“The Narrative of Modernity: Co-Existence of Differences” 9th Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI) in cooperation with the University of Navarro, Pamplona, Spain; 2. - 7. August 2004
Prof. Dr. Ezra Talmor Dr. Martin Potschka Conference Chair Workshop Chair Kibbutz Nachshonim Porzellangasse 19-2-9 D.N. Merkaz, ISRAEL 73190 Vienna, Austria A-1090 Tel: +972-3-938. 6445 / Fax: +972-3-938.6588 Tel. + Fax.: +43-1-317.5713 email: [email protected] email: [email protected] http://issei2004.haifa.ac.il http://mailbox.univie.ac.at/Martin.Potschka/
CALL FOR PAPERS workshop: Types of phylogenic memory: the intersecting theories of memetics, morphic fields, semiotics, collective agency, and theatrum mundi.
DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS / DRAFT VERSION
Taking my abstract submitted to the ISSEI 2002 Conference as a point of departure (http://mailbox.univie.ac.at/Martin.Potschka/ISSEI2002.htm), there are at least 3 kinds of phylogenic memory: 1) genes (DNA); 2) mind-stuff that is somehow passed on (propagated) as well as acquired by imitation (and which resides in organic carriers); and 3) memorabilia (human artifacts and tools). This classification is not coextensive to the tripartite expression “biopsychosocial”, which may also be read biological & psychosocial, and certainly the 2nd system includes social aspects of kinds. However, it seems reasonable to distinguish the other in society from the other within oneself. In different perspective Cloak has distinguished instructional i-culture (mind-stuff) and material m- culture (memorabilia) respectively. A dual system of inheritance and evolution – genetic and cultural – was previously postulated by Durham, Feldman, Jantsch, Lumsden, Swanson, Boyd and Richerson, and others. Culture has been defined as a system of shared symbolic representation (Geertz). Reductionist materialism and culturalism should both be avoided. Culture is a product of mental activity and finds expression in lifestyles and artefacts. Besides, culture is not what is done but what is passed on. For some of the mentioned authors culture is learned, others recognize inherited components. In an Indian context one might speak of genetic and karmatic configuration. Some western traditions also help to specify the subject. Thus psychiatric terminology distinguishes etiologically four types of disease: those of organic origin that can be traced down to anatomical or functional defects in such parts of the system that derive from the genetic information or to genetic defects themselves; those called reactive, i.e. resulting from well established socio-cultural interactions (like “shell shock” syndrome); those called inductive (like “folie a deux”) and those called endogenous or endogenetic, variable described as “of unknown etiology”, as “currently without identified organic origins”, or “without obvious external cause”, and effectively defined by exclusion – being none of the other. We may presume that “endogenous” refers to a psychic substrate, to the subject of psychoanalysis proper. “Endogenous” disturbances of the mind leave traces among organic matter, like changing neurotransmitter levels, and pharmaceutical intervention may or may not facilitate actual treatment, but their causes are not chemical (i.e. organic) in the first place. This taxonomy relates to a tripartite scheme based on organic, endogenous and social modes of inheritance (leaving for debate the exact placement of induction in this scheme). These three systems may operate quite differently, yet provide special cases of a more general theory. Such unifying generalizations will furthermore help to identify some of the more controversial issues. How does the science of the genome relate to certain aspects of brain research – such as memetic theory which epitomizes the cultural turn – and to our understanding of cultural deep structures as
1 studied by the humanities? Such problems may be conceptualized in the wider context of systems theory, specifically in a system or structure of relations in respect to their function. The call, though, limits its focuses to aspects of the 2nd system; genetics on the one hand and human cultural artifacts on the other are only considered in their relationship to such a 2nd system. The purpose of the following lines is to introduce the subject, relate diverse areas of specialization to a common theme and raise some timely questions. It sketches the larger picture without going into much detail.
