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DARWINISM, MEMES, AND CREATIVITY A Critique of Darwinian Analogical Reasoning From Nature To Culture Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde im Fach Philosophie der Philosophischen Fakultät I (Philosophie und Kunstwissenschaften) der Universität Regensburg vorgelegt von Maria E. Kronfeldner Regensburg Dezember 2005 Gutachter Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Hans Rott (Universität Regensburg) Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Holmer Steinfath (Universität Regensburg) Drittgutachter: Prof. Dr. Peter McLaughlin (Universität Heidelberg) für meine Mutter, in ewiger Liebe, und für alle, die nicht einmal wissen, dass sie ein Recht auf ihre Träume haben CONTENTS IN BRIEF Preface ...............................................................................................i 1 From the Darwin industry to the Darwinian analogies ..................1 2 The structure of Darwinian explanations of change ....................24 3 Ontological analogy: Genes and memes .....................................96 4 Origination analogy: Darwinian novelty in culture ................... 167 5 Explanatory units of selection analogy: Selection of memes ..... 236 Epilogue ........................................................................................ 291 Reference list ................................................................................. 296 CONTENTS Preface ...........................................................................................................i 1 From the Darwin industry to the Darwinian analogies .......................1 1.1 The Darwin industry ...........................................................................1 Folk-Darwinism 1 Evolution in philosophy, science, and politics 1 1.2 Literal extensions and analogical applications of Darwinism to culture 3 Culture and Darwinism 3 Literal extensions of Darwinism to culture 3 Analogical applications of Darwinism 5 1.3 The analogical approaches to culture ...................................................6 History of Darwinian analogical reasoning 6 The three main analogical approaches to culture 7 1.4 Course, process, and creators of evolution ......................................... 10 Fact, course and process of evolution 10 Existence of a creator 10 1.5 A critique of Darwinian analogies ..................................................... 12 Culture is important 12 Darwinism, creativity, and culture 14 Three basic analogies 14 Evaluating an analogy 17 What is at stake for us 21 2 The structure of Darwinian explanations of change ......................... 24 2.1 General selection theory .................................................................... 24 Fact, mechanism and formal principles of evolution 24 The essential blindness of Darwinian evolution 26 Explanations of origination and fitness differences 27 Ontological generality 28 2.2 Patterns of change ............................................................................. 29 Creationism, Lamarck, and Darwin 29 Creation 29 Transformational evolution 37 Variational evolution 42 Conclusion 44 2.3 Darwinian evolution as ‘blind’ .......................................................... 44 Blind variation 44 Selection as blind, natural force 53 Conclusion 64 2.4 The tautology problem and the concept of fitness .............................. 65 The tautology problem 65 Relevance for analogical applications 67 The solution for biological evolution 67 Conclusion 76 2.5 The units of selection debate ............................................................. 76 The centrality of the individual and the attack from below 76 Relevance for analogical applications 79 Replicators, vehicles and interactors 80 The replicator 82 Genes’ phenotypic effects and bookkeeping 91 Conclusion 94 2.6 Summary .......................................................................................... 94 3 Ontological analogy: Genes and memes ............................................ 96 3.1 Units of culture ................................................................................. 96 The gene-meme-analogy 96 The anthropological concept of culture 97 Identification and replication 102 3.2 What and where memes are ............................................................ 102 Memes made more precise 102 Dawkins’ ideational memes 103 Hull’s ideational memes 106 Dennett’s ideational memes 108 Blackmore’s ideational memes 112 Aunger’s neural memes 114 Conclusion and further outlook 115 3.3 Identification problems ................................................................... 118 Traceability condition and identification 118 Boundary problem 119 Holism problem 120 Material identification problem 122 Consequences for the ontological analogy 129 Something-is-preserved-arguments 132 Conclusion 136 3.4 Replication problems ...................................................................... 136 Replicator condition 136 Copy-fidelity problem 137 Meme replication as a process 145 Social learning 146 Lineage problem 150 Triggering problem 153 Widening the concept of replication 157 Conclusion 164 3.5 Summary ........................................................................................ 164 4 Origination analogy: Darwinian novelty in culture ........................ 167 4.1 The origination and pattern of change in culture .............................. 167 The origination analogy 167 Origin of novelty in culture and creativity 169 Standing on the shoulders of giants 181 Culture as a variational system 183 Intentional selection 186 4.2 Blind variation in creativity ............................................................. 188 Creativity as blind-variation-selective-retention 188 Blind variation as randomness 192 Blind variation as unjustified variation 194 Blind variation as undirected variation 199 4.3 The critique of guided variation ...................................................... 200 Guided variation at a populational level 200 Guided variation at the cognitive level 202 Guided variation due to coupling 204 Conclusion 207 4.4 Selectionist and bias compatibility .................................................. 208 Reaction to guided variation 208 Selectionist compatibility argument 208 Bias compatibility argument 209 Differences between developmental constraints and coupling 214 Conclusion 216 4.5 Hidden chaos compatibility ............................................................. 217 Creativity as unconscious blind variation 217 Poincaré’s explanation of creativity 218 Simonton’s chance configuration 220 Evidence for a hidden chaos as an explanation of creativity 222 Simonton’s defense 225 Compatibility with diverse cognitive mechanisms 232 Conclusion 233 4.6 Summary ........................................................................................ 234 5 Explanatory units of selection analogy: Selection of memes ........... 236 5.1 Memes as the selfish units of cultural selection ............................... 236 Diffusion from a traditional point of view 236 The explanatory units of selection analogy 240 ‘Selfish memes’ from a systematic point of view 242 Tautologies, dilemmas, a straw man, and minds as memes 248 5.2 Tautology problem of memetics ...................................................... 250 The tautology problem applied 250 Fitness of memes beyond actual survival 253 Memeticists’ factors – influencing the fitness of memes 256 The essential relation between memes and minds 257 Conclusion 262 5.3 The explanatory dilemma ................................................................ 262 Caught in a dilemma 262 Misleading analogies 264 Bookkeeping 267 The role of content 268 Conclusion 270 5.4 Meme fitness and irrationality ......................................................... 270 Limited independence 270 Conflict cases 272 Explanatory dilemma still holds 277 Conclusion 280 5.5 Minds as built by memes ................................................................ 280 Reducing the selective environment to memes 280 Dennett’s naturalistic theory of consciousness 281 Not everything is a meme 285 Autoselection is selection nonetheless 287 Conclusion 289 5.6 Summary ........................................................................................ 289 Epilogue .................................................................................................... 291 Descriptive and explanatory force of the analogies 291 A sheep in wolf’s clothing 294 The Wittgensteinian ladder 295 Reference list ............................................................................................ 296 Darwinism, Memes, and Creativity PREFACE According to Darwinism, the biosphere constantly changes. Culture changes as well. In the biosphere as well as in the cultural realm, new characteristics arise over and over again and some novelties persist and lead to lasting changes. The types of entities that are involved in these changes are genes and organisms in the case of biological evolution, and cultural units such as ideas, values, beliefs, patterns of behavior, and artifacts in the case of culture. Today, biological evolution is believed to be explainable by Darwinian evolutionary theory. Cultural change, however, is thought to arise through creative acts and selective choices of individuals, leading to the diffusion of novelties. Culture is usually defined as consisting of those characteristics of individuals that are not innate but created or learned by individuals during their life. Creativity in its basic sense is the human capacity to create new and valuable responses
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