Breaking a Nash Equilibrium
There is a concept in game theory that, simplistically put, states that if two people are playing the best strategy they can, with no rational way to change, they will stay in equilibrium even if an overall change could be beneficial to both players.
This can be applied to games, economics, warfare, etc., etc., etc.
I believe we're stuck in that kind of situation. I'm wondering how to unstick us. Any suggestions?
The only thing my mind works on right now is: Player 1 -- Us, Player 2 -- Mother Culture. We take a worse position temporarily to encourage the entrance of Player 3 -- Gaia / Earth / Nature / whatever to upset the status quo.
That doesn't feel quite right, though; not formed enough 
Hmph.
Here's the link for the Nash equilibirum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
Thoughts?
Best
Bill Maxwell
Internet
Submitted by Huby7 on Sat, 2008-09-13 12:31.
Matt,
You wrote: The Jason Godesky solution to this is passive. The situation will change. Thus the current ESS (memes are subject to Darwinism and; therefore, the imitation of them form ESSs) will likely no longer apply. The ESS will change because the players will ALL have to change their game in order to cope with the new situation.
---
Are there any places on the internet where you and Jason have talked about this?
Curt
No Nash
Submitted by Ghost on Sat, 2008-09-13 18:23.
Hey, Curt.
No, not really. That wasn't a direct quote so much as it was a riff on other things that Jason has said. Ie, that the global peer polity system will collapse of a piece because when an individual polity collapses, the other polities (I would say, playing annihilator) move in and abosorb their territory.
The global peer polity system is a Nash Equilibrium. No one player gains any advantage by unilaterally changing their strategy. When it collapses as a piece, according to Jason, none of the polities (players) will be able to play annihilator anymore because the supporting resources will no longer be there (thus according to Jason, we will wind up in a new stone age). Thus with the environmental conditions changed, the memes that were tied up with the NE will no longer be selected against because they no longer offer an advantage. This is one way to break the NE. It's a passive way because it doesn't require that anyone do anything other than what they're already doing.
Mind change is an active way of breaking the Nash Equilibrium because it requires that people DO something; ie, change people's minds.
I'm sure if you go to Anthropik you can find stuff about the global peer polity system and how it will collapse. We also used to talk about it on IshCon and there may even be some stuff here. But we've never had a conversation about Nash Equilibriums.
Peace and Love and Empathy,
Matt
Jensen Too
Submitted by Ghost on Sun, 2008-09-14 15:15.
Hey, Curt.
Incidentally, Jensen's solution to breaking the Nash Equilibrium (although I doubt he sees it in that way) is also active. He wants peope to bring down the infrastructure of civilisation (granted, not his only viewpoint, he does say we need it all). That, theoretically, like Jason's solution, would change the environmental conditions and break the Nash Equilibrium.
I need to point out that I don't actually believe that Godesky's or Jensen's solutions will actually break the Nash Equilibrium because the Taker memeplex, due its instructions that it is the only way and that it should never be abandoned, is actually quite resilient. I think it's resilient enough to survive almost any environmental change. Thus, for me, the only viable way to break the Nash Equilibrium is with challenger memes that can invade the Taker memeplex. That or if the environmental change is so severe that it wipes out all the hosts for the Taker memeplex, ie, kills off our entire species. I like the first option better myself 
Peace and Love and Empathy,
Matt
Possibility
Submitted by Huby7 on Mon, 2008-09-15 11:54.
Hi Matt,
Perhaps some of the strategies and tactics that Derrick talks about in Endgame will be a factor in breaking the Nash Equilibrium that you and Bill are talking about.
ON EDIT: If I'm understanding what you are saying correctly, the introduction of the more evolutionary stable memes into the Taker memeplex will out compete the lethal memes, simply because they're more appealing and make sense. And what Jason has said is that those evolutionary stable memes won't outcompete the lethal memes until there is a major environmental change, like a catabolic collapse. The physical environment HAS to change before the memes change.
Am I understanding this correctly?
And since we're talking about changing minds here, in our past discussions about Derrick's work, our biggest hang up was with premise 10 in Endgame. The premise states:
"The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life."
I argued that some minds just are not reachable, and you argued that any mind has the potential to be changed.
Am I understanding this correctly?
take care,
Curt
Breaking the ESS
Submitted by Ghost on Mon, 2008-09-15 18:16.
Hey, Curt.
If I'm understanding what you are saying correctly, the introduction of the more evolutionary stable memes into the Taker memeplex will out compete the lethal memes, simply because they're more appealing and make sense.
The memes themselves are not evolutionarily stable, the strategy is.
Evolutionarily stable does not mean "good" or even "non-lethal". It means stable. The Taker memeplex is an ESS.
An evolutionarily stable strategy or ESS is defined as a strategy which, if most members of a population adopt it, cannot be bettered by an alternative strategy. Is is a subtle and important idea. Another way of putting it is to say that the best strategy for an individual depends on what the majority of the population are doing. Since the rest of the population consists of individuals, each one trying to maximise his own success, the one strategy that persists will be one which, once evolved, cannot be bettered by any deviant individual.
-Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene," page 69.
