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Topic: Why aren't bad memes and genes destroyed? (Read 1436 times) |
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fishsuit
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Bananaramapajamas
 
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Why aren't bad memes and genes destroyed?
« on: 2005-04-20 20:45:37 » |
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Whenever i hear about child abuse or suicide i wonder how the hell that behavior could be explained. There isn't anything more maladaptive than suicide, or socially scorned as child abuse. I suppose their flamboyance makes people talk about them infecting other possible carriers, but the cycle seems to self defeating to continue long. Smoking i can understand, its damaging effects aren't as obvious as quickly as the others, and they have a great many meme fountains in hollywood past and present that are all too willing to replicate it. I think this question is synonymous with the question: why do genetic diseases last as long as they do? Fragile X syndrome is devastating to those poor saps with that terrible genome. Yet it is prevalent enough for James Watson to call out for pregnancy screenings across the board in The Secret of Life.
Another thing i struggle with is understanding mental disease. I don't see the evolutionary benefits of schizophrenia even in our evolutionary past. Yet it must have been chosen for, right? Because it plagues us still. I read somewhere that it might be the flipside of having language, but there are many mental disorders that aren't explainable this way. Depression for instance would have few advantages for the non-fertile sufferers.
Aaron Beck and David Burn's cognitive approach to helping people with depression seems like meme therapy to me. It confronts the "automatic thoughts" people have with a more rational approach to life. I like the concepts, and use them. Why though would our subconscious feed the many depressed people so many negative automatic thoughts so often? They simply don't help.
I suppose it could be said that i have expected evolution to do a lot of cleaning up in this topic. I admit i do expect a greater fitness in man and man's memes than is there, and I can conceive of a selection pressure too slight to catch all these disorders. Somehow though it seems that the many harmful memes and genes that exist would have died out already.
Anyway, if people have thoughts on this i'd love to hear them.
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Mentor
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Be ye a light unto yourself
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Re:Why aren't bad memes and genes destroyed?
« Reply #1 on: 2005-04-21 16:07:47 » |
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Sometimes maladaptive characteristics evolved as protection from past evolutionary pressures. One such case is sickle cell anemia, which evolved as a defense against malaria. It is much harder to understand relationships of modern maladaptive behaviors such as depression and suicide in the context of adaptations in the past. These behaviors are tied to language and ideas and as such have lives of their own. They don’t require sexual reproduction to persist; we only have to communicate them to others.
Evolution occurs through random mutation, both in ideas and organisms. The vast majority of mutations will be non-adaptive at any given time. Maladaptive memes and genes have died out in the past, but many will continue to re-appear simply because they are only one small step from where we are now.
Cognitive evolution involving language is new in the story of live on earth; perhaps less than a million years old. This is a very experimental stage in our evolution and it is not yet clear that rationality will prevail. Language and thought have allowed humans to be wildly successful. But it will all come crashing down if we can’t adapt.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Through our positive behavior, our courage and our will, we can influence humanity toward a more rational course; one person at a time!
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David Lucifer
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Enlighten me.
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Re:Why aren't bad memes and genes destroyed?
« Reply #2 on: 2005-04-24 16:50:22 » |
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Quote from: fishsuit on 2005-04-20 20:45:37
Whenever i hear about child abuse or suicide i wonder how the hell that behavior could be explained. There isn't anything more maladaptive than suicide, or socially scorned as child abuse.
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I think the mistake you are making here is assuming that what is maladaptive for the host is maladaptive for the meme or gene. True, this is often the case for genes (if it reduces the chances of the host procreating) and less often for memes (likewise, if it reduces the chances that the host will spread the meme), but it isn't necessary. For example, the suicide meme spreads by killing its host.
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