structural overview Memories are structured systems designed for a compromise of maximum persistence of memory, capacity for evolutionary change (Darwinian trial and error) and functional adaptation to needs (Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics). • The 1st phylogentic system primarily is vertical (parents to children), it features conservation of individual traits and only limited transfection (such as prokaryotes acquiring toxin resistance genes) restricted to a Darwinian mode. Lamarckian inheritance proper is impossible by lack of adequate mechanisms of instruction (intentionality). The subject of natural selection is the individual organism. The germ line is preserved regardless of phenotypic exposure during the organism’s lifetime (a protective reset mechanism). • The 2nd phylogenic memory emphasizes rapid transference of traits (c.f. grid computing), i.e. it is preferentially oriented horizontally (peer to peer) and hence may be prone to forget more readily. It is presumably part of more complex systems capable of intentional instructions. The epitome of the 2nd phylogenic memory is initiation. It may be subject to group selection. Kins being one such group, certain feature distributions may be difficult to distinguish from family pedigrees. Do we have reset mechanisms in the 2nd system? A phenotypic state is typically defined by traits – themselves mapped to a set of genotypic replicanda (a passive substructure devoted to store and archive memory) –, by environmental/contextual transference of information, and by the memory of structural continuity provided by the state and history of the system structure. The substructure (Peirce’s signs) is easily replicated and distributed on its own, but – strictly speaking – it is the system (Peirce’s interpretant) which first converts the encoded patterns into information. Often, the state of this system is not uniquely determined by what information has been archived. Hence, even in biology proper inheritance of the system state of the maternal ovum is as important as the genome encoded in the specialized structure of DNA. The biological phenotype is a well defined concept, but the semio-cultural phenotype is not; some authors equate it with material reality (Lacan’s real order) whose genotype is the symbolic order, others consider the symbolic order itself a phenotype. Conceivably there are systems lacking a dedicated subsystem for memory-archiving. Is there a genotype (coding metastructure) behind phenotypical memory phenomena in the case of mind-stuff? Are we just dealing with semiotic surface representations themselves and the state and history of their system, or with related deep structures (like structures of associative coupling, i.e. connectionist maps)? Specialized subsystems for coding together with some kind of transformational grammar, as in the case of genetics, have been postulated (in memetics, but also in linguistics) but have not yet been positively identified for the 2nd phylogenic system. What is the “knowledge base” of a socio-cultural system? Differentiating the 2nd phylogenic system further, one may distinguish degrees of complexity, structural difference and context, or categorical distinctions like nature and culture. Semiotic systems, like biological structures, constrain experience and actions by actually reducing complexity to significant structures that preserve a difference between their inside and the outside, hence they always coexist in difference to other semiotic systems. Among the structural features one may note that viable systems typically include regulatory feedback-loops, which help significant structures maintain their homeostasis. They also include structures that allow for learning by imitation, and for creativity (qua iterated variation and selection in virtual realities). Accepting two kinds of phylogenetic inheritance immediately calls to question the autonomy of the genome, which may be necessary but not sufficient for ontogenesis, as critics often have claimed. Thus, one may address the interplay of the 1st and 2nd phylogenic system in developmental biology, evolution theory and psychosomatic medicine (kinesthetic bodily inscription) as well as implications for the constitution of inanimate matter: direct mind-matter interactions (the parapsychology agenda of “New Physics” (Capra), of consciousness moving matter and matter influencing consciousness), their complementarity and common ground (like Jung’s unus mundus or Peirce’s synechism – a