I now like to express the essential idea of an ESS in the following more economical way. An ESS is a strategy that does well against copies of itself. The rationale for this rule is as follows. A successful strategy is one that dominates the population. Therefore it will tend to encounter copies of itself. Therefore it won't stay successful unless it does well against copies of itself. This definition is not so mathematically precise as Maynard Smith's, and it cannot replace his definition because it is actually incomplete. But it does have the virtue of encapsulating, intuitively, the basic ESS idea.
-Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene," page 282.
So regardless of the fact that the foundational Taker memes are lethal, they are a part of a stable strategy. That means that other strategies do poorly against it (as Leavers throughout history can attest).
Which memes, and subsequently, which behaviours, are selected has nothing to do with apeal or whether they're sensical. People adopt memes or not. Their behaviour is an expression of those memes. If these behaviours offer an advantage, not just theoretically, but practically, within the context of the current state of the ecosystem, then they will be selected (by natural selection). If not, they will not. Thus only memes and behaviours that are selected can flourish.
What I've suggested is the introduction of challenger memes. Challenger memes have the ability to invade memeplexes because of the idea of cognitive dissonanace.
In psychology, cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling or stress caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a fundamental cognitive drive to reduce this dissonance by modifying an existing belief, or rejecting one of the contradictory ideas.
For example, the Taker memeplex has the meme "make your living through totalitarian agriculture only". If you introduce the meme "make your living through permaculture", it will CHALLENGE the existing meme by creating cognitive dissonance. The mind, the meme's host and ultimate selector, will try to eliminate this CD by eliminating one of the memes. Memeplexes are resistant to invasion generally, and ESSs are even more resistant to invasion; however, if the challenger meme is selected and is adopted, either into the existing memeplex, or, after breaking it apart, into a new memeplex, then the ESS will be broken. This is the process of mind change.
All cultures create a socially constructed reality. It is the way in which they view the world and their place in it (the result of Quinn's idea of living in a story). It is not based on reality, but on the beliefs and mythologies of the culture. A challenger meme can alter social reality, ie, 'believe in evolution' being introduced into a creationist memeplex. You can see at once the dissonance that challenger memes can cause and the mechanisms that prevent their invasion.
The caveat to all of this is that the challanger meme will only be selected, it will only successfully invade the ESS memeplex IF it offers a better advantage within the context of the current ecosystem, ie, it takes into account that there are still players playing annihilator. If 'make your living through permacultre' results in behaviour that doesn't offer better advantage than 'make your living though TA only' or worse, that doesn't allow the imitator to survive against the Taker players, then dissonance or not, it cannot be selected.
This is why the memes that Quinn introduced have yet to SIGNIFICANTLY cause deviation from the Taker ESS. They offer theoretical advantage, I certainly don't want to ride the Taker Thunderbolt to the ground, but not practical advantage. Why? Because they cannot operate within the context of the current ecosystem.
Perhaps this is an unfair critique. I don't think that Quinn's memes have accomplished what "I" would like them to accomplish, ie, wholesale change. But I think that they may have fullfilled his desire. For example, anyone canform tribal businesses (and have). If they do, they're successfully imitating a meme introduced by Quinn and deviating from the ESS. None of them have been crushed by the annihilator players.
My point is that while the Leaver memes are fine theoretically, if we want Neo-Leavers (shitte name) making their livings within the context of all the Takers in the world, we need to engineer memes that when expressed, will offer a greater advantage (persumably sustainability) and that will allow them to survive alongside the Takers. Those memes will likely rapidly increase their representation in the global meme pool and break apart the Taker ESS.
And what Jason has said is that those evolutionary stable memes won't outcompete the lethal memes until there is a major environmental change, like a catabolic collapse. The physical environment HAS to change before the memes change.
First, I need to reiterate that Jason has not to my knowledge spoken about memes in this way. I am superimposing some of his theories on this question.
That is what he is saying. The ESS will only be broken if the environment changes.
More importantly, he is saying that when the environment changes that the ESS MUST change. It is stable within the context of our current ecosystem; hundreds of functioning Taker societies, abundance of oil, enough species in the world that we can extingish multiple species a day to pay for our increase in human and human-related biomass, etc...
Following a major environmental change there may be a brief period of evolutionay instability, perhaps even oscillation in the population. But once an ESS is achieved it will stay: selection will penalize deviation from it.
-Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene," page 69.
This dovetails with the theory of punctuated equilibrium.
In a 1972 CE paper, two palaeontologists, Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould, introduced the idea of punctuated equilibrium.
In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin suggests that evolution is a slow process in which small mutations build up over countless generations. The Nash Equilibrium and the stable gene support this idea.
Eldredge and Gould pointed to the fossil record noting that it showed inexplicable periods of rapid change in the biota.
They agreed with Darwin that typically, evolution is a slow and gradual process. Long periods elapse with no appreciable change. They called this period equilibrium. They then added the idea that this equilibrium is punctuated by short periods of rapid change involving multiple extinctions and multiple speciation events.
The idea is that there are many genes that persist in the gene pool that offer no appreciable advantage or disadvantage. When there is a sudden change in the ecosystem, a number of species can be driven to extinction, leaving niches open. These genes may at that point turn out to be exaptations that offer species advantages in the new conditions. These genes are rapidly selected; often resulting in sudden speciation.
