Vanity Fea - Blog de notas de José Angel García Landa (Biescas y Zaragoza)
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Dawkins. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Dawkins. Mostrar todas las entradas
martes, 3 de febrero de 2026
domingo, 7 de septiembre de 2025
Meme(ce)s de Dawkins
Meme(ce)s de Dawkins
Quizá se haya apeado Richard Dawkins de su teoría del gen egoísta, que
nos hubiera llevado a concebir los genes como el único sujeto evolutivo o
el único nivel en el cual se jugaba la selección natural—una idea ésta
un tanto repugnante para los que nos consideramos como algo más que un
amasijo de genes, o un epifenómeno de sus maquinaciones inconscientes.
Pero sigue predicando a modo de meme recurrente un darwinismo selectivo
absurdamente estricto, basando la selección natural en una pura lucha o
competencia de individuos contra individuos, siendo que el propio Darwin
reconocía cómo las dinámicas de grupos eran una dimensión a tener en
cuenta en la selección natural.
Dawkins habla así a pie de página en Evolución: El mayor espectáculo sobre la Tierra (2009), supuestamente aclarando los conceptos que utiliza:
"No deje que le engañe el desafortunado subtítulo del gran libro de Darwin: El origen de las especies mediante la selección natural o la conservación de las razas favorecidas en la lucha por la vida. Está
bastante claro a través del propio texto que Darwin no se refería a las
razas en el sentido de 'Grupo de personas, animales o plantas
conectados por origen o descendientes comunes' (Oxford English Dictionary, acepción
6.1). Por el contrario, él trataba de referirse a algo como lo que
expresa la acepción 6.II de ese mismo diccionario: 'Grupo o clase de
personas, animales o cosas que comparten una o varias características'"—
(p. 67 n.8),
—cuando es obvio que para la noción darwiniana de la evolución la ascendencia común y la descendencia con modificación es
un concepto absolutamente crucial, y no basta con tener
"características comunes" (—algo que a continuación Dawkins reformula a
una cosa que no es lo mismo en absoluto, a saber, compartir el mismo
alelo concreto a nivel genético). Ictiosaurios y delfines, por ejemplo,
compartirían algunas características comunes, pero no por poseer un
genoma similar.
Aún peor sigue la explicación de Dawkins, rechazando absurdamente el concepto de selección de grupo:
"El malentendido de la lucha darwiniana por la existencia como lucha entre grupos de
individuos—la denominada 'falacia de la selección por grupos'
—lamentablemente no se limita al racismo hitleriano. Resurge
continuamente en las erróneas interpretaciones del darwinismo, incluso
entre algunos biólogos que deberían saberlo mejor que nadie" (p. 67 n.
8).
De malentendido ni falacia nada, a no ser los que introduce Dawkins. La
selección natural funciona a nivel de individuos, a nivel de
poblaciones, y a nivel de especies. La falacia es proclamar, no se sabe
muy bien en base a qué, que la supervivencia del más adaptado (por
utilizar la expresión de Spencer que tampoco le gusta a Dawkins) supone
que el más adaptado es un individuo. A veces si un individuo no
sobrevive, hay que buscar la explicación a nivel de grupo. En realidad,
la misma noción de individuo está mal definida si no tenemos en cuenta
la dinámica grupal de los individuos, que puede ser muy diversa en
especies con diferente socialización.
En fin, que no sé si habría dormido poco Dawkins cuando escribió esta nota, pero desde luego se revelan algunas tendencias características, y limitaciones, de sus ideas sobre la evolución.
En la evolución humana en concreto todavía se aprecia mejor esta dinámica: los individuos no compiten meramente con otros individuos, sino que grupos (por ejemplo tribus, naciones, civilizaciones) etc., compiten con otros, y (por mantenernos en el nivel memético de la cuestión) son los grupos mejor adaptados al medio, con estrategias reproductivas más viables, los mejor organizados, los más eficaces en usar tecnología, información, etc. los que hacen proliferar sus memes. Las culturas más débiles se repliegan, se hibridizan o se extinguen, como vemos por ejemplo con la expansión de los imperios colonizadores o con la globalización. Poco importa que un individuo compitiese favorablemente con otros en el seno de su propia cultura, si el ecosistema cultural en su conjunto al que pertenece va a ser arrinconado o barrido por una cultura más potente.
Pues con los genes, parecido. Aunque una vaca marina sea el rey del mambo y macho dominante en su pequeño grupo, e insemine a muchas hembras (suponiendo que una vaca marina haga eso), si resulta que su grupo como tal resulta arrinconado, o se destroza su ecosistema, o las cazan a todas, allí se interrumpe la mano invisible de la selección natural en lo que a vacas marinas se refiere, y su descendencia con modificación.