2 continuity between matter and mind –), and therelike. A feature of the 2nd system that serves purposes of the 1st, genetic system, but without genetic supervision is incest-avoidance (it develops in kids that share their early life up to age 6 irrespective of them being genetically kin or not). It may well serve to protect the 2nd system as well. Once the limits of genetics are pointed out and a model of dual phylogenesis is introduced one cannot avoid to face creationist twists of the transpersonal character of a 2nd system: does evolution depend on higher intelligent beings becoming operative (as Wallace – quoted by Sheldrake – did claim, and many others do)? Are those beings themselves subject of gradual evolution of complexity? It should be mentioned that traditional Newtonian science largely has ignored the possibility of a 2nd phylogenic system and was scorned for that very reason by Goethe (color theory, theory of morphogenesis). While Goethe intended a unified foundation the scientific community proceeded stepwise: first a theory of light with observer and observation independent properties (color as an atomistic component of light rather than produced by a prism); next a theory of vision for the qualia of experience specific to the human mental observer system, making it more difficult to resume their common ground within a constitution of inanimate matter in a further step. This cultural clash between atlantic science and continental philosophy remains to this day. Often the 2nd system is simply ignored. In the past a restriction to phenomena that are independent of a 2nd system has been almost constitutive for natural science. But this becomes difficult to sustain at our modern frontiers of science. Among the worse consequences is genetic reductionism, most notably of early sociobiology, which tends to reduce phenomena of the 2nd system to the 1st (like claiming genes for homosexuality, etc.). The existence of a 2nd phylogenic system has important ramifications: In respect to developmental biology it means that the conception of human beings not only involves genetic but second aspects as well. Does this 2nd system have neuroanatomical prerequisites? What can we learn from a theory of original sin (noting that, according to dogma, original sin resides at a level at which the practice of baptism can act and intervene)? What moral implications follow for stem cell research and abortion policy? There is also interplay of the 2nd and 3rd system. Each of the multiple and stratified phylogenic systems of culture that function as independent units of selection (from bodily inscription and other individual systems to aggregates of different complexity, like ideas/ tools/ groups – subcultures/ automata/ corporations – hegemony/ macroeconomics/ sovereign and stages in between) may access both phylogenic storage modes (2nd and 3rd) in parallel to different degrees. The 2nd then serves as deep structure for the 3rd. Yet in some respects the 3rd systems itself appears as if it were the phenotype of the 2nd system, a view that questions the independent status or very existence of a 3rd phologenesis. Does this mean that they are isomorphous? It rather seems that the information content of the 3rd system extends beyond that of the 2nd one. Last not least, both systems form hybrid technologies (cyborgs).
theatrum mundi & collective agency Individuals contribute their genes to the larger biological inheritance, similarly their minds partake in the larger phylogenic memory of cultural agency, details of which remain controversial. When talking of finite embodied minds (Feuerbach) that are in social relations and themselves the product of social relations, what is excluded? Are innate capacities (Chomsky) rooted in social forces? (Ins’t this an inflationary use of the term social and inappropriate for the very (non-genetic) nature of which the social order is a fictio imitatur naturam.) Like genetic information which is eternal while individual copies perish, socio-cultural memory is only preserved (and in fact transformed) by occasionally re-enacting selected pieces like a theatrum mundi, both on stage and in real history. In fact, history is not an episodic past but the present state of memory (Plotin). History is in the eye of the beholder. What we call past is socially constructed memory (Halbwachs, Burke). To the extent that the past could be made to conform to the present and present intentions for the future, it was re-membered (sic!) and memorialized. Historic case studies may illustrate the politics of remembering, how tradition is invented (Hobsbawn) and re-invented rather than objectively recorded, how it is marked by certain recurring themes and how human artifacts and monuments are textured. The world thus is recognized as sites of mixed, sampled, and re-imagined memory – les lieux de mémorie (Nora) –, the world is a stage, a bricolage of theme parks, of people entering role models.