The analogy is this. Imagine a small pile of sand. Imagine that you have some more sand in your hand. Slowly, as in an hourglass, you pour sand onto the pile. The pile remains relatively stable as the sand piles up, then suddenly, something gives way and there is a landslide on one side.
Punctuated equilibrium suggests that the period of equilibrium remains stable until, unexpectedly, something gives way, there is a cascade effect and the conditions change dramatically and suddenly. The remaining species scramble to find ways to survive the change, rapidly changing the face of the biota.
Punctuated equilibrium explains why the rapid periods of change in the fossil record and as well, illustrates an important concept. Minute changes in the ecosystem can have a sudden, unexpected and significant cascade effect.
Jason suggests that due to the nature of the change that is coming, as he sees it, the Taker memes (he doesn't actually like the Taker and Leaver models) will necessarily be wiped out because the new conditions will make it impossible for them to continue to be selected.
But while PE guarantees that long periods of stability are punctuated by sudden and rapid change, it doesn't guarantee what that change will look like. That is to say that the breaking of the Taker ESS will not neccessarily result from ANY change. Only specific kinds of change, like the specific change that Jason forecasts (ie, back to the stone age, no more metal, no more oil, a new ice age [I think]).
Furthermore, Leaver memes or Quinnian memes, may be exaptive. That is to say they are in our Memome (the sum total of our memes, analagous to genome) but currently offer no advantage or disadvantage; thus will not be selected against. In a new environmental situation, they may offer advantage and be selected. But those memes need to be there in the first place. So even in the passive, let it collapse and sort itself out, there need to be "Leaver" memes in place if they're going to take advantage of the new situation, ie, a world in which Taker memes are no longer selected. So mind change, spreading "Leaver" memes now, will still be important.
The interesting thing is this. Replicators are themselves a part of the ecosystem. Thus, the introduction of new memes can alter the current conditions. So it is possible that new memes, capable of challenging the Taker ESS will themselves be the cause of the change in environment that will allow the ESS to be broken.
And since we're talking about changing minds here, in our past discussions about Derrick's work, our biggest hang up was with premise 10 in Endgame. The premise states:
"The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life."
I argued that some minds just are not reachable, and you argued that any mind has the potential to be changed.
Within the context of the theory of memetics, your assertion is impossible. Outside of memetics, it can exist, but not within.
Jensen's assertion is that the people of our culture have a mental illness; they are insane. Thus change requires the healing of the mental illness first. If the illness cannot be cured, then change would be impossible. Thus if some individuals have incurable mental illness, they cannot be reached.
Memetics says that while the members of Our culure might appear insane (pursuing behaviour that will ultimately be self-eliminating) they have no mental illness. They host lethal memes that are a part of an ESS. Their behaviour is the result of the expression of those memes and not the result of mental illness. All that is required to alter their memetic behaviour is the disarticulation of one set of memes and the rearticulation of another set of memes. There is NOTHING in memetics or neuroscience that suggests that some people are INCAPABLE of disarticulating certain memes or of rearticulating other memes; just as there is nothing in genetics or biology that suggests that some organisms are impervious to mutation. So there is absolutely no reason to believe that some people are unreachable. Some memes are harder to disarticulate because of the theory of the ESS, but that is a property of replicators and not people, thus it does not mean that some people are unreachable.
So like I said, the idea that some people are unreachable has no memetic basis just like some people have psychic powers has no genetic basis. But go out of the model and the possibility of alternate theories exists. That is to say, in order for one to believe that some people are insane monsters with a death urge that cannot be reached, they cannot believe in the mechanisms that govern memetics. They are incompatible and will create cognitive dissonance.
TO SUM UP:
A sudden environmental change CAN break the ESS if:
- Taker memes can no longer be selected
- Exaptive memes can rush in to fill the void
Breaking the ESS through memetic invasion is difficult, but it guarantees success; however:
- ESSs are resistant to invasion, which is why they're stable
- Challenger memes create cognitive dissonance. They must be selected over the existing meme.
- New memes will not be selected unless they offer greater advantage within the context of the current ecosystem; taking into account that there are still annihilator players.
Spreading new memes is required for either solution.
Peace and Love and Empathy,
Matt
Cognitive Dissonance
Submitted by nene on Tue, 2008-09-23 00:12.
Hey Sweetie....
Long time no banter :-)
This is kinda out of left field. but your comments on Cognitive Dissonce struck me.... but in a really weird way that I'm not quite sure what to do with it.
Bill... you'll like this... maybe you'll even know what to do with it.....
CD is "an uncomfortable feeling or stress caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously." BUT... Jason has written about animism being the state of living with two contradictory ideas (on many given subjects) withut any sense of conflict or stress. Over the last couple years I have been becoming more and more comfortable with that and now find myself doing exactly that all the time.
So.... is it relevant or significant that only the civilized (to use a far reaching generic term) are subject to CD? Is there more to it? Less? Does this lead to any more inspired thoughts? I'm not quite able to express the thoughts that initially hit me, so I guess I'm asking if once I spell out what I saw, if it strikes anyone else?
Janene
YAY!!!!
Submitted by Ghost on Tue, 2008-09-23 02:31.
