> Believe it or not, I've been thinking of you as deliberately evasive.
I would appreciate if you could point out some specific examples of where you believe I've done this, as a secondary motive for engaging in these seemingly useless conversations is that I'm trying to learn how to achieve constructive conversation under a variety of circumstances. I've done my best to argue mostly in good faith, but spotting one's shortcomings (blind spots) is incredibly difficult (as you correctly point out).
> because I've been praying recently for the Lord to help me better love my neighbors, and those links you posted are highly relevant! Jesus said: "Do not throw your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces." Maybe what he meant was, don't condescendingly think of people as swine, but rather, assume the best in them.
> Dawkins hasn't, so I depriotize him. Maybe Dawkins is better than Shakespeare, but I consider that improbable because Dawkins hasn't passed the test of time yet. And if he were so great, he'd have Beatles-level fanfare. I'll read Dawkins when/if an editor asks me to peer-review one of Dawkins's papers or a paper that majorly cites him.
I happen to not be a big fan of Dawkins, but might you have fallen victim to a bit of guilt by association here? Again, the importance here is not the identification, summation, and labeling of these behaviors, it is the behaviors themselves. The quality of discourse in Western nations has been disgraceful and declining for a very long time now, but something seems to have changed recently to dramatically accelerate the decline. This is what I'm interested in. We have an overabundance of base materials and theory/philosophy to work from, but I propose that what's happening now is different. There is no shortage of online experts (armchair and otherwise) telling us "why" this is, but very few people I'm aware of who are closely studying it with a minimum of biases and preconceived notions, and doing so with their eyes wide open.
>> Wikipedia describes Memetics as "the study of information and culture based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution". A body of study is not an abstract concept. The thing being studied is the abstract concept. So, by Memetics, all along, I have meant the collective body of (academic) study/scholarship of memes. Since you say "Memetics is a label assigned to an abstract concept", it seems that's the root of the understanding. You're talking about the concept itself, while I'm talking about the study/literature of that concept.
>> Do you think the core idea or intent of this discussion from my perspective is the precise definition of the word "memetics"?
> That was related to MY core intent (see my prev. comment).
Ok, let's try this again then, perhaps I'm understanding your perspective better now....might you be referring to the study of memetics, limited only to the mechanisms, propogation, etc, whereas I am extending that (perhaps incorrectly) to include the "second order effects" on individuals in society, and how "memes" (spread near-instantaneously via the internet) has facilitated a massive increase in incorrect opinions (on both "sides" of the various divides) on a much broader range of topics (absent the internet, most people would have zero exposure to many of the contentious issues)?
Hopefully this is getting closer, but if not this is a good lesson in how difficult it is to understand what the other person is talking about even when both parties are trying as hard as possible!
I happen to be quite pleased at how this conversation seems to now be turning out. On one hand, it's very easy to view this conversation from a(!) perspective where it is clearly an utter waste of both of our time. On the other hand, I believe there is also a more abstract perspective you can view it from where it demonstrates that sometimes, patience and politeness can overcome a seemingly intractable impasse.
Once again, as I'm sure you well know, we've all been taught these lessons before ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsJnxlXepsY ), but we never seem to get it through our thick skulls.
>I would appreciate if you could point out some specific examples
Well the first one that comes to mind was you seemed to do all sorts of mental gymnastics in response to my "man reading about global warming in Huffington Post" metaphor. I had thought that the meaning of that should be pretty blatantly clear and that the particular choices like "huffington post" or "global warming" should be pretty obviously irrelevant. Probably my own fault for assuming the meaning was clearer than it was. For comparison you could imagine if I responded to your "rose by any other name" by saying something like, "What are you talking about, don't you know that a 'rose' is a type of flower? Our conversation has nothing to do with flowers!"
> Ok, let's try this again then...
Let's talk practical matters. If you want to seriously survey what mankind collectively has figured out about "mechanisms, propagation, etc", "a massive increase in incorrect opinions", etc., how might you embark on that journey? What search terms do you plug in to Google Scholar? You could try meme-related search terms like "memes and ignorance" or "deceptive memes" etc., and (with the help of scihub) you might find some interesting material. But my point is that you ought to widen the net with searches related to "propaganda", "false beliefs", "misinformation", etc. For example, the latter leads to this article which might be of interest to you (I only skimmed the abstract so I'm not offering any guarantees), which does not contain the word "meme" anywhere in it: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/3/554
> Well the first one that comes to mind was you seemed to do all sorts of mental gymnastics in response to my "man reading about global warming in Huffington Post" metaphor.
What you wrote:
As for this pedantic discussion, maybe this parable will help. A man goes to Huffington Post and reads an article about the dangers of global warming. Fully convinced, he goes shouting from the rooftops: "Huffington Post has the potential to be one of the most important publications in all of history! It is urgently important that we stop global warming!"
My reply:
Your analogy seems flawed to me. The Huffington Post is a fairly trashy rag that prints vague, half-informed articles on a wide variety of subjects, mostly in a click-baity form. Memetics is a label assigned to an abstract concept.
Could widespread public understanding and acceptance of what the Huffington Post writes change the world? Not in any plausible way I can see. Could widespread public understanding and acceptance (or at least open-minded consideration) of the concepts (delusional beliefs, reality vs perception, epistemology, etc) that fall under the Memetics label change the world? I think....maybe. If, that is, some way could be found to accomplish the "understanding and acceptance (or at least open-minded consideration)" part.