3 Within the scope of “Memory” theatrum mundi focuses on the stage manager for the theater of human actions – renaissance god(s), baroque ruler, or existentially missing and replaced by performative agents –, all subject to the interacting scripts of an ill-defined fatum (blueprint). Thus stage manager is metaphor to an agency that comes by many names and has been reflected by political philosophy, psychology and sociology alike, with subtle but often significant differences of interpretation: human collective agency (Marx, Lenin), eternal spirit (Hegel), the political unconscious. Some recognize in it a structural determinism of social totalities (Althusser), a theory of social formations qua dissociations that coexist in difference and together define a socio-cultural totality – with a determining domination of the whole over the parts (Lukács) but no single universal agency. Other conceptions of the collective subject emphasize connectedness (Whitehead), universal causality (Bakunin), nexus of all beings (Schopenhauer), volonté general (Rousseau), magic consciousness – with access to the general connectedness of all beings at the base of life – (Gebser)Examples of dualism are Leibniz’ pre- established harmony – the universal connectedness of all being through space and time, a version of psychophysical parallelism –, and the symbolic order (Lacan) – a conundrum of interpretative semiotics and formative Wille (and conceived – when distinguished from the plurality of derivative false consciousness in what is called imaginary order – as ultimately single, the Buddha state). It is an agency derived from splitting of the EGO (Freud) or vice versa: an ID from which an EGO resurrects earlier accumulated ego-formations. Similarly Buddhism talks of dependent origination (pratīyasamutpāda) from a continuity of mind (cittasantana), which is shaped by karman, the actions taken during life (a Lamarckian inheritance). The symbolic order and a number of related terms – like res cogitans (Descartes), noumenon (Kant), noosphere (Vernadskij, Teilhard de Chardin), logos- sphere (Philon), ideosphere (Hofstadter), semiosphere (Lotman), freischwebende Intelligenz (Mannheim) – are somehow complementary to matter and reality, terms that themselves require careful definition. Is there a common ground? System theory – or more precisely process theory –, based on semiotics and qualitative research, may provide a method to specify and compare these intersecting concepts in respect to phylogenic memory. Among the conceptual frameworks for the study of transpersonal consciousness let me further mention: extended mind, also called supermind (Sri Aurobindo), group mind (MacDougall), concience collective (Durkheim), collective unconscious (Jung), collective behaviour and mentality (Le Bon), collective memory (Halbwachs), societal consciousness (Etzioni) – a toned down version of MacDougall’s group mind –, collective mental states (Bostok) and corresponding disorders like collective anxiety neurosis (Kiev), collective trauma, collective depression, collective habituation to genocide, collective paranoia and nationalism. But can there be a collective experience, experience being the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers)? Furthermore, if mental illness is related to neurobiochemical events, then collective entities cannot be ill the same way as individuals are. Concerning the controversial interdependence of individual and collective, let me add that it is individual agents or small groups of individual agents (large numbers of them) that throughout history have affected if not managed collective mental states. The 2nd system of memory is also related to the semantic difference of cogo and cogito, instinct (though some believe instinct resides in genes because it is innate, as if innate could not possible mean anything but genetic mechanisms), a theology of angels, the sociology of saints, , corpus mysticum, body politics, and Marcel Mauss’ idea that everything is social. Our theories about a 2nd phylogenic system also bear on the problem of theodicy, the sources of presumptive evil. According to Gramsci intellectuals create narratives and organize a web of beliefs, institutions and social relations called hegemony. Hence, one may explore the instruments that shape hegemonic memory (fêtes, ritual, customs and traditions, folklore, public opinion, strike, commemorative activities like award ceremonies, funerals, memorial days …), types of social systems (Luhmann), structures of community life, cultural practices, social forces, and fetishism, which mistakes social forces at the level of deep-structure to be material forces (though material objects may serve as carriers of hidden agency).
