Applied Ethology, Memes, and ISOs

• Interactive/Self-Organizing Systems by John Fentress, 10/4/97
  
  

John Fentress cajoled me into joining the Applied Ethology list. I understand there are about 4000 in the group of ethologists, biology students, psychologists, and so forth. I don't know if psychiatry or naturopaths have yet discovered it. Still, things show up in my email, several times per day and from many different parts of the world. Items about neural feeding mechanisms, about a dog overdosed on chocolate becoming hyper and then depressed; I've learned that shrews have both an advocate and a homepage.

Watching the AE list gives me the same reaction - at times - as staring at flashing holiday lights, the display is constantly changing. The subtle, powerful incentive is watching the bits organize into larger clusters. (I have always had a module for seeking patterns and redundancy, even to the extent of studying the tile chips on the floor in my school bathrooms!).

Brian Goodwin, Lynn Margulis, and Stuart Kauffman (1) in seriatim have given me a second use for my redundancy seeker ... that of seeking patterns in ideas. Margulis uses kefir, a mutant yogurt, as an example of many many kinds of bacteria working cooperatively, building a complex, amorphous structure within which they all can live. She may be correct that kefir is a contemporary variation on the development of complex life forms.

Dawkins has spoken well about memes, ideas that acquire a development course that is independent of any single individual. Memes, like genes, move across generations and have survival value for themselves because they promote reproductive fitness for their carriers. The memes in AE are like a batch of kefir, bubbling around. Some of them more resemble an intellectual lava lamp, no structure emerges from the endless slow churning. Some of them, however, attach in clumps, develop a structure, and cooperative dialogue grows. And you can't always tell which idea or submission will acquire collaborators and grow.

For example, the bit about the mood roll shown by the chocolate-inhaling dog. The author related his changes to theobromine and wondered if there were a model possible for human affective reactions. I will likely post today my own memories of injecting microliter amounts of glutamic acid onto attack sites in cat hypothalamus. The cats bit hell (not chewing but a sustained bite) of anesthetized rats for about 10 minutes and then became catatonic (no pun!) for 6-8 hours later. Glutamate can cause cellular lesions; we may have chemically burned holes in their brains; glutamate, a powerful and high turnover excitatory transmitter, also rapidly and irreversibly changes to GABA, a powerful inhibitory substance that appears to play an important role in suppressing anxiety. Sounds like the same cycle exhibited by that dog. Sounds like the same excitation-inhibition pattern described by Goodwin and others as pervasive through nature.

Of course, you don't need the Net to watch these things. I have a folder that catches the paper copies of my seminar correspondence (Healing the Moral Animal, 7/20-24/98; see www.cape.org/1998/ for more information!). It's nearly 3 inches thick and things are clumping together. There's a Bob Wright assembly, another tied to Russ Gardner, a third to student recruiting, and so on. At some point, I will experience a phase shift (2), subdivide the folder and watch each of its offspring grow and eventually fission. (3)

Send an email to "applied_ethology@skyway.usask.ca" and say "subscribe." Fun stuff!

NOTES:

1) John Fentress helps, too, by his incessant zeal for these issues.

2) I wish this technique worked for getting hyperactive kids to clean their rooms. However, that phenomenon might not exist but for the associated warfare between parents and the child. Competition can drive diversity if there are alternative niches.

3) Kefir will simmer in my mind at 3 A.M. I waken, grab my block of PostIts, scribble, and fall back to sleep. Or I may toss a bit, churning ideas about, even watching myself think about them. On some mornings, the effect is like popcorn and PostIts litter my rug like fallen leaves. Sometimes 4 of them will stack on top one another, in a series on a particular subject; other times, I can anticipate the spillage and use a larger PostIt (I have 2 sizes for this madness). Monthly, I can anticipate the flow, that it will be focused but easily lost, and grab a clipboard. I've lately stuffed an older PC and now have the potential for rolling left and starting to type. Skinner once had his own box, containing a bed and typewriter, perhaps a fridge and a coffee pot. My hazy impression is that Sony designed it for him. Unlike Fred, I have to remember to leave the darn computer running from the night before. Hasn't happened yet.

Dawkins, R. (1976, 1989) The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford.

Goodwin, B (1994) How the Leopard Changed Its Spots: The Evolution of Complexity. NY: Simon & Schuster.

Kauffman, S. (1995) At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity. NY: Oxford.

Margulis L & Sagan D (1997) Slanted Truths: Essays in Gaia, Symbiosis, and Evolution. NY: Springer-Verlag. (probably the clearer and less costly of these two citations but no colored pictures!)

Margulis L & Sagan, D (1995) What is Life? NY: Simon & Schuster

• Would be Good to have more ISOs on Board by John Fentress, 1/17/98