Es
decir, que no compiten genes sueltos ni memes sueltos entre sí, ni
genes o memes embolsados en individuos, sino que hay una compleja
dinámica de ecosistemas, especies, poblaciones y culturas. Tiene una
utilidad muy limitada hablar de memes aislados, pues los memes van
también engarzados en fenómenos culturales, discursivos, ideológicos,
etc., más amplios: tecnologías, esquemas de acción o pensamiento
culturalmente definidos, discursos y géneros, tradiciones, esquemas de
organización conceptual... y la lucha por la vida de los memes, o su
dinámica de flujos, debe tener en cuenta estas estructuras de
organización superiores.
—oOo—
lunes, 17 de enero de 2022
Meme(ce)s de Dawkins - en Bolivia
Aparece en El Diario de Bolivia, a gran altura sobre Zaragoza, mi artículo sobre algunos aspectos de la memética de Richard Dawkins. En dos partes:
García Landa. "Meme(ce)s de Dawkins." (I). El Diario 16 Jan. 2022.*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HDbs5dTtGw
2022
_____. "Meme(ce)s de Dawkins." (II). El Diario 17 Jan. 2022.*
https://www.eldiario.net/portal/2022/01/17/memeces-de-dawkins-2/
_____
También aquí:
_____. "Meme(ce)s de Dawkins." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 2 August 2011.* (Group selection).
http://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2011/08/memez-de-dawkins_02.html
2011 DISCONTINUED 2025 – Online at the Internet Archive.*
2025
_____. "Meme(ce)s de Dawkins." Ibercampus (Vanity Fea) 3 Aug. 2021.*
https://www.ibercampus.es/memeces-de-dawkins-41392.htm
2021 DISCONTINUED 2024 – Online at Net Sight de José Angel García Landa.*
https://personal.unizar.es/garciala/publicaciones/Meme(ce)sIBERCAMPUS.pdf
2025
_____. "Meme(ce)s de Dawkins." (I). El Diario 16 Jan. 2022.*
https://www.eldiario.net/portal/2022/01/16/memeces-de-dawkins/
2022
_____. "Meme(ce)s de Dawkins." (II). El Diario (Bolivia) 17 Jan. 2022.*
https://www.eldiario.net/portal/2022/01/17/memeces-de-dawkins-2/
2022
_____. "Meme(ce)s de Dawkins—en Bolivia." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 17 Jan. 2022.*
https://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2022/01/memeces-de-dawkins-en-bolivia.html
2022 DISCONTINUED 2025 – Online at the Internet Archive.*
2025
_____. "Meme(ce)s de Dawkins." Net Sight de José Angel García Landa 25 Nov. 2022, 20 Jan. 2025.*
http://personal.unizar.es/garciala/publicaciones/meme(ce)s.html
2022
https://personal.unizar.es/garciala/publicaciones/meme(ce)s1&2.pdf
2025
https://personal.unizar.es/garciala/publicaciones/Meme(ce)sIBERCAMPUS.pdf
2025
https://personal.unizar.es/garciala/publicaciones/meme(ce)s2.pdf
2025
sábado, 19 de julio de 2025
The Virtual World We Inhabit
Richard Dawkins explains why we all move in a perceptual world which is not "the" world, but a VR model of the same, a mental model which we take for the real thing itself. That the objects of experience are mental constructions is a key philosophical insight which allows the convergence of classical idealism and of empiricist and naturalist epistemology. Here we note the antecedents of this naturalistic idealism in Hobbes's account of the body and the senses.
Full text at SSRN:
The Virtual World We Inhabit
From Dawkins Back to the Future with Hobbes
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5358156
Keywords: Perception, Experience, Phenomena, Empiricism, Idealism, Naturalism, Epistemology, Virtual reality, Hobbes, Dawkins
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Also here:
_____. "The Virtual World We Inhabit." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 18 Nov. 2019.*
https://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-virtual-world-we-inhabit.html
2019 – Online at the Internet Archive.*
2025
_____. "The Virtual World We Inhabit: From Hobbes to Dawkins to Augmented Reality." Ibercampus (Vanity Fea) 18 Nov. 2019.*
https://www.ibercampus.eu/the-virtual-world-we-inhabit-5378.htm
2019 DISCONTINUED 2021 – Online at the Internet Archive:
2025
_____. "The Virtual World We Inhabit: From Dawkins Back to the Future with Hobbes." Net Sight de José Angel García Landa 13 Dec. 2022.