Sheldrake’s morphic fields Goethe, Durkheim, MacDougal and Jung, as well as biologists Gurwitsch and Weiss, have greatly impressed Sheldrake and his theory of morphic fields. Morphic fields are organizing fields, the morphogenetic fields of developmental biology only a special case. Sheldrakes concept has much to do with the legacy of magnetism before this assortment of phenomena was restructured by Faraday
4 and a narrow subset of phenomena identified as electromagnetic fields that no longer simply are special cases to Sheldrake’s verison of fields. The intuitive message of using the term field is evident by taking the analogy to iron filings when they position themselves along magnetic field lines in 3D- space. However, Shedrake’s fields exist independent of and beyond material structures and are irreducible, certainly not reduced to a phylogenic system of the first kind (genetics). Hence, instead of the limited analogy with iron-filings, a better definition of morphic fields is Gestalt. These forms (forma) or Gestalts act not unlike attractors. Organizing fields are universal memory that gets broadcasted to the organisms. Possibly, the term morphic field has been applied to unrelated phenomena: Are morphic fields mind- stuff, when talking of plant morphogenesis? Is the information derived from genes and system state of the germ line sufficient to define multicellular organisms and their development, as claimed by orthodox bioscience – or merely necessary, to be complemented by superadded organizing fields? Next, are morphic fields understood to be social fields at all? Are morphic fields a matter of neuroanatomical structures existing or not? or a matter of different stages of mental evolution (such as episodic or semantic memory)? Is there a uniqueness of man? i.e. are there further distinctions to be made between man and animals, and between species in general? What about the morphic fields of inorganic matter, like those supposed to be responsible for crystal constitution and melting point temperatures? According to scientific orthodoxy a melting point is fully determined by quantum mechanical properties at least in principle – the cumulative errors in this deduction are too large for actually having confirmed this particular claim – and does not require nor allow for additional parameters (for crystal constitution such additional parameters are less controversial). If there is no room for additional parameters, some isomorphism between Laws of nature and morphic fields has to be presumed. Is this the case? Sheldrake himselve speculates that the Laws of nature are merely habits, the products of morphic resonance, but he is not explicit about whether the reasons that lead to the fundamental laws of physics actually constrain morphic resonance or whether the laws in part are wrong. Are plant morphogenesis, developmental biology, social mind, and inorganic processes truly of one kind? Sheldrake himself speaks of a nested hierarchy of morphic fields. Morphic fields are taken to be formative causes – causa formalis – referring to intensive properties and the structural essence of matters, and in certain respects inscribed into objects of dead matter like a fetish. The history of this idea is ambiguous: During its 2500 years of intellectual history some author promoted an external, independent and superadded status (the Platonic lineage), while others treated forma more immanent (the Aristotelean lineage) and almost synonymous with the Laws of nature. (It seems that Sheldrake in thius respect is biased in favor of Plato’s eternal ideas.) Forma is certainly distinguished from concomitant extensive properties (causa materialis). For some authors causa materialis furthermore includes causes attributable to material constitution (“wood burns”), hence also genetic dispositions. The blueprint for a wooden house, on the other hand, never can be derived from the properties of wood as construction material and is a form superadded to matter. In a next step Nicolai Hartmann considered each forma to be materia of a higher formation, and each materia a potential forma in lower formations. This view, however, is add odds with the scholastic mainstream. While form, matter and energy are merely descriptive aspects (as first pointed out by Kant) that cannot be separated in reality, form also comes on its own – at least in theology – with angels that are pure form and indivisible wholes. (Hence: are angles synonymous to morphic fields?) Whether intelligent beings or elements of symbolic order, morphic fields do differ from the rest of reality. Inevitably such an approach therefore invites a categorical divide. However, do we really need dualist conceptions to describe phenomena of what amounts to a 2nd phylogenic system? Sheldrake’s theory also includes a concept called morphic resonance. Anything present connects up with similar pieces of information from the past, suitable combinations get amplified. Habits develop their form over time by being repeated This repetition stabilizes them, eventually channels a necessary pathway and ultimately may approach a state of law-like relationships. Morphic resonance is not based on energy transfer but on information transfer. A paradigmatic case of such acquired phylogenic memory is the imitational spread of milk bottle pecking by certain birds, and its reoccurrence after extended lapse times. It has been discussed both by memetics and from the point of morphic resonance. Similar cases of habitualization of behaviour in off-spring and unrelated populations have been reported for troops of Japanese macaques that learned to wash sweet-potatoes, chimpanzees that learned how to fish for termites by poking sticks into the mounds, and in experiments with laboratory rats and humans. Further evidence for the existence of morphic fields or something similar is the
