Selfish Memes?

Lawrence J. Kramer, for the Grice Club

One axis on which to view evolution is the movement from reflex to choice.  Generally speaking, the more sophisticated an animal’s social organization,  the more choices it must have in responding to stimuli.  But a quantum leap occurs at the human level, where genes control behavior less than in any other animal. 

I think this progression causes some confusion when it comes to altruism.   I’ll adopt JL’s practice here and refer to altruism as Dawkins uses the term as “altruism-D” and altruism in its ordinary sense as “altruism-O.”  Bees are altruistic-D by reflex, which is to say they are not altruistic-O at all.  Humans are capable of altruism-O, but the choices may be heavily influenced by genetic predisposition (e.g., where our children are the beneficiaries).  Our altruism-O is also altruism-D, but, whereas a bee’s altruism-D is merely a consequence of a reflex, ours arises by choice, and so cannot be accounted for solely by genetic control. 

Based on the Dawkins’s circular “discovery,” we can say that altruism-O in man would not persist if it did not conduce to the replication of the genetic material that encodes the ability to engage in it.   Compare that claim to this one: Altruism-D in bees would not persist if it did not conduce to replication of the genetic material that encodes the reflex that accomplishes it.   Whereas the genetic material that controls the bee’s sting reflex probably does little else, the genetic material that makes altruism-O possible in humans may, at least in major part,  be the same stuff that encodes our intellect, our moral sense, and our capacity for civilization itself. 

I would speculate that the genetic material encoding the capacity for altruism-O may be entirely distinct from the stuff encoding our emotional interest in the survival of others, which may, in turn be distinct from that encoding our commitment to our closest relatives.   The “caring” trait(s) and the altruism-O-enabling trait operate simultaneously to mediate our altruism-O.  Needless to say, the calculus for when those forces and abilities generate altruism-D and when they don’t is beyond me.  It may even be beyond nature if other actions we take using the generic endowments that make altruism-O possible have a much greater effect on the reproductive chances of that material than altruism-D.   At least, I wouldn’t surprised if that were the case for the general ability to practice altruism-O.  The trait of parental devotion, on the other hand, seems well-served by the practice of altruism-D by parents toward their children, so we would expect a lot of altruism-D directed at our kids, whether in the form of altruism-O or otherwise.  (Do we really choose to risk our lives to push our child out of the way of an oncoming vehicle?)   

If I recall correctly, The Selfish Gene has a lot of arithmetic that demonstrates a correlation between altruism-D and consanguinity.  That arithmetic is made possible by the relative simplicity of the facts, especially the presumed reflexivity of the behaviors that achieve altruism-D.  Bees are closely related, they all sting under certain stimuli, and the threats they face are colony-wide.   Easy math there.  Antelope fleeing (which I don’t recall being discussed in Dawkins) is equally straightforward.  But if you add the complexity that human social structure and human intellectual endowments to the mix, the math become undoable, and Dawkins’s theory must take on a different explanatory role if it is to have one at all. 

Dawkins’s claim is really a special case of the more general claim that nothing succeeds like success.  Substitutable possibilities compete.  In almost all situations, one way of being or doing has a better chance of filling a niche than another.  Just how many substitutable options can co-exist depends on the selective pressures on the niche. 

Altruism-D thus has analogs in other contexts, if one does the mapping right. 

A.1. The bee genome persists because its expression competes successfully in the flower-pollenation niche.

A.2. The formula for Coca-Cola persists because its expression competes successfully in the soda niche. 

B.1.  If the hive is attacked, the worker bees sting and die, saving the queen and the stinging bee’s genome.

B.2.  If the Coke factory catches fire, the owner would, if necessary, pour the inventory on the flames to save the formula.

Statement B.2 appears to introduce a third character in the person of the owner, but I don’t believe that’s the case.  In terms of logical devices. the bee, <i>qua</i> thing that stings, is the “owner” of its body, and that same bee , <i>qua</i> thing that dies, is the “inventory” sacrificed to save the formula.  As I said, it’s all in the mapping.

What type of thing is the formula for Coca-Cola?  Is it a meme?  Maybe it’s a useful bridge from genetic coding to cultural memes.

A.3. Politically correct beliefs persist because they compete successfully for a place in people’s belief systems.

B.3. People establish an artificially low burden of proof for support of their idea (“following p keeps the elephants away”) and/or an artificially high burden of proof for rebuttal of their idea (“How do you know that following p is necessarily catastrophic?”), thereby sacrificing their credibility but allowing the idea to persist.

Looks like altruism-D to me.

What, then does selfish gene analysis have to offer regarding memes?  I have suggested unjustifiable denial as a form of sacrifice that we make for ideas.  Dawkins would probably be the first to say that those sacrifices are greatest in the case of religious memes.  I haven’t read The God Delusion – professional atheists annoy me.   But one can see how the willingness to die for an idea propagates not only the idea itself, but the idea that the willingness to die for an idea propagates the idea.  So, I think selfish gene analysis applies to memes, at least as respects altruism-D and altruism-O. 

But then what?  The value of The Selfish Gene, I think, is that it’s a smack upside the head of those who analyze evolution of species from the perspective of individual or group survival.  The book would not be useful (if it is useful) were it not for the mistakes (if they are mistakes) that it seeks to correct.  Is there a comparable alleged misconception in the field of ideas? 

The “selfish gene” itself is a marketing trope.  It does not describe anything real.  Dawkins had to redefine “selfish” and “altruistic” away from their customary, value-laden usages in order to use them.  (He sacrificed his linguistic purity to advance his idea.)  Dawkins coined the term in TSG, but that fact alone suggests that he was not setting out to debunk any thoughts about memes.   Everybody knew that genes encode organisms, and yet, Dawkins thought, people were misunderstanding how central the survival of genes was to the process of evolution.  No one knew what a meme was until Dawkins invented them, so, while the idea of identifying these cultural quanta may be useful, it is not useful in debunking misconceptions about memes, as there were no conceptions at all.

And going forward, there is the problem of complexity.  Genes reproduce in ways that are well-understood at the level Dawkins needs them to be understood to make his claims about why bees sting (and me mine about why bees reproduce in a way that makes them sting).  But memes?  Ideas not only propagate in various ways, they succeed in various ways.  They are held firmly by some and weakly by others.  They may be influenced by mob psychology (a genetic endowment), and they may be extinguished without extinguishing those who believe them – all we have to do is change our mind. 

So, memetics may well be an interesting field, but the “selfish meme” doesn’t seem to me a useful notion.