Janene my love!
YAY!!!!
YAY!!!
Ok. I'm good... YAY!!!
So.... is it relevant or significant that only the civilized (to use a far reaching generic term) are subject to CD? Is there more to it? Less?
It's not only the civilised.
I do not like to smoke marijuana. I have no problem with other people smoking it. If this is in fact cognitive dissonance, then it is a form of CD that I can live with. The stress of it is not causing me to want to reduce this dissonance. One belief is mine, the other, others. There are countless examples of this and it is this, I believe, that Jason is talking about. There is every capacity to hold different ideas or perspectives.
More to the point, cognitive dissonance can simply cause you to modify a belief. Perhaps at some point someone thought marijuana is bad m;kay. But then he sees his friends enjoying it. He modifies his belief to eliminate the dissonance. Now he still doesn't, but it's fine if others do.
Another example might be, the sun is both bringer of life and bringer of death. No CD there.
Here's an example of the result of CD. I saw a video once of a cow being treated terribly before it was slaughtered. I experienced cognitive dissonance for six months. At the end of six months, I stopped eating beef.
But now we get into CD and memetics.
I shall eat, I shall not eat. THAT is cognitive dissonance as it applies to memetics.
Memes are instructions for behaviour. It is impossible for someone to carry out conflicting instructions. I cannot stay out of the water and jump into the water. I cannot treat cows as sacred and eat them. I cannot practice Totalitarian Agriculture and be a hunter-gatherer.
This is the effect that challenger memes have on existing memes.
Now you've gone and made me realise something:D Cognitive dissonance can lead to memetic mutation. If a challenger meme is received by an imitator, it may force them to disarticulate the initial meme. But, it might just as easily mutate the original meme; a form of hybridising mutation. Interesting.
Back to your original point, cognitive dissonance affects everyone, but, perhaps, Takers more than others for one simple reason. They have a meme that tells them that their way is the only right way. So when conflicting ideas come around, there is less chance that they will solve the dissonance by modifying their behaviour. Animists, it would seem, according to Jason, have a meme that tells them that it's perfectly allright to hold different perspectives. Interesting.
It would apear that yes, there is more to this.
Peace and Love and Empathy,
Matt
Ain't that some shit?
Submitted by Ghost on Tue, 2008-09-23 04:07.
Hey, Janene.
I miss you so much.
I'm in Calgary doing a show. I wrote that last post, went out for food and promptly realised that the reason that I have been so fucking miserably stressed for the last five years, not coincidentally, since I read Ishmael, is because I am experiencing hard core cognitive dissonance.
I was raised with a memeplex that told me how to make my living. Daniel Quinn transmitted a set of challenger memes and I received them. They've been kicking around my memory for five years, trying desperately to get me to express them, but I'm still busy making my living the way I was brought up to. I've tried desperately to modify (mutate) the memes I was raised with in an attempt to solve this dissonance, but clearly, it's not working.
So I'm pretty sure now that my initial idea about cognitive dissonance was simplistic.
When challenger memes are first introduced the mind will make a decision, rapidly, about whether or not to place those memes in long-term memory. If it does not, poof, they're gone (perhaps that's one of the functions of short-term memory). If it does, the expression machinery will begin to express them UNLESS there is a pre-existing conflicting meme. At that point the new challenger meme does just that, challenges the existing memes for a spot in our mind's expression queue.
That conflict can be quick or it can be protracted; like mine has been. It can be solved by hybridising the two memes, or by disarticulating one or the other meme.
THIS MUST BE NOTED. This process is not just a fight between the two memes. Memes do not exist in a vacuum, they are a part of a complex system; the biosphere. The memes I've wanted so desperately to express require things from the environment that simply aren't there; ie, people to form a tribe with, resources for us to use and a lack of annihilators. So I think the reason they've persisted in my meme pool WITHOUT being articulated is because my expression machinery wants to express them but can't because of the environment I am in. This is why Nash Equilibriums aren't so much about what is good or right or best, but about what the people around you are doing.
For real dude, for years now I've fallen into bouts of depression for no explicable reason. To the point that I began to suspect that I had bipolar disorder. Then a week or two ago I read the wikipedia article on BD and realised that I didn't come close to qualifying. Now I realise that the stress I've been experiencing is the crippling result of Cognitive Dissonance.
I have just experienced the tip of the iceburg of what it must be like to be a Native American. They have people. They have well defined memes. Traditions. But they've been stripped of every opportunity to express those memes. It must be a constant hell of cognitive dissonance.
Now, back to the idea of breaking the Nash Equilibrium, Daniel Quinn's memes, CLEARLY, are challenger memes. But they do not offer a GREATER ADVANTAGE WHEN EXPRESSED than those memes in the Nash Equilibrium which is why they (the expressed behaviours) aren't being selected. They offer a greater advantage in terms of not being lethal, but that has nothing to do with the Nash Equilibrium.
The ideas are sound. Unlimited growth is fatal. Diversity is all important. There can only be so many humans. But the memes, the alternate behaviours, associated with them are NOT able to break the Nash Equilibrium.
This is the problem with NEs. The reason they're stable is BECAUSE they're so resistant to invasion.
