Memes as complex systems
Report on interaction task
Roger Bradbury
The history of the interaction task
July 2003 - Initial discussions at CABM meeting in Melbourne
August 2003 - Further discussion at CSS conference in Sydney, and proposal developed
August 2004 - Mini-workshop at CSS conference in Coffs Harbour
August 2004 - Major international workshop in Canberra, 13 - 17 August
Workshop objectives
Expose the complex systems researchers to the ideas of meme scientists (and vice versa)
Examine possible research questions (particularly in the areas of using complex systems tools to model memetic phenomena and the interaction between meme worlds and the human social worlds)
Propose a research agenda in the form of a ‘Grand Challenge’ manifesto.
Who we were
Memeticists and modellersSocial and natural scientistsTheoreticians and practitionersAll with a Darwinian bias
The team
Dave Batten
Sue Blackmore
Fabio Boschetti
Roger Bradbury
Shawn Callahan
Ian Enting
John Finnigan
Anne-Marie Grisogono
Steve Hatfield Dodds
Nicky Grigg
David Newth
Andrew Rixon
Rob Seymour
Angela Wardell-Johnson
Rachel Williams
What we did
A series of discussions on memes and complexity - from each side - led by different experts
A series of case studiesSome experimental modellingA drafting exercise for a Policy Forum
paper in Science
The discussions
Memes – conceptual issues and theory (Sue Blackmore)
Memes as real, Darwinian entities (Roger Bradbury)Complex systems – the state of the art (John Finnigan)Memes and emergence (Fabio Boschetti)Modelling strategies for complex systems (Ian Enting)Modelling memes as complex systems (David Newth
and Nicky Grigg)
The discussions (cont.)
Modelling evolutionary dynamics (Rob Seymour)Ecological principles and memes (Andrew Rixon)Policy development problems and memes (Steve
Hatfield Dodds)Memes and agents (Dave Batten)Memes and organizations (Rachel Williams and
Shawn Callahan)Memes and complexity – the view from sociology
(Angela Wardell-Johnson)
The case studies
Brainstormed 10, winnowed to 3Focus on public policy issues as
memesDevelopment aidWar on terrorWar on drugs
The modelling
From genes to memesWhat would memespace look like?How might memeplexes behave?Memes as a networkAre simple memes strong attractors?
The paper
‘Public policy, memes and complex systems’Policies are built from ideas, but ideas are memes
that, like genes, interact in complex ways with humans and their culture
Policy is constructed by and for often short-lived, often simple memes, each with their own selfish interests, within a complex framework of culture built by relatively longer-lived genes.
What changed?
Memes are realAs real as genes, information
Memes are differentDifferent labile dynamics to genesMemeplexes, simplicity
We can handle them with CSSNetworks surprisingly promising cf ABM
We can make strong new predictionsMore powerful than socio-biological explanations
Development aid
Memes encourage naïve interventionRegardless of the truth value of the meme
Aid continues — and will continue to fail — while ‘aid’ meme is satisfied
War on terror
Terrorism emerges from a new memeplex associating simple ‘killing’ memes with powerful ‘religion’ memes
The memeplex spreads from brain to brain in new ways — internet
Can be disrupted by selective pressureIndependently of ‘reforms’ such as
democratisation or market reforms
War on drugs
Drug policy creates harm out of all proportion to its cost
Because simple ‘drugs are bad’ meme reproduces well in all players
Change won’t come until we can encourage new memeplexes
There are some in memespace but far away
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