Victims of memetic selection: Pee Lady and the Purrminator

Whilst writing a condensed summary of Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine" is still a future aspiration I have nonetheless mentioned some of it's ideas ('memes' if you like) in passing, where they apply to otherwise unrelated blog entries. This quick piece, however, is purely a rumination on memetics in contemporary culture.

In an evolutionary anthropological discussion of the origin of memes, over 2 million years ago in our hominid ancestors of the time, Blackmore considers that it would have been very difficult to know what memes to select for, from a point of view of the (selfish) genes. Once imitation of ideas (i.e. memes) existed in a population, they would spread and change host behaviour at a rate orders of magnitude more rapid than genes could hope to (through survival of the fittest individuals). Hence human genes only provide vague heuristics for meme selection (i.e. what things humans find intrinsically interesting/captivating). Here are some of apparently inbuilt selection criterion:

• Copy the most obvious memes (simplest, most fully understandable, least likely to be miss-copied).
• Copy the most popular memes (others finding it worthwhile indicates memetic usefulness, best not to be left out just in case).
• Copy memes for: sex, food, winning battles, gossip (each has strong genetic survival advantages for our social hominids).

Fashion sense, joke telling/humour, altruism, and religiousness are largely products of run-away sexual selection for mates that are good at spreading memes in general. This is due to the selection pressure applied by memes on genes, and appears to have had the same effect on hominid brain size as Peahen's sexual selection has had on Peacock's tails. But I digress; the point is that humans have these built in hot topics with universal appeal.

+ 'Pee Lady' (AKA Wendy Lewis): recently gained notoriety for urinating on a World War II memorial [1,2].

[From the Telegraph.co.uk]

This non-event only got so much media coverage because there was CCTV footage of the (frankly inadvertently) sinister act (perfect for TV news and article photographs. Also, the helpful camera operators called down a rapid response police team that caught her in the heinous act of fellating some bloke. Add to this her 'colourful' past that made her a perfect instant target for hate from the oldest generation, and her having to attend a court hearing to face charges.

Why SETI is stupid!

Many minds have pondered the tired, old 'Fermi Paradox' (the conspicuous lack of alien buddies out there in our humongous universe).

[XKCD]

+ Susan Blackmore's solution to the Fermi paradox (see her TED lecture): the necessary paradigm shifts to each kind of replicator (genes, memes, temes) are apocalyptically dangerous. Each (necessary) transition reduces the chances of a fertile planet bearing space-faring life forms; each adds an extra constant to the Drake Equation. She speculated in "The Meme Machine" that meme's evolutionary force driving bigger brains may have overstretched the physiology of our hominid peers, driving Neanderthals extinct. Mems have also, through humans, have wiped out more genetic diversity than a mass extinction, fostered luming terrors are nuclear annihilation, or terminator style runaway AI. I'm more optimistic, seeing only the risk of delay, not unrecoverable oblivion.

[TED (2008) - http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes.html]

[The (standard) Drake Equation]

+ In the BBC news article (that triggered this blog article): "Alien hunters 'should look for artificial intelligence'", Seth Shostak is interviewed as saying we should look for AI aliens, rather than flesh and bones. e.g. not just concentrating observations on biologically 'habitable' planets, but areas richest in mass and energy where only machines could exist.

[BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11041449 ]

So it seems the realisation may be approaching mainstream consciousness: ogling the skies for alien peers is quite clearly pointless. Not because (the conditions for) life is necessarily rare (or because of any literal religious truth), but because life (e.g. humanity) will pass through this (SETI) phase in gynaecological evolution so rapidly...

Self Congratulatory Celebrations!

To celebrate me finding the settings option for the new (much improved) Blogger post editor, I've created an "about" page for this blog.

I've long been thinking of writing down an explanation of my core beliefs, and also making a brief guide to the future. This will have to suffice for now.

I've also meant to make a post featuring the artwork I made specifically to customise the blog: this flying-cyber-brain thing (which I consider the main logo), and the human evolution meme variation (which is used as the separator between posts and 'gadgets'.

The "Mass Effect" 1 & 2 (full brain-dump)

* Introduction (for those living under a rock):

Mass Effect is a sci-fi space opera presented in the form of a single player, action role playing game (RPG) for XBox 360 and PC. The first instalment was released in November 2007, and May 2008 respectively (XBOX then PC), to much critical acclaim. Ridiculous overreactions to the brief (and tasteful by TV standards) sex cut-scene raised the game's media profile (and spawned the "Alien side-boob" internet meme).

Mass Effect 1 (ME1) incorporated a high quality, non-linear story line into a detailed universe with plenty of 3rd person shooter action. While plenty of first person shooters (FPSs) can claim better action, Mass Effect is somewhat unusual in that two AI controlled characters assist the player during every shooting segment. This is bold given that AI co-op has historically been a recipe for disaster.

It also brings in the option of 6 different main character classes (with different abilities in combat), male/female appearance (with facial customisations) and levelling up of various traits/skills as the game progresses, including those of the 6 squad mates you pick up. The contrasting personalities of the supporting characters ensure something for everyone, letting you chose your favourite 2 to take on missions, which one of 2 possibles to sweet talk, and even which die (permanently).

Equipment management (weapons, armour, ammunition modifiers) is a major part of ME1, as is driving around the surface of planets in an APC (the "Mako"). Both are dropped for the inevitable big budget sequel (ME2), released January 2010. ME2's increased focus on combat (with various tweaks and reduced distractions) seems to have helped it achieve an even better reception, with many perfect review scores. ME3 is now a certainty, with many fans (like myself) hoping it comes sooner rather than later.

I read somewhere that Bioware's development team had twice as many artists as programmers. At any rate, with such high artistic value, this franchise may, in future, be referred to as the turning point when single player computer games really came of age: truly occupying the same level of entertainment territory previously monopolised by TV series, movies and novels. I have

* Navigation:

If you have not played these games yet, but there is a good chance you will, I strongly suggest stopping reading here, for now, and coming back later. However, I have marked certain sub sections with {!Spoiler!} warnings to help minimise damage.

All in game screen shots were taken by me. Click pictures to view full resolution.

Given that this review turned into a 10'000 word dissertation, I have provided an mini-index:

• Introduction (for those living under a rock)
• Navigation
• Overview (praise)
• General Gripes
• A Fix too Far? (Mechanistic Changes from ME1 to ME2)
• Interlectualisation (Deeper Discussions)
• Summary

[Navigating plot through conversation options (ME1)]