So my original point stands. There's two ways to break the NE.
1 - Change the environment. This can be passive (Godesky) or active (Jensen).
2 - Introduce successful challenger memes. This can be passive (mutation) or active (memetic engineering).
By memetic engineering it is meant that we create memes that, when expressed, offer a greater advantage than the Taker memes.
One thing that Quinn did was try to REDEFINE what advantage meant. He said people wealth was greater than product wealth. The green movement is trying to prove that environmental wealth is greater than product wealth. NEITHER of these redefinitions has as of yet resulted in challenger memes that offer greater advantage.
Leaver memes are a great starting point for memetic material because they were expressed as sustainable behaviour. But they are usesless contextually. They were selected in a world of Erratic Retaliators, not annihilators.
At any rate, this is the challenge. Use their successes as a basis and then memetically engineer them for selection in today's world.
Alright. I'm done. I have to take some time and seriously contemplate what this means to me personally. It's crazy. All the stress, all the unhapiness I've felt for years is without doubt in my mind the result of Cognitive Dissonance. I have to figure out for myself how to solve this.
Oh, yeah. One other thing. When the Hohokam, the Maya and Great Zimbabwe collapsed, not only did they decide to express different memes, but they had the environmental ability to do so. There was room for them.
Hmmm...
Perhaps the Great Forgetting had to do with the fact that by the time the Takers had taken over the Old World, there was no way to express the old memes. So they stopped being selected. This makes sense because the cultures used primary orality or the oral tradition. In the oral tradition only that which is of use is transmitted. So the Great Forgetting occured becuase the old memes and the old stories were no longer transmitted.
Peace and Love and Empathy,
Matt
Got something...
Submitted by TwoRoadsTom on Tue, 2008-09-23 04:23.
This is a short post but had to say, gods it's good to hear both of you talking about this -- Janene and Matt! Matt, I hear you man! I've been able to assimilate some of my CD by taking on a specific structure "Two Roads Tom", looking down 2 opposing structures so that people stuck in one can be rescued to the other. Otherwise, I think I'd snap, raising a family in a Taker-enforced structure in a noise-filled environment bound by now-silent voices. Ugh!
But here's something that popped into my head (oh... btw, will answer your 'clarify' post soon but your recent post sparked something). What I think I'm looking for is a memeplex that doesn't challenge the existing Taker memeplex but instead expresses itself in the environment, altering it so that the challenger memer have room to express. It's like the virus that pops the cell wall after being replicated alongside 'healthy DNA' in a stable environment.
It may be a way out of an NE -- altering an environment at a disadvantage in order to force a new equilibrium to take place.
One thing, of course to remember in any of these situations is that no situation is eternal. Everything is in a dynamic state. We just need to find out the pieces needed to upset our current applecart.
Am I making any sense?
Best
Bill Maxwell
"Change comes from giving up the myth that you are in control."
Viral is good m'kay
Submitted by Ghost on Sat, 2008-10-04 20:08.
Hey, Bill.
Sorry it took so long to respond.
But here's something that popped into my head (oh... btw, will answer your 'clarify' post soon but your recent post sparked something). What I think I'm looking for is a memeplex that doesn't challenge the existing Taker memeplex but instead expresses itself in the environment, altering it so that the challenger memer have room to express. It's like the virus that pops the cell wall after being replicated alongside 'healthy DNA' in a stable environment.
It may be a way out of an NE -- altering an environment at a disadvantage in order to force a new equilibrium to take place.
Daniel Quinn likes to hammer home a point. Walking away is not about changing physical locations, it's about walking to a new cultural place. So absolutely, step one is creating a cultural space within the ecosystem in which people can enact new stories.
Problem one is, every society not playing annihilator has been annihilated for the last 5 000 years. The only ones to survive are those who live in places that have AS YET not been identified as places to annex and are therefore NOT in direct competition with the annihilators. So creating a cultural space OUTSIDE of the annihilator cultures and in direct competition with them is suicide. Straight up.
So the other passive solution is what Godesky espouses. As the global peer polity system collapses as a piece and the polities go into collapse (reduction in complexity) their ability to claim sovereignty on the fringes of the territory they currently do (as well as their ability to project force into these areas) will diminish, creating PHYSICAL pockets in which new cultures can enter and thrive (the danger in this that Jason does not acknowledge is that Takers could fill these new niches, which, as I have pointed out, HAS occured time and time again through recorded history).
The other soultion is to create cultural space, as you suggest, WITHIN the annihilator cultures. As you say, these cultures (cultures being taxonomically classed groups of imitators with similar memomes) WOULD be like a virus (my former criticism of your virus model was that genes aren't viral, organisms are; similarly, memes aren't viral, imitators are).
This forms the basis of my idea of the INTERTRIBAL ECONOMY. If the economy is self-sufficient and sustainable, not needing to engage in trade with the host economy or any other economy for that matter (this sort of economy is called an autarky) but that WILL engage in trade with the host for as long as the host is alive, therfore ensuring (or promoting at the very least) that they will not be targeted as 'outsiders' (the history of the Jews and Gypsies of Europe show the dangers of this practice in certain situations; granted, they were not true autarkies but it is the 'outsider' label that is dangerous) then when the host economy collapses, the autarky, not needing trade with the host, will be able to survive the death of its host; as you say, bursting forth from the cell wall.