5 complete yielding of the individual animal to the higher order of the swarm, the instantaneous (coordinated) change of its direction. Last not least, the notion of paradigm (Kuhn) and sudden paradigm-shifts have been equated with the action and properties of morphic fields. Morphic fields are carriers of adaptive memory. They are coordinated and entwined with other fields. Is it true that the memory provided by morphic resonance, its field strength, depends on the number of hosts? Do morphic fields need occasional refreshment? – need to be “reenacted”! Reviews of Sheldrake’s thesis generally have focused on empirical validations of morphic resonance and little work has been done on philosophical background and theoretical principles. Sheldrake himself considers the idea of formative causation more important than that of morphic resonance. However, there are categorial discrepancies between traditional notions of field and that of form. How is the intensive nature of form reconciled with the spatial extension and material nature of fields? How are spatially continuous fields related to discrete semiotic sets? How do forms, being discrete and self- contained wholes, change and evolve? This is in part a problem inherited from Plato’s immutable ideas. There are indeed assumed to be as many different types of morphic fields as there are forms, and the operant forces have to be identified in each single case. (The principle forms in orthodox physics are rather limited in comparison – gravitation, electromagnetism, strong and week nuclear forces.) Sheldrake’s theory would be far more attractive could he limit the issue to parametric variations of one or a few forms – or forces. Are morphic fields archetypes (Jung, Durkheim), a term Jung derived from the neo-platonist Augustinus and which refers to form-patterns that emerged by repeated performance (morphic resonnance), are stored in the collective unconscious and are propagated endogenically (Jung here uses the misleading term innate, albeit linked lateron to mental non-genetic inheritance, to exclude the social modes of imitation and learning)? Are morphic fields the products of human technological action, one that possibly evolved into a depersonalized seemingly objective authority, or do they derive from a higher spiritual agency, one presumably epitomized by angels (as Falk maintains)? Are morphic fields transcendental? Is there a spiritual dimenison to Sheldrake’s version of a 2nd phylogenetic system? Morphic fields evidently are related to memes, just how are they related in detail? Are morphic fields also related to the nested hierarchies of Holons (Koestler) and monads (Leibniz), to chreodes (Waddington), to entelechy and élan vital (Driesch), to parapsychological PSI-fields, to Chi (Qi, energy) and more properly to Li (the formative principle), to anima mundi, the imagninary “Zauberkräften” of Novalis and rosicrucianism? Do they accommodate Wille (Schopenhauer)? Unfortunately the notion of morphic field lacks sufficient detail and the concept needs to be thoroughly revised or abandoned (Ertel).
Assmann & Halbwachs Assmann, whose line of influence can be traced back to Halbwachs, distinguishes informal communicative memory (qua organic media) from cultural memory maintained by special professions (qua artifact and performance). His definition of communicative memory emphasizes oral tradition with a fidelity of about 3 human generations (100 years) and is evidently not identical with the 2nd phylogenic system. (How persistent – in comparison – is memory in institutional settings like succession of chairs when longevity is intended?) His definition of cultural memory on the other hand specifically excludes oral tradition. What distinguishes these concepts from the many ideas mentioned above? In particular, how does communicative memory relate to morphic fields?
Memetics The science of Memetics (Dawkins, Blackmore, Lynch, Dennett) – another subject specifically featured in this call – describes a memory system modeled after the notion of selfish-gene. (This is a problematic principle since it is always an organism that is selected and not constituent genes. The intellectual equivalent of this paradigm is the Duhem-Quine thesis according to which a theory can only be falsified as a whole and not its individual hypotheses. Genes merely are passive information carriers and do not act nor survive independently.) The selfish-gene perspective views genes on the analogy of viruses (which is an organism) and their implicit parasitism. The genotypic definition of meme – the mind-stuff equivalent of a gene, presupposed to exist as such – unfortunately gets confused with phenotypic attributes. Some actually locate memes in Peirce’s system of interpretants and not at all in his signs (genotype). Others claim that memes do not exist at all as well defined