https://personal.unizar.es/garciala/publicaciones/thevirtualworld.html
2022
https://personal.unizar.es/garciala/publicaciones/thevirtualworld.pdf
2025
_____. "The Virtual World We Inhabit." SSRN 1 Aug. 2025.*
https://ssrn.com/abstract=5358156
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5358156
2025
Epistemology eJournal 1 Aug. 2025.*
https://www.ssrn.com/link/Epistemology.html
2025
History of Western Philosophy eJournal 1 Aug. 2025.*
https://www.ssrn.com/link/History-of-Western-Philosophy.html
2025
Philosophy of Mind eJournal 1 Aug. 2025.*
https://www.ssrn.com/link/Philosophy-Mind.html
2025
Cognitive Psychology eJournal 1 Aug. 2025.*
https://www.ssrn.com/link/Cognitive-Psychology.html
2025
_____. "The Virtual World We Inhabit." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 19 July 2025.*
https://blogdenotasvanityfea.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-virtual-world-we-inhabit.html
2025
https://x.com/JoseAngelGLanda/status/1946589577482776578
2025
_____. "The Virtual World We Inhabit: From Dawkins Back to the Future with Hobbes." Academia 17 Feb. 2026.*
https://www.academia.edu/164718761/
2026
—oOo—
The Virtual World We Inhabit:
From Dawkins back to the Future with Hobbes
Richard Dawkins explains why we all move in a perceptual world which is not "the" world, but a virtual reality model of the same, a mental model which we take for the real thing itself.
This may seem far-fetched to the naive assumptions (and perceptions) of many people, yet it is self-evident from the moment we realize that although we may partly share our mental maps and models of the objective world, the section of the world I perceive and attend to is different from yours, a different location, a different point of view, etc. etc. Fairly obvious, actually.
Listen to Dawkins:
You and I, we humans, we mammals, we animals, inhabit a virtual world, constructed from elements that are, at successively higher levels, useful for representing the real world. Of course, we feel as if we are firmly placed in the real world—which is exactly as it should be if our constrained virtual reality software is any good. It is very good, and the only time we notice it at all is on the rare occasions when it gets something wrong. When this happens we experience an illusion or a hallucination, like the hollow mask illusion we talked about earlier.One might compare the brain to a Popperian scientist, projecting hypotheses onto the world, as a working model of the same, and correcting those hypotheses only when reality fails to replicate the experiment. If the perceptual/conceptual model is thus falsified, a new perceptual pattern or "hypothesis" is generated to see if it delivers in terms of workable action.
The British psychologist Richard Gregory has paid special attention to visual illusions as a means of studying how the brain works. In his book Eye and Brain (fifth edition 1998), he regards seeing as an active process in which the brain sets up hypotheses about what is going on out there, then tests those hypotheses about what is going on out there, then tests those hypotheses against the data coming in from the sense organs. One of the most familiar of all visual illusions is the Necker cube. This is a simple line drawing of a hollow cube, like a cube made of steel rods.
The drawing is a two-dimensional pattern of ink on paper. Yet a normal human sees it as a cube. The brain has made a three-dimensional model based upon the two-dimensional pattern of ink on paper. yet a normal human sees it as a cube. The brain has made a three-dimensional model based upon the two-dimensional pattern on the paper. This is, indeed, the kind of thing the brain does almost every time you look at a picture. The flat pattern of ink on paper is equally compatible with two alternative three-dimensional brain models. Stare at the drawing for some seconds and you will see it flip. The facet that had previously seemed nearest to you will now appear farthest. Carry on looking, and it will flip back to the original cube. The brian could have been designed to stick, arbitrarily, to one of the two cube models, say the first of the two that it hit upon, even though the other model would have been equally compatible with the information from the retinas. But in fact the brain takes the other option of running each model, or hypothesis, alternately for a few seconds at a time. Hence the apparent cube alternates, which gives the game away. Our brain constructs a three-dimensional model. It is virtual reality in the head. (...) The model in the brain (...) is constructed. But (...) it is, like the surgeon's computer model of the inside of her patient, not entirely invented: it is constrained by information fed in from the outside world. (275-77)
This "top-down" model of perception corrects the naive "bottom-up" account of the same, which gives a more passive role to the mind. On this account, the mind would simply receive the input from the senses, and would construct its mental model of the world as the result of a one-way process, world-to-mind. Using the scientific analogy, this would be a Baconian model of experience: from the collection of data, through induction and generalization, to the building of laws which account for the world (the mental models). Our Popperian account of the mind makes for a much more dynamic role of the mind: it is top-down to a large extent (although of course it is a dynamic two-way model, both top-down and bottom-up in a continuous feedback cycle). The mind is not merely receiving the input of "reality", it is also constructing and projecting that reality around the mental subject, so that minds are reality-generation machines, and the more elaborate the mind, the more mental and more virtual the reality it inhabits. The mind generates its own space for interaction with the world and with other minds, to the extent that both physical reality and (especially) social reality are the result of self-fulfilling expectations.