This is not a passive strategy because the creation of autarkies is active and has the effect of drawing resources and imitators out of the host culture thereby weakening it and contributing to its collapse (the battle cry of the Nazis as they wiped out German Jews).
Because of the danger of being labeled an ousider, this solution works BEST in 'rule of law' societies in which minorities have legal recourse. In failed states, well, it's a matter whim how they are treated. The good news is that if this becomes widespread in the Western democracies, they who control the "Commanding Heights" of the global economy, we can crush the head of the snake as it were. Meh. Not my most complex analogy but it'll do until I explore that one in greater detail :D
All of this is the best solution I've come up with so far rather than the only one; however, I am convinced that this, as you say, viral aproach is a sound way to aproach the challenge and break the Nash Equilibrium. That being said, it has a host of challenges.
That being said, the meme 'create autarkies' IS a challenger meme and will only be selected if it offers a greater advantage than the Taker memes that it is antithetical to. But what it allows for that other challenger memes do not is the creation of a cultural space WITHIN the annihilator host SO THAT it can be expressed. Ie, it is much easier to solve the cognitive dissonance it creates because you CAN abandon the Taker memes and express the 'create autarkies' meme. Ie, it's not just good theoretically, it's good in practice... theoretically
Peace and Love and Empathy,
Matt
Confused
Submitted by Huby7 on Wed, 2008-09-17 12:39.
Hey all,
I have been reading through the posts about memes for a couple of hours now, and I'm confused. Which is probably a good thing, that means I'm learning something.
The way I understand it is that a meme is anything that can be imitated. The way I walk, my hairstyle, my house, the way I brush my teeth, can all be articulate as a meme? Of course those are more individual memes then cultural memes, the later being the ones we are most concerned about when it comes to saving the world.
How far off the mark am I here?
thank you,
Curt
Pretty damn close
Submitted by Ghost on Wed, 2008-09-17 16:33.
Hey, Curt.
That's about the long and the short of it.
Hairstyles can be imitated. Totalitarian agriculture can be imitated. English can be imitated. Clinging unceasingly to civilisation can be imitated.
The meme is the transmitted instruction that an imitator expresses as that imitated behaviour.
Of course those are more individual memes then cultural memes, the later being the ones we are most concerned about when it comes to saving the world.
Culture is the sum total of common, unusual and normative behaviours that a social group engages in as well as the effects and artefacts created by those behaviours.
Thus memetic behaviour, particulary in humans, forms a large part of a given culture. While all human genetic behaviours are essentially identical, the differences in memetic behaviour allow us to identify different cultures. The mohawk hairstyle was unique to the Mohawk. Red dye was unique to the Phonecians. Egyptian hieroglyphs were unique to the Egyptians. TA, unlimited growth, never abandoning civilisation, believing their way was the only right way and all the rest were unique to the Tak.
They're all cultural memes because memes are units of cultural transmission.
The difference in memes is that hairstyles aren't lethal memes; unless the style was, say, cut off your head. Lethal genes kill their host. Lethal memes kill their host. Those are the ones we're worried about.
Unfortunately for us, memes are subject to the evolutionary principal of flow. Meme flow is the process in which memes flow from one culture's meme pool to another. This is how the Tak's memes invaded just about every other culture's meme pool and why they have a near 100% representation in all of the meme pools in the world today.
The Taker memes form a memeplex; a group of self-supporting memes that are more likely to be selected when working as a group and that are resistant to invasion by other memes; a property of all memeplexes. The cultures that express the Taker memeplex are engaged in a Nash Equilibrium. Let's call the strategy they're using annihilator. If someone stops playing annihilator, they're likely to be wiped out. Thus the Nash Equilibrium is resistant to mutant strategies because no player benefits from unilaterally changing their strategy.
Thus in order to break this Nash Equilibrium we need to do (or have done to us) one of two things. Create a strategy than can compete with the annihilators or change the conditions on the playing field so that the players do beneift by unilaterally changing their strategy.
Peace and Love and Empathy,
Matt
Thanks for the Meme-ories
Submitted by TwoRoadsTom on Wed, 2008-09-17 17:03.
This has been good, meaty stuff to read about and dissect. Let me run it through an iteration based on what I've seen so far.
As opposed to challenger memes (which fight for supremacy against dominant memes), I'm considering what it takes to make a viral generator. While viral strategy overall is an ESS, on an individual level, it's very dangerous. Give up all the mechanisms for competing in a given strategy in order to infect and replicate inside the host organism.
In games, I'd call this the 'hero complex', where the one person takes on incredible odds and somehow inspires legions to follow her example. 
Thoughts?
Best
Bill Maxwell
"Change comes from giving up the myth that you are in control."
Viral?
Submitted by Ghost on Wed, 2008-09-17 18:08.
Hey, Bill.
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.
When it comes to challenger memes, fight, supremacy an dominant don't enter into it. If I have a meme 'do A' and I receive a meme 'do B', it challanges the existing meme. One of them will be selected over the other because you can't do A and B.
I really don't understand what your viral generator is supposed to do. Could you elaborate?
