If you hold that humans are not just genetic propagators, but memetic propagators (and technological propagators), then the what will remain of you isn’t just your genes. The memes you use/invent and the technology you use/invent will outlive you as well. Acting in a way to promote the replication of one of the replicators is no more important than promoting any of the other replicators. An idea or a technology being born from you is just as much an immortalization as a child. It just doesn’t feel that way because genes have a billion year hold on you and grab you at an instinctual level.
Keep in mind, if the singularity hits then ‘outliving you’ becomes a hard prospect when ‘you’ can outlive stars. Should you upload, your genes will live on only in they way they affected your personality. When that happens, the only part of you to remain and reproduce will be your memes. I feel like this is far more pure a replication than any crude duplication with DNA or RNA could ever be.
Just because you were originally built to be a machine to replicate genes doesn’t mean that is all that you will ever be.
Your hypothetical person holds themselves as a ‘gene machine’, but their views should further change when you look at humans ‘gene/meme/(tech) machine’.
Animals are gene replicators but not meme replicators and so hold lower value. Humans can think and animals can’t, at least not in the way of replicating memes. That’s why we, and anything else that can think, are worth more.
The subject would become more aware of their mind, and what memes and tech they’re allowing to replicate. They should take additional care in what arguments and ideas they let pass onto others, and which ideas of others they find dangerous and must block their own mind from adopting.
Kinship towards others would be based on ideological lines. Genetically, we’re all prettymuch identical because humans make up such a small piece of the gene-pie. Even someone who looks ‘perfectly opposite’ you is practically identical to you genetically. Memetically, humans are the entire pie, so a subject with perfectly opposite ideas can really be your opposite. You would judge people more on the content of their minds.
Lastly, you would look at those with different beliefs and do what you can to replicate your memes. You’d teach them and explain to them why your belief is true, and why it is good.
When you take memes into account, Egan’s Law comes back to being true.
Some hold that we are not just genetic propagators, but memetic propagators as well. That link also talks about how technology may be the third replicator. Eg, technology is literally evolving. Memes aren’t good or bad, they just are.
If you hold that humans are not just genetic propagators, but memetic propagators (and technological propagators), then the what will remain of you isn’t just your genes. The memes you use/invent and the technology you use/invent will outlive you as well. Acting in a way to promote the replication of one of the replicators is no more important than promoting any of the other replicators. An idea or a technology being born from you is just as much an immortalization as a child. It just doesn’t feel that way because genes have a billion year hold on you and grab you at an instinctual level.
Keep in mind, if the singularity hits then ‘outliving you’ becomes a hard prospect when ‘you’ can outlive stars. Should you upload, your genes will live on only in they way they affected your personality. When that happens, the only part of you to remain and reproduce will be your memes. I feel like this is far more pure a replication than any crude duplication with DNA or RNA could ever be.
Just because you were originally built to be a machine to replicate genes doesn’t mean that is all that you will ever be.
Your hypothetical person holds themselves as a ‘gene machine’, but their views should further change when you look at humans ‘gene/meme/(tech) machine’.
Animals are gene replicators but not meme replicators and so hold lower value. Humans can think and animals can’t, at least not in the way of replicating memes. That’s why we, and anything else that can think, are worth more.
The subject would become more aware of their mind, and what memes and tech they’re allowing to replicate. They should take additional care in what arguments and ideas they let pass onto others, and which ideas of others they find dangerous and must block their own mind from adopting.
Kinship towards others would be based on ideological lines. Genetically, we’re all prettymuch identical because humans make up such a small piece of the gene-pie. Even someone who looks ‘perfectly opposite’ you is practically identical to you genetically. Memetically, humans are the entire pie, so a subject with perfectly opposite ideas can really be your opposite. You would judge people more on the content of their minds.
Lastly, you would look at those with different beliefs and do what you can to replicate your memes. You’d teach them and explain to them why your belief is true, and why it is good.
When you take memes into account, Egan’s Law comes back to being true.
That is cultural kin selection.
That sounds about right. And thank you for introducing me to that blog. It seems to have some good stuff so I’ll check it out.