List, following on from our thread on "Culture wires the brain", I want to look more closely at imitation (mimesis, knowing how to be) as a basic form of pragmatism.
It now surprises me that something as fundamental and sweeping as imitation goes under everyone's noses, throughout academia, barely noticed. This bears testimony to the power of a pre-existing narrative blinding us to the obvious. We are so immersed within the "because genes" mythology that we fail to see the imitation that precedes it... the imitation that led to its acceptance and subsequent popularization. "But what about the genes?" we reflexively ask. The idea of imitation as a genetically determined adaptive trait (natural selection) has it seriously the wrong way around. Forget the genes. They are clearly very important, certainly with respect to biology and inheritance of physical traits. They certainly impact on our predispositions. But I suggest that genes/DNA are better understood in the context of momentum (habituation), predisposition, and resistance to change... it is a fundamental mistake to conflate their correlation with causation. But it's obvious when you think it through. Role models (as cultural attractors), the company we keep. Gender roles depend on imitation within the context of mind-body predispositions. We imitate accents, whether we like them or not, even when they make us cringe. Jesus told his followers to imitate him. Social insects, like ants, perish rapidly when kept in isolation, without any fellow ants to imitate. The domestication of animals relies on their imitation of human civility. Feral children (children raised by wild animals) imitate their "adoptive parents" to become impossible to assimilate into "normal" society later... the video of Oxana Malaya (neglected but not strictly feral), available online, provides compelling insight into the power of imitation, with respect to the dogs that nurtured her. Imitation is so fundamental, so comprehensive, so sweeping, but we don't see it because we are swayed by the very illusions that are derived from it. We assume these illusions to be "just reality as it is, what is there to question?" Of course for some critters, imitation does not seem to be that crucial... turtles that hatch and make a dash for the open ocean... turtles safely cocooned in a thick shell don't need to imitate anyone, they survive just fine. What about other non-social animals and insects? What price do they pay for not having models to imitate? Might mimesis (mimicry) be a substitute for some of them, like insects that look like leaves? Richard Dawkins correctly reminds us of the arbitrariness of religion. If one were born into Islam, they would be Muslim. If one were born into Christianity, they become Christians. And both have been known to fight to the death for their arbitrary truth that derives from imitation. He's right. And of course, the precious irony... Dawkins himself fails to see the imitation that accounts for his faith in the selfish gene... despite the selfish gene's obvious violation of the entropy problem. The onus of proof of the Neo-Darwinists remains outstanding, because they've not taken seriously the entropy problem (e.g., Shannon entropy). Do primitive cultures have a better understanding of entropy than we do? Not in theory. But maybe intuitively. That's why they invented their gods, and why they will continue to invent their gods to explain all this amazing complexity that they cannot accept happened by dumb luck. Neo-Darwinists, however, are perfectly happy with their dumb-luck hypothesis, smugly secure that they have the One True answer, and they don't even think that there's a problem. Islam, meet Darwin. Nature/nurture? The evidence supporting "nature" as first-cause is lacking. There is no "because genes". I'm going to stick with "nurture" (knowing how to be) as primary cause. Peirce explored the Fixation of Belief. It might pay to review his topic in the context of this discussion. I wonder what Peirce would say about imitation-as-pragmatism, were he alive today. sj
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