6 functional substructures – like genes – nor as definitive elements of the phenotypic system, but are virtual constructs of interpretation in the mind of observers. Memetics also mistake quantity (of hosts infected) for quality and impact, akin to morphic resonance: They ignore that impact of memes in a hierarchically stratified society depends on the status of the host. Moreover, it remains unclear if memes are instructed (Lamarckian) or just selected (Darwinian). The process is viewed as one of representations being passed by contagion (Lynch), as Le Bon, Durkheim and Kiev had assumed previously. And indeed, for memes some kind of transference seems to play an important role. Not all agree, though, with this propagation thesis and rather consider the principle mode of action to be reconstruction by way of imitation (Blackmore). Similarly, Lumsden and Wilson claim that memes cannot replicate directly (like genes) but need to reconstruct themselves (in another host) via imitating the respective cultural phenotype. If true, the semiotic signs familiar to us and easily replicated as artifacts then are not functional replicanda of the 2nd system, but tertiary codes in need of (mental) interpretation; transference of traits becomes an act of imitation rather than analogue of genetic transfection. Yet the question remains whether the process of copying is enforced from outside at all. Is there something intangible passed on when we copy each other (acquire by imitation), i.e. tune our system to mirror another? Blackmore for one believes that a suggestive gaze – some importunate element – is required; in her definition of imitation copying is a conscious mutual process and includes contagious aspects of sorts. If memes are what Dawkins conceived, memes may qualify as units of propagation but less likely fit to an imitation model. Moreover, not all propagated mind-stuff acts parasitic. But some may behave as memetics claim, ticks for example – and computer viruses. (Remarkably, Blackmore considers ticks as innate behaviours that to her are non-memetic since they are not imitated
7 memetics, we may ask a final question: Shall we reserve the term meme exclusively to the original model, or consider memetics a field of study which will redefine the meaning of the term meme as it develops? And we should ask: what’s the purpose? There are predecessors to memetics; suggested names include “mnemone” (Campbell), “mnemotype” (Blum), “culturetype” (Burhoe), “sociogene” (Swanson), “culturgen” (Lumsden, Wilson), “node” of semantic memory (Quillian), and "elementary self-replicating instruction." (Cloak). Then there are older monistic theories, speaking of “mneme” (Semon, Hering) and “mnemosyne” (Warburg); they did not yet differentiate different phylogenic memory-systems, i.e. genes from memes. It was the Monist orientation that seems to have prevented this (they are now recognized as special cases of a more fundamental systems theory). The latter’s tradition had some influence on Jung and the Assmanns. To what extent are they related to contemporary memetics?
foundational issues The long list of synonymous terms is evidence that the subject matter has been dealt with in innumerable language games. The authors originate from diverse intellectual traditions and have used independent if not competing sets of principles and theory, without reference to a common set of theoretical premises. In fact such a comprehensive unique set of principles and axioms, once promoted by the unity of science movement, does not and will never exist: a pluralism of different systems of thought is methodologically inevitable. Thus according to constructivist paradigms, issues preferably are illuminated from different angles and points of view. Furthermore, attempts to describe a problem in ignorance of and without reference to established conceptual frames contributes to a larger evolutionary process of intellectual advance. Such an ongoing process of creating new terminology and systems of thought > looks behind existing terminology and in the end only furthers abstraction and will improve the larger theoretical base. While it is not possible to study a subject without any theoretical dispositions it may nonetheless be studied positively in purposeful neglect of existing foundations and/or omission of procedural detail (in a sort of Machian black box approach that is prototypically exemplified by Skinners research program in behaviourism but with the mentioned epistemic modifications). Hence the integration and restructuring of existing points of view cannot be more than another partial theory and small advance that does not require a comprehensive account of all missing links. In particular it is quite acceptable to discuss features of a 2nd phylogenetic system without addressing its physical base and mode of action, or to discuss certain aspects of mind without consideration of its relation to a neurophysiological substrate. It is nontheless of interest in their own right to address such foundational issues: issues of information transfer principally have been approached with psychological theories of counter-transference (a foundation at some level of discourse that again ignores more elementary foundational issues of a different context), in quantum-mechanical-like entanglement (algebra of non-commuting operators) , or by searching for the engram in the brain. Synchronicity (Jung-Pauli) assumes acausal correlations and entanglement rather than causally deterministic scripts. It hinges on the same foundational issue that remains unsettled in telepathy and extra-sensory perception, which comes with two concurrent asssumptions, namely acausal entanglement and a field-theory based models of communication (sender-receiver), respectively.