Expectations that we call institutions, frames, places (as socially defined), encounters, situations, discourses and disciplines.
For another take on this issue, I refer the reader to these two articles:
- "Goffman: La realidad como expectativa autocumplida y el teatro de la interioridad" — On the nature of social reality as a system of self-fulfilling expectations as theorized by Erving Goffman in his Frame Theory.
- "Constitución reflexiva de la percepción". By way of Hegel, a reflection on the construction of visual space as a mental intervention on reality, with our eyes (in a way) acting as a kind of Super-8 film projectors in a dark room, a bit like those 17th-c. prints which show Anatomical Men projecting light beams from their eyes, beams which illuminate the objects and allow them to be seen. (This is of course an image or analogy the better to visualize my point).
But it brings me nicely to the my last observation about our Virtual Reality in the Mind, having to do with the discovery of this artifact. Of course we would have to go back through a number of shades of awareness in a number of idealistic philosophers, from Plato's cavern to Descartes' evil genius. Nevertheless my example of choice comes from a celebrated materialist, Thomas Hobbes. We are of course at that point of reasoning about the world where matter becomes mind becomes matter, and thus Hobbes gives us (in his account of perception in Leviathan) a memorable definition of how exactly the world we perceive is a mental construct—minds being nothing but machines for the construction of such constructs, including, at a further ratchet of virtuality, their past and their future states, that is, time itself as a moving image of reality. (1)
CHAPTER I. OF SENSE
Concerning the Thoughts of man, I will consider them first Singly, and afterwards in Trayne, or dependance upon one another. Singly, they are every one a Representation or Apparence, of some quality, or other Accident of a body without us; which is commonly called an Object. Which Object worketh on the Eyes, Eares, and other parts of mans body; and by diversity of working, produceth diversity of Apparences.
The Originall of them all, is that which we call Sense; (For there is no conception in a mans mind, which hath not at first, totally, or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of Sense.) The rest are derived from that originall.
To know the naturall cause of Sense, is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and I have els-where written of the same at large. Nevertheless, to fill each part of my present method, I will briefly deliver the same in this place.
The cause of Sense, is the Externall Body, or Object, which presseth the organ proper to each Sense, either immediatly, as in the Tast and Touch; or mediately, as in Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling: which pressure, by the mediation of Nerves, and other strings, and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain, and Heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter-pressure, or endeavour of the heart, to deliver it self: which endeavour because Outward, seemeth to be some matter without. And this Seeming, or Fancy, is that which men call sense; and consisteth, as to the Eye, in a Light, or Colour Figured; To the Eare, in a Sound; To the Nostrill, in an Odour; To the Tongue and Palat, in a Savour; and to the rest of the body, in Heat, Cold, Hardnesse, Softnesse, and such other qualities, as we discern by Feeling. All which qualities called Sensible, are in the object that causeth them, but so many several motions of the matter, by which it presseth our organs diversly. Neither in us that are pressed, are they anything els, but divers motions; (for motion, produceth nothing but motion.) But their apparence to us is Fancy, the same waking, that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the Eye, makes us fancy a light; and pressing the Eare, produceth a dinne; so do the bodies also we see, or hear, produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action, For if those Colours, and Sounds, were in the Bodies, or Objects that cause them, they could not bee severed from them, as by glasses, and in Ecchoes by reflection, wee see they are; where we know the thing we see, is in one place; the apparence, in another. And though at some certain distance, the reall, and very object seems invested with the fancy it begets in us; Yet still the object is one thing, the image or fancy is another. So that Sense in all cases, is nothing els but originall fancy, caused (as I have said) by the pressure, that is, by the motion, of externall things upon our Eyes, Eares, and other organs thereunto ordained.
Perhaps augmented reality, a kind of Google Glass vision, is a better analogue for Hobbes's account of perception. The mind, subject to perceptual stimuli, constructs a fanciful or imaginary version of the world, so that the real and very object seems invested with the fancy it begets in us. Objects may well be in the world, but objects of perception are mental constructs: there is no visual appearance of the object without an eye and a brain, there is no sound whatsoever in a waterfall without the ear and the brain. Berkeley would extract some further consequences of the empiricist account of perception, and would brazenly define objects and the world in which they are placed as the products of the mind's activity, synthesizing the input from the senses and generating something which is not in the senses nor in any understandable sense in the "world without minds". Which is not of course what we usually mean by "the world": it is not the least of paradoxes that this non-mental "raw" world is only conceivable, when we come to examine it, as the result of an elaborate scientific abstraction from the much more intuitive world we inhabit, the virtual world constructed by our mind and our senses.
__________
(1) For more on the cognitive construction of time, see my paper on "La cartografía narrativa en la articulación del mundo humano: El papel de los esquemas y los textos narrativos."
—oOo—
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