Peace and Love and Empathy,
Matt
Dealing with a memeplex
Submitted by TwoRoadsTom on Wed, 2008-09-17 18:34.
Tak culture (well, all cultures actually) form a memeplex, a collection of memetic directions that form the aggregate we've come to know. That's what we're up against. It's not analogous to a gene -- a single expression. It's more analagous to a strand of DNA, complete instructions to an organism.
By viral, I mean a collection of self-replicating memes whose function is to (a) replicate itself on a massive scale (relatively speaking) and (b) disable its host, in this case, the Tak memeplex.
Perhaps a challenger meme and a viral memeplex are/can be one and the same; the difference I see is that a viral memeplex doesn't have to produce a viable lifestyle that supplants the Tak memeplex. It just has to replicate itself / disable the host.
That's not fully fair, of course, since a 'virus' could seed new lifestyles as well but theoretically a viral generator would cause enough cognitive dissonance that the Tak culture couldn't prevail.
Gah! Still feels not quite right, not quite explained. That, of course is why I put up this thread, trying to work it out.
I'm not trying active (violent), passive (stoic); I'm trying to think sideways.
Best
Bill Maxwell
"Change comes from giving up the myth that you are in control."
Just to clarify
Submitted by Ghost on Fri, 2008-09-19 02:06.
Hey, Bill.
I just want to clarify some terminology so we can proceed on the same page.
Tak culture (well, all cultures actually) form a memeplex, a collection of memetic directions that form the aggregate we've come to know.
The Tak were a fictional people who are the theoretical first Takers. Taker culture is a globe-spanning culture that has been adopted by multiple peoples.
Culture does and does not form a memeplex. A memeplex is short form for co-adapted meme complex. It consists of a given number of co-evolved, self-supporting memes that are more readily selected as a group than as individual replicators. They are exactly analagous to co-adapted gene complexes. A genome, the sum total of genes in an organism CAN be considered a geneplex but is better conisdered a collection of geneplexes; spleen, brain, skeleton. Culture CAN be considered a memeplex but it is better considered a collection of memeplexes; religion, lifestyle, fashion.
No one can say which memeplexes make up Taker culture because no one has ever studied it. We have identified several memes that are both unique to Taker culture and lethal.
It's not analogous to a gene -- a single expression. It's more analagous to a strand of DNA, complete instructions to an organism.
There are many genes in a genome. There are many memes in a memome. A genome is several strands of DNA; each one a chromosome. A memome is several strands of _____ (the term hasn't been invented yet, but it has something to do how symbol is stored in memory); each one a _____ (No term yet. I've tacitly adopted memosome).
There are many memes in the Taker memome that are fine. They aren't lethal. Many, if not most, are actually adaptive. So we're not up against the entire memome, just the lethal areas; the memes and memeplexes. The difficulty is that memes are not always easy to disarticulate from the memome.
By viral, I mean a collection of self-replicating memes whose function is to (a) replicate itself on a massive scale (relatively speaking) and (b) disable its host, in this case, the Tak memeplex.
Memes, like genes, are replicators. No replicator is self-replicating. DNA does not replicate itself. It requires the machinery in cells. Memes are not self-replicating. They require the machinery in our brains. Replicators cannot be self-replicating because they are only information; they are instructions and nothing more.
Viruses are organisms. They don't replicate. They reproduce.
Expressed genes result in organisms. Organisms form species.
Expressed memes result in imitators. Imitators form cultures.
In order to create some sort of viral analogue, you wouldn't create individual memes but rather an imitator or culture that acted like a virus. Imitators and entire cultures, if hosted by a target culture, could have some sort of effect, like Hippies or Mohawk hosted by Americans. The question is, what is that effect?
In order to create a new type of imitator or culture, you'd require memes different than those of the culture you wanted to disrupt that would cause them to behave in different ways.
This is what Quinn is trying to do. Introduce new memes.
The Taker memome is hosted in people's minds. The only way to disrupt it is to introduce new memes so that the individual imitators of the Taker culture start acting differently and can therefore no longer be called Takers. For instance, Leavers.
Also, the Taker memeplex is not an entity. It's a set of instructions for behaviour that imitators express.
I'm not sure how coherent that was.
Perhaps a challenger meme and a viral memeplex are/can be one and the same; the difference I see is that a viral memeplex doesn't have to produce a viable lifestyle that supplants the Tak memeplex. It just has to replicate itself / disable the host.
A memeplex isn't a host, but a collection of instructions that are hosted. We are the host. So disabling the host, while unproductive, is actually quite impossible with memes.
Memes are instructions for behaviour. The lethal Taker memes are instructions for how to make your living. They will not be disarticulated from the memome unless there are alternate instructions for making a living. Otherwise, people would just starve to death for lack of trying. That's never going to happen.
Actually, the only exception to that I could think of would be a 'suicide' meme a la Jonestown, Heaven's Gate, Branch Dividian.
The sense that I get from your idea is that you're looking for something that can be unleashed upon Takers and that will disable them. My question would be, what does disable mean?
That's not fully fair, of course, since a 'virus' could seed new lifestyles as well but theoretically a viral generator would cause enough cognitive dissonance that the Tak culture couldn't prevail.