Is "all sorts of mental gymnastics" a fair characterization of that?
> I had thought that the meaning of that should be pretty blatantly clear and that the particular choices like "huffington post" or "global warming" should be pretty obviously irrelevant.
It's not really an argument, it's more of a "guilt by association" slur. Very effective rhetoric no doubt, but not intellectually convincing.
> Probably my own fault for assuming the meaning was clearer than it was.
I'm perfectly comfortable with my existing rebuttal, tear into it if you'd like.
> For comparison you could imagine if I responded to your "rose by any other name" by saying something like, "What are you talking about, don't you know that a 'rose' is a type of flower? Our conversation has nothing to do with flowers!"
Except the meaning of that phrase is very widely known, and we have already established that we both know what it means. Your HuffPost/GlobalWarming story though is neither of these.
> Let's talk practical matters. If you want to seriously survey what mankind collectively has figured out about "mechanisms, propagation, etc"
It seems we are still, somehow, still not on the same page.
Recall this exchange:
>> (Me) "If global polarization of opinions on a wide variety of topics (some of which can be argued to be an existential threat to human existence on earth) starts to suddenly increase, and it is learned that opinions on both sides of most disagreements are based on objectively incorrect beliefs, it would be extremely valuable (possibly up to restoring the previous likelihood of long-term sustainability of human life on the planet) to find a way to get people to fully realize their beliefs are false, so that reasonable, collaborative negotiations can be established to begin solving our various problems."
> (You) I'm in full agreement with the quoted paragraph. And I would say reducing the amount of delusional beliefs held by individuals is extremely, urgently important.
We have more than enough of a handle on the mechanisms, etc. The fact is, on complicated topics, hardly anyone knows what the fuck they are talking about, but plenty of people think they do, and this is starting to cause dangerous levels of strongly polarized beliefs in Western nations. But despite all of this being blatantly obvious, no one in a major position of leadership or influence is pointing this fact (that everyone is misinformed) out to anyone. Instead, everyone continues to pander to their tribe, saying it is only the other side who is delusional. This is what I propose needs to stop.
EDIT: Thinking about it more, I think I'm leaving out the importance of epistemology being a core part of this message, which is perhaps distinct from memetics?
I would appreciate if you could point out some specific examples of where you believe I've done this, as a secondary motive for engaging in these seemingly useless conversations is that I'm trying to learn how to achieve constructive conversation under a variety of circumstances. I've done my best to argue mostly in good faith, but spotting one's shortcomings (blind spots) is incredibly difficult (as you correctly point out).
> because I've been praying recently for the Lord to help me better love my neighbors, and those links you posted are highly relevant! Jesus said: "Do not throw your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces." Maybe what he meant was, don't condescendingly think of people as swine, but rather, assume the best in them.
It's a good question. Some possible explanations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_7:6#Interpretations The first few seem off the mark, but the latter ones seem reasonable.
> Dawkins hasn't, so I depriotize him. Maybe Dawkins is better than Shakespeare, but I consider that improbable because Dawkins hasn't passed the test of time yet. And if he were so great, he'd have Beatles-level fanfare. I'll read Dawkins when/if an editor asks me to peer-review one of Dawkins's papers or a paper that majorly cites him.
I happen to not be a big fan of Dawkins, but might you have fallen victim to a bit of guilt by association here? Again, the importance here is not the identification, summation, and labeling of these behaviors, it is the behaviors themselves. The quality of discourse in Western nations has been disgraceful and declining for a very long time now, but something seems to have changed recently to dramatically accelerate the decline. This is what I'm interested in. We have an overabundance of base materials and theory/philosophy to work from, but I propose that what's happening now is different. There is no shortage of online experts (armchair and otherwise) telling us "why" this is, but very few people I'm aware of who are closely studying it with a minimum of biases and preconceived notions, and doing so with their eyes wide open.
>> Wikipedia describes Memetics as "the study of information and culture based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution". A body of study is not an abstract concept. The thing being studied is the abstract concept. So, by Memetics, all along, I have meant the collective body of (academic) study/scholarship of memes. Since you say "Memetics is a label assigned to an abstract concept", it seems that's the root of the understanding. You're talking about the concept itself, while I'm talking about the study/literature of that concept.
>> Do you think the core idea or intent of this discussion from my perspective is the precise definition of the word "memetics"?
> That was related to MY core intent (see my prev. comment).
Ok, let's try this again then, perhaps I'm understanding your perspective better now....might you be referring to the study of memetics, limited only to the mechanisms, propogation, etc, whereas I am extending that (perhaps incorrectly) to include the "second order effects" on individuals in society, and how "memes" (spread near-instantaneously via the internet) has facilitated a massive increase in incorrect opinions (on both "sides" of the various divides) on a much broader range of topics (absent the internet, most people would have zero exposure to many of the contentious issues)?
Hopefully this is getting closer, but if not this is a good lesson in how difficult it is to understand what the other person is talking about even when both parties are trying as hard as possible!
I happen to be quite pleased at how this conversation seems to now be turning out. On one hand, it's very easy to view this conversation from a(!) perspective where it is clearly an utter waste of both of our time. On the other hand, I believe there is also a more abstract perspective you can view it from where it demonstrates that sometimes, patience and politeness can overcome a seemingly intractable impasse.
Once again, as I'm sure you well know, we've all been taught these lessons before ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsJnxlXepsY ), but we never seem to get it through our thick skulls.