literary criticism Earlier, the topos of theatrum mundi has been introduced in the context of collective agency. Described as „the world is a theater, men are the actors, fortune is the stage director, … the heavens and fates are its spectators“ (Ronsard [1564]), it is both a statement on history and a topic of fine arts. It also encapsulates the fact that memory is periodically updated and thereby restructured and rewritten – an aspect to be unfolded in historic case studies. However, cultural studies may directly benefit from literary criticism and its methodology may be transferred to the study of cultural hegemony. Methods of textual analysis indeed have become transdiciplinary and one no loger can speak with C. P. Snow of two kinds of cultures, science and the humanities. Previously only the humanities dealt with texts, and there was a time when social sciences prefered to follow the methods of natural sciences. But nowadays the postmodern method of textualization treats the social sphere as semiotic systems and text, and social science has become part of the humanities again. Even natural science becomes increasingly semioticized. Thus the distinction between natural and social science is beginning to seem meaningless.
8 Unfortunately, the term theatrum mundi has different meaning to different people (not all of which are equally relevant in the present context): a non-Aristotelean theory of theater, particular stage techniques, allegorical style, theatre about theatre, bringing different levels of reality into the same dramatic structure, a version of natural history and encyclopedic knowledge (Bodin), or plays that actually stage a world that is a stage. Hence different authors also have presented different works of fine arts as belonging to the subject. Here an unsorted selection: Plato
epistemology Contributors should draft their papers according to the common research agenda of the call. They should address the interdisciplinary nature of this workshop from specific disciplinary points of view, assume encyclopedic authority, and should relate their theories to alternate coexisting traditions and approaches. They should ask themselves what say a natural scientist might learn for his own work from cultural studies or the perspectives of political science, or what understanding biological evolution may teach us about cultural evolution. While Popper reminds us to study problems rather than disciplines, disciplinary idiosyncrasies should be carefully addressed. A history-of-ideas approach is considered essential to overcome anti-historical bias among practitioners of science who primarily focus on phenomenology. The large number of ideas that have been introduced in this call all gravitate around the title subjects: collective agency and collective states of mind, semiotics and system theory of this symbolic order, a phenomenology of phylogenic memory, their deeper foundational issues (in physics, deep-psychology and parapsychology) including theological
9 dimensions, morphic fields, memetics, and theatrum mundi. Other issues and technical detail should serve to illustrate these main points. Contributions should provide tetrapartite explications (of their core concepts and terms) as follows: (1) a meaning analysis of conventional terminology used by groups of people including some reinterpretation and restructured precise meaning by the author (providing an explicit terminological basis); (2) the systematic import that relates the terms to general theory and principia (which are constructed – rather than a meta-reality per-se – and exchangeable for better constructions; (3) the empirical import connecting interpretative systems up with reality; and (4) the pragmatic import of socio-cultural factors. This scheme accommodates both ideal types (Weber) and nomothetic epistemologies, as preferred by logical empiricism (Hempel) – without subscribing to their unity-of-science program. The workshop hopes to elaborate the differentia specifica and set the terms for an instantia crucis (Bacon) able to discriminate competing theories.
dates & deadlines Besides formal abstracts I invite correspondence and propositions about any intersecting subject, including matters that you do not intend to deliver yourself, and papers challenging my call. Please submit a brief abstract to the workshop chair (Dr. Martin Potschka) now, but no later than January 2004. Your contribution will be reviewed and you will be notified of acceptance. There will be a follow up symposium in the Spring of 2005 in Vienna, jointly organized by Jeff Bernard, Karin Liebhart and Martin Potschka. Conference language is English. (Contributors unable to participate in both venues may still come to Vienna only or first to Pamplona and then decide later; please indicate your choices. Authors attending both meetings will normally present a revised and updated discussion of their material in Vienna.) Extended abstracts will be published as part of the ISSEI conference proceedings, selected peer reviewed full length papers that develop from this workshop project will tentatively be published in book form after harmonization of content.
document date: 2003-09-25
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