Any given culture has a meme pool. Memes have a greater or lesser representation in the meme pool; 0-100%. New memes, like challenger memes, will either spread through a memepool, replacing the old memes, or not. There's something 'viral' about that, but it's not the proper term. If new memes that are instructions for alternate ways of making a living increase their representation in the meme pool then the imitators that have articulated them into their memome will act differently. The culture won't be disabled so much as it will shrink as its mutant imitators are re-classified as some other culture.
I don't know how a viral generator could cause cognitive dissonance. CD is the result of holding conflicting ideas in your mind. If the Taker memes are the original idea, what is the conflicting idea?
I THINK I get where you're coming from, but I also think there's a reason it doesn't feel right to you. You're just using terminology that's a little on the gobledigook side. Have my clarifications helped or hindered?
Peace and Love and Empathy,
Matt
Nash Equilibrium
Hey, Bill.
I would say, yes, absolutely we're dealing with a Nash Equilibrium.
I've been working with the Nash Equilibrium pretty extensively for my book. BTW - I'm hoping to finish the first of three parts by the end of the year. I'll speak to your question from where I'm coming from. I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for but I hope it's worth something.
There is a concept in game theory that, simplistically put, states that if two people are playing the best strategy they can, with no rational way to change, they will stay in equilibrium even if an overall change could be beneficial to both players.
My understanding of the NE is a little different. Evolutionarily Stable Strategies, ESSs, are NEs. The idea is that if there are a number of players in a system playing the same game and no one player gains an advantage by UNILATERALLY changing their strategy, then they likely won't make unilateral change, meaning that because no one player will change, the system will be stable.
So for example, all of the players in the global peer polity system, the various states of the world, use the ANNIHILATOR strategy. If one state suddenly stopped playing annihilator, they would not gain; largely because the other annihilators would, well, annihilate them. So there is a Nash Equilibrium.
Gene complexes form NEs. ESS gene complexes are RESISTANT TO INVASION from other genes.
The Taker memeplex enjoys a NE. It is resistant to abandonment and to invasion from other memes. No player hosting the Taker memeplex benefits from unilaterally changing the game they are playing.
I don't know how coherent I'm being. I just flew to Calgary today and I'm a little messed up.
The only thing my mind works on right now is: Player 1 -- Us, Player 2 -- Mother Culture. We take a worse position temporarily to encourage the entrance of Player 3 -- Gaia / Earth / Nature / whatever to upset the status quo.
I would suggest that your list of players isn't too functional. The players would be more like individual memetic imitators, ie, the populations of each state, or the states themselves. The players need to have a similar denominator, ie, all states, all individuals...
Now...
The Jason Godesky solution to this is passive. The situation will change. Thus the current ESS (memes are subject to Darwinism and; therefore, the imitation of them form ESSs) will likely no longer apply. The ESS will change because the players will ALL have to change their game in order to cope with the new situation.
My solution is more active. Really, it's the Quinn aproach. Introduce memes that CAN INVADE the ESS memeplex. If adopted, they will cause players to change their strategy.
Solution two... the reality is that any player in the Taker ESS WILL gain an advantage by unilaterally changing their game. Not in the sense of product wealth, the real goal of the Taker 'game', but it the more intangible, you will survive if you do, kind of way. We know, us Quinnians, that the Taker game is a no-win. So we've changed our perception of what advantage is. That's satisfactory to make people WANT to change their strategy; however, the problem is that we all began/begin as Takers ourselves. We have/will change our strategy; however, we still have to play with the Takers. So our new strategy has to take that into account.
Ok. I'm done for now. My brain is mush. Hope this helped a little.
Peep dis. I pulled this from the book. It's about NEs and genes. Just substitute memes and it's the same thing.
John Forbes Nash, made famous as the protagonist in the 2002 CE biographical film “A Beautiful Mind”, introduced the idea of the Nash Equilibrium (alternately called the Cournot-Nash equilibrium) in his 1950 CE dissertation entitled Non-Cooperative Games.
According to Nash, if two or more players in a game gain no benefit from unilaterally changing their strategy provided the other players maintain their chosen strategy, then all of the player’s strategies create an equilibrium in which change is unlikely.
The idea of the evolutionarily stable strategy is a form of Nash equilibrium in which the strategies adopted by the players consist of the expressions of the genes they have evolved with over time. These genes confer the best possible advantage on their possessor. Natural selection plays a further role in ESS, preventing mutant strategies (genes) from invading, provided the mutations do not offer a greater advantage.
Thus, an evolutionary stable strategy is one that cannot be altered by lesser strategies.
The idea of ESS has absolutely nothing to do with right or wrong whatsoever. There is no right way for a trait to offer an advantage; there is no wrong way for a trait to offer an advantage. In fact, there is no one right way period. There is only that which works and that which does not work.
Lesser is not an absolute term but a term relative to the ecosystem in which the players find themselves. For instance, if five players are standing on a raft that is heading towards a waterfall and each has vowed to shoot the other if they try to jump off, then jumping off, changing the strategy, is unlikely even though going off the waterfall is going to suck. Jumping off is a strategy that offers a lesser strategy; getting shot vs not getting shot.
Peace and Love and Empathy,
Matt