"Kevin Aylward"  wrote in
news:btaau3$2k9r$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org: 

> Jim Menegay wrote:

>> The least convincing part of your "proof" is the sentence:
>>> Once meme traits have been copied to all existing Replicators,
>>> the only way such traits can further increase their numbers, is to
>>> take action that increases the physical replication rates of those
>>> Replicators.

>> You seem to be suggesting that once a meme achieves fixation, it must
>> shift strategy to achieve its true ultimate goal!
 
> Not at all. You are confusing overview descriptions with the specific
> details. Of course it is *trivially* obvious that memes can
> *simultaneously* propagate vertically and horizontally. There was no
> suggesting whatsoever that a meme has to first maximise horizontally,
> *then* vertically. I was *highlighting* a specific issue concerning
> memes. What was being pointed out here was that that *ultimately* that
> *iff* a meme was fully maximised horizontally, it can only continue by
> maximising vertically via generation to generation, for example the
> existing population with the meme will die, killing the meme in the
> one existing generation. Therefore, if a meme takes action that in the
> *long* run is detrimental to the *total* numbers of *physical*
> Replicators that actually replicate that meme, the meme will indeed
> die. End of story.

And as proof we can look at the malaria parasite, which takes action
that is detrimental to the hosts that replicate it, and has quickly
died. We can then compare it to the bacteria that causes anthrax, which
has persisted for millenia because it is so beneficial to its
replicators. (Sorry for the irony, but the parallel between memes and
parasites in the above paragraph seemed uncannily exact. And others have
noted the analogy between memes and parasites.) 


>> Even if you clean up the teleological language, you must imagine some
>> kind of species-level selection here,
> 
> I am not sure of your point. Memes trivially act for the benefit of
> the species.

Just like parasites?


Yours,

Bill Morse
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