolution' sounds better than 'idea evolution'.

Define "unit of information."

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)20:25, 13 March 2012

It could be anything you want, really.

GodothasArrived (super crazy fun time!)21:09, 13 March 2012

so the term means nothing, it just "sounds good".

ok. :-)

Pink mowse.pngGodotoi, putain, genial, merci21:11, 13 March 2012

Not the first time this has been thrashed out on this talk page. Basically, there's no way to define a "meme" meaningfully enough to apply evolutionary concepts to it. Dawkins' suggestion of it, to me, always seems more like a neat (if messy) little analogy than a serious piece of science.

Scarlet A.pngpostate22:56, 13 March 2012

Pretty much -- I just find it funny that skeptics/rationalists/whatever you want to call them go crazy over vague terms bandied about by pseudoscientists like "toxins" as being unscientific (which is true), but when it comes to memes...well, it doesn't need to be precisely defined, it's a "new way of looking at things," and so on.

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)23:10, 13 March 2012

The internet is pretty much the only place where completely inelastic memes, which exchange in high-fidelity, exist. Cat pictures, quickmeme.com, viral campaigns and so on.

Elsewhere, I think there is something to be said about "here's an idea", let's watch it move. But only if you realise how malleable an idea "is". That makes a meme as a unit a little problematic because unlike a gene that might stay intact with little to no mutation from generation to generation, a memetic equivalent might get completely hacked apart by the receiver. Or it might not. It's that which makes the gene analogy fall apart because the odds of inheriting a gene from a parent aren't dependent on the gene itself or what you already have.

Scarlet A.pngsshole23:58, 13 March 2012

And frankly, that brings us back to the *other* topic bandied about often.

"can I ever, reasonably know what you mean by an 'thing', and what your experience of an 'idea' is."

To suggest that there are memes, as a "super thing", which shift and change over time, and that it can be measured in any meaningful way, would mean that each meme or idea must be precisely the same for the users - and we all know that's not the case. "Jesus, Lord and Savior" is, if you grant it, a "meme". But what it means is completely dependent on the person experiencing it (hearing, speaking or thinking it). In the study of Native American religions after contact, the core of my studies was how christian theology impacted native theology (and to a small extent, the other way round). But every single time you interview a person, and ask about Taku Skan Skan, "Grandfather", "great spirit", Wakan Tanka, the best you can do is work with that individual and try to make some kind of broad statements from 15 unique experiences.

Genes, actually blood guts and gore, type, are shared as almost exact copies, and it is the differences that can be codified and measured. So you can see gene shift, you can see transition and mark it. "This happened X years ago".

I'm rambling. sorry.

PS, "hypertext" was a huge "new way of thinking in the uni in 95, 96 area. "this is a web page set up, and you can make links to other things, which will revolutionize how we think, how we read, how we understand our world". Hum... doesn't seem to have changed all that much, cept it feeds my ADD more.

Pink mowse.pngGodotoi, putain, genial, merci00:13, 14 March 2012

When the singularity occurs, in phttp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture about 20 minutes time], we'll finally be able to represent all that as just code. And so memetics is justified. Huzzar!

Scarlet A.pngnarchist00:27, 14 March 2012
 

It's funny that meme has become so synonymous with internet memes, because that seems to be one of the few places it might actually work, esp. due to high fidelity copying. Meme-like concepts have been around for quite a while, e.g., A.O. Lovejoy's "unit idea," which is not really scientific, but he wrote some pretty interesting history.

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)00:16, 14 March 2012

Indeed, with relatively minor mutations until something just suitable for the environment comes around and then BAM, reproduction everywhere. Have we missed the chance to study the Kony 2012 thing and its descent into backlash?

Scarlet A.pngbomination00:30, 14 March 2012
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I mean, ok, as a way to study how ideas change over time, and how they "catch fire" if they catch fire, and why, it's an interesting concept. But I don't' feel as if it answered any questions, or really asked any questions that are worth answering. it just turned the concept of "idea" into the word "meme" which didn't really seem necessary. So we now talk of "meme" when "idea" would be perfectly fine - as if that were somehow a better word for the concept we are trying to get across.

I am curious why people gravitate to some things and not others, but I don't think the right questions are being asked there, cause i suspect it has a lot more to do with psychological things like "need for approval", "fear of/respect of authority", excitement (manipulable, of course).

that said, mostly i just think it's funny how it's captured it's own "meme" as it were, adn everyone runs around using the term, if not the idea behind it. "looking a new meme".

-)
Pink mowse.pngGodotoi, putain, genial, merci20:25, 13 March 2012
 

Gah, The Rational Optimist. Memes! Capitalism! Memes! Society is better today than it was. MEMES!!!!

ТyLonely. Ever so lonely.20:32, 13 March 2012

I like having resturants near. hunting and gathering is such a bitch. even if the gathering is done at the grocery store.

we are better! we have such improved ideas! it's truly a fact.

Pink mowse.pngGodotoi, putain, genial, merci20:38, 13 March 2012
 

You mean the Denialist Optimist?

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)20:45, 13 March 2012

Sarcasm aside, I do resonate slightly with this position. Humans are creatures of fear. We seem (at least in anything I can see) to gravitate to the frightening instead of the happy. And yet our lives are far better than they were in some "basic" ways. We do have more time to think, to dream, to wonder - though we also have more time to argue, to complain, to fight. We have more time to be creative, cook for taste not survival, wear fashion not need based, etc.

And having spent the better part of two months "digging" (i was an unaffiliated undergrad, i didn't get to do anything remotely important or difficult) at chaco canyon and saying "this is how we lived", i really appreciated that next micky d's and my local safeway.

I also have wondered if we are always going to create the next big "thing" to scare us. y2k, global warming, solar storms. it's not that these aren't real, it's that we thrive in them, if that makes any sense.

Pink mowse.pngGodotoi, putain, genial, merci20:54, 13 March 2012

Ridley is a proponent of vulgar Cornucopianism. The Cornucopian vs. Malthusian debate is really just two competing cultural narratives: The steady march of progress and free enterprise vs. the world's going to hell in an environmental handbasket.

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)23:15, 13 March 2012

I'm trying to imagine what the compromise between those two ideas would be, but all I can come up with is "the steady march of hell in a free enterprise handbasket."

Star of David.png Radioactive afikomen Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.23:23, 13 March 2012
 

Ridley's book hilariously back-peddles when it reaches the current financial crisis. I still have it, maybe I'll write a review during a break :}

Тysic semper00:26, 14 March 2012
Nebuchadnezzar (talk)00:38, 14 March 2012

Heh, yes. His critique of agrarian past-worship is rather good, the rest of the book was MEMES/CAPITALISM!

ТyNo00:40, 14 March 2012
 

"With notably rare exceptions, Japanese nuclear reactors have been secure from earthquakes."

I saw that one and was wondering if it was a serious or joke point?

Scarlet A.pnggnostic01:15, 14 March 2012

Frankly, it actually is a very serious point, and a valid one. Japan has the single highest concentration of earth quakes in the world in an extremely densely populated area. They have 16 nuclear power plants on the main island, and have only had one major accident since the end of US occupation.

isn't that worthy of "with one major exception", which by the way, has not yet caused any lives to be lost, though teh loss of life from the tsunami (which seems so overlooked in the 'hyped' accident) is in the 10s of thousands?

just saying.

Pink mowse.pngGodotoi, putain, genial, merci01:37, 14 March 2012

Exactly. So someone inserting it willingly into a page of "notable exception" jokes just causes me to grind my teeth...

Scarlet A.pngtheist01:56, 14 March 2012