[FRIAM] excess meaning alert? (was, Re: are we how we behave?)

[Nick Thompson]

Lee, 

Hmmmm!  As I wrote the post down, I was having nervous feelings, which you
now confirm.  A selfish act does not need to be in the interest of that act
itself, but of the actor.  So if we think of the gene as a kind of act, and
we think of the population as choosing the act for its own benefit, then
perhaps the metaphor survives.  I still think Dawkins use of the metaphor
fails, because he wants to claim that the level of selection IS the gene.  

In short, point taken. 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of
lrudolph at meganet.net
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2019 5:28 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] excess meaning alert? (was, Re: are we how we behave?)

Nick says, in relevant part:

> For instance, when
> sociobiologists use the notion of selfish gene, they may legitimately 
> disclaim the idea that genes consciously choose between self-regarding 
> and other-regarding options, but they cannot legitimately disclaim the 
> idea that a gene has the power to make any choice but the 
> self-regarding one And that idea is patently false.  Genes do not make 
> choices, they ARE choices and the choice is made at the level of the 
> phenotype or at the level of the population, depending on how one thinks
about the matter.
> My position is that I favor each and every one of us taking whatever 
> responsibility for understanding our own "convex hull" of 
> capability/knowledge/intuition as we are capable of and "managing" it 
> to the best of our ability.

Although I am always happy to impugn the integrity of sociobiologists, and
in particular have no doubt that they are (perhaps not deliberately with
malice aforethought) equivocating on the meanings of "selfish", there
*are* two such meanings in common usage, which lead to two possible readings
of the phrase "selfish gene".  (1) The first meaning of "selfish"
(in the nearest dictionary) is "concerned chiefly or only with oneself"),
and using that one, the phrase "selfish gene" deserves all the scorn and
deprecation you have for it, precisely because the reading of the phrase
enforced by that definition of the adjective forces "self"-hood on the gene.
(2) However, the second meaning of "selfish" is "arising from, characterized
by, or showing selfishness" (where "selfishness", not explicitly defined in
this dictionary, has to be taken as implicitly defined by (1) in what might
loosely be called a recursive manner); the example phrase, "a selfish whim",
illustrate that the "self" to which "selfishness" is ascribed need not (and
I would say, generally is not) the noun directly modified by "selfish"
("whim" or "gene"), but is rather some other (actual or metaphorical) agent
(the person whose whim it is or the population/phenotype which
has--metaphorically--"chosen", i.e., actually *evolved*, the gene).

To the extent sociobiologists carelessly equivocate between those meanings,
they are to be corrected; to the extent that they do so tendentiously, they
are to be deplored (as well as corrected); but perhaps some of them (with
whom you are not familiar, or who you have possibly
misread) make it explicit that they are using meaning (2)?  *Those*
sociobiologists ought to be commended!


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