(March 8, 2015 at 8:37 am)Alex K Wrote: I'm tempted to say *that's the problem you have with Dawkins?*, but anyhew,
Your definition seems a bit very restrictive to me not capturing most aspects. The point of memes is also that they are passed on with modification, for example
The number "1" is not a physical thing, it is an abstraction. It certainly is a result of evolution that lead to physical communication. But it is meaningless by itself until applied to something. "1 unicorn" vs "1 apple".
Dawkins merely tried to re invent mundane marketeing. I only agree that ideas spread through physical communication, but the idea itself is still not a physical thing. Marketing works for both bullshit claims and facts. But the fact that language is a result of physical evolution, does not make the claim itself an atom. Again Dawkins flaw is the same as treating an atom as the entire body. Ideas are really nothing more than a description of our brains in motion, just like we say "that car is going 55 miles per hour". "55mph" is not a physical thing, but a description of an outcome of a physical process.
Memes do work sure. But they are not physical things, they are outcomes we describe with language. Ideas spreading from host to host I can accept as needing a material process, but why some work and others die is a matter of social sciences, psychology, psychiatry, and neurology. But I am not willing to treat the number "1" as a physical thing itself. It is our evolution that allows us to assign meaning to language. But communication needing physical material to happen, does not make the idea
I treat abstractions as outcomes in terms of descriptions. I think this was Dawkins attempt to put the super natural and god claims to rest by making everything physical. He's not wrong about trying to kill the idea of bad claims as just being mere concoctions humans like believing. God claims for example are not real, outside our real ability to gap fill because of our flawed perceptions. So he might as well say gods are real if he is going to go beyond ideas being abstractions and treat them like DNA.
Our abstractions we call human communications are real in the context of our ability to communicate, that is physical. But again, treating words like individual atoms, rather than a description of motion, which can describe a fact or absurdity is like treating an atom as functioning like the entire universe collectively. Thoughts are not material things, they are descriptions of our observations. It is a collective manifestation that cannot be treated like an individual part. Just like we cannot say speed is the car itself. Speed is merely the language we use to describe the car in motion. Speed is not separate from the car, but still only functions as a description.
