snip> Keith Henson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snippage>
> I wrote one of the earliest popular articles on > memes "MEMETICS AND THE MODULAR-MIND" in Analog >(1987).
I put the pointers up for historical context.
light. Even if they were harmful when they started, the ones that survive over generations evolve and do not cause too much damage to their hosts. Calvin (who had dozens of people executed over theological disputes) would hardly recognize Presbyterians three hundred years later."
<smile> I think of memes like the Golden Rule as beneficial symbionts, although in the strictly biological sense they tend to benefit others, rather than those who express the Rule in action. Originally, or at least by the time it was probably incorporated into our genes, altruism likely did benefit continuation of the expressor's genes, in the survival of relatives.
There is a very dark side to Hamilton's inclusive fitness. In the Pleistocene genes conditionally inducing irrational behavior that would get you killed became common this way.
Keith Henson
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