I, through an online friend, asked the world's current most "famous Atheist" a few questions. He actually answered. I was impressed enough to post his replies here.
Question: As a behaviorist, it is difficult for me to get behind the idea of a "meme." Could you enlighten me about how the "environment v phenotype" argument is fulfilled by your assertion?
Answer: "Your question is quite good. It would be foolish to deny that there is a continuum of "inherited" traits to "environmentally" influenced traits. It seems that there are those who wish to paint my arguments with one brush. As a Darwinian, myself, it is difficult to teach the uneducated mind that Darwin's theory was clearly articulating the relationship between the two. It is the Neurologist that will fill the gaps, not the pseudo-psychologist. If one thinks of the Meme as an inherited disposition to do certain things, then it makes more sense. Is does not predetermine anyone's outcome. Instead, it limits the possible responses to the environment which any organism can produce. "
Question: "What are your criticisms of B.F. Skinner's work?"
Answer: "I think he was overly reductionistic. He over-simplified that relationship between the organisms he studied, and their genetic endowment. I am not of the opinion that he considered the impact that "thinking" played in the survival of our particular species."
Question: "What are the implications of a "godless" world?"
Answer: "They are exactly the same as the world in which we live. If there is no deity, then how could the world be different? If one thinks of "God" as another Meme (trait inherited by progenitors), which had survival value in the past, but, no longer has utility, then it makes sense that mankind never had such an entity to tie "belief" to. Why consider an explanatory fiction, that which can adequately be explained by survival belief? Does something need to "exist" in order to be beneficial?"
I have more questions. But, I don't wish to push my luck.
HH
4 comments:
That's pretty cool you're getting responses from the man himself. In all, I think Dawkins gets a bad wrap. He is a thoughtful, albeit strong-minded person, who gets labeled badly by his non-academic opposition.
His answers about memes are interesting, given that they have strong roots in the postmodernism that he has proclaimed such opposition to. I think, based upon his answers you give her, I understand a slight bit better. I don't really think there is much difference between what he is saying and what linguistic (postmodern) philosophers are saying. Memes, in the sense that he describes them, are genetic things. I would say that he is confusing software and hardware. Language is software, not hardware, although it, of course, must conform to hardware.
Maybe that is a better analogy?
Hmm.
Great post. I shall be referencing it soon.
Very cool to get actual responses.
Still, I loved sections of Dawkin's book but then he thrashed on postmodernism in ways that it seemed to me that he didn't even understand it. Maybe this is a planned rhetorical move or something; either way I agree with theorris that his explanation of memes sounds very similar to postmodernism.
Or maybe another way of getting at this is to interrogate his idea that neurologists will fill in the gaps not the psychologists. Ultimately that's true, but *when* will that be? What do we do between now and when these gaps are filled? Till then which could be very far off, which for all intents and purposes is forever, I would argue we need postmodernism to get at the same issues theoretically and philosophically.
I haven't read much Dawkins (none, actually), but I've read a lot of Dennett, another writer who advocates for the "meme" concept (in fact, isn't it his idea originally--or his adopted meme, I should say?), and, while the details are not fresh in my memory, I remember thinking as I read one of Dennett's books that his meme idea is a lot less sophisticated than some of his other theories. I remember thinking parts of the explanation were pretty obvious and other parts really undeveloped. Maybe Dawkins explains it better.
The answer to the question about Skinner is intriguing. I agree with him--Skinner is too reductionist, but I think I'd have the same issue with Dawkins (as I do Dennet). For example, using computers as a model for human consciousness seems really off base to me--and very reductionist in an entirely different way from Skinner. Dennet believes that a human being can fathom the perceptions of a bat (who uses sonar waves) with an adequate amount of information, which implies that experience is nothing more than accumulated data processing. In other words, a simulation, modeled on sufficient information, can be as "real" as the actual event (or a computer can be a person). To me that's a ludicrous idea because it dismisses any link between information and the apparatuses that record and/or create the information (actually, it doesn't entirely, but it downplays and oversimplifies the relationship). To fully fathom bat perception, you'd not only need access to a near universe-full of information you'd need to discard a lot of information as well--human information that will compete with and distort the bat perceptual data. To do that, you'd need to literally cut off parts of the brain (not to mention adding the bat parts) that store or encode that information. In other words, you have to "be" a bat to fathom bat perception exactly. You can't just adopt bat "memes". The physical brain may not entirely cause the behavior but it certainly bears a relationship to it. The map really isn't the territory.
At the same time, our thoughts (and behaviors) do change the chemical and physiological properties of our brains and bodies (there is a continuum)--but thoughts can't turn us into bats.
Of course, I'm grossly simplifying Dennett's viewpoint (but he does believe we can know what it's like to be a bat via information), and my comments here are meant less to defend my objections than to merely state them. It's been awhile since I've read about memes and other Dennett/Dawkins issues, so I doubt I can do them justice without a recap.
BTW, reading Dawkins can't be good for those headaches of yours. ;)
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