TED, Memes, Metaphors, but no Economics?

TED: IDEAS WORTH SPREADING is the welcome line at ted.com - an intellectual platform blending Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and almost attaining a cult status. Who's who of the world have marked their presence at its annual conferences starting 1984. This is the stage where Prof. Stephen Hawking urged mankind to colonise neighbouring planets; where the UN peace ambassador Jane Goodall spoke about her 45 years old chimpanzee studies; where Bono won the price of expressing three wishes in a bid to change the world; and where Bill Gates opened a jar of mosquitoes to the audience to spread (with them) awareness about malaria (later, when the panic subsided it was declared that the mosquitoes were harmless for they were cured of the germs. I am not entirely sure though which anti-virus was used by Mr. Gates.)

A meme is an information packet with an attitude. For the current young generation world over, and those leaning towards entrepreneurship, TED is the "in thing". So also for the Darwin look-alike scientist-philosophers such as Daniel (Dan) Dennet, who is deliberately mistaken by his followers for a living personification of the old Greek philosopher statues of Delphi museum. In the video clip that follows Canadian professor Dan Dennet, during his presentation on the stage at TED, spoke about the subject he is famous as well as controversial for: Memes and Atheism.

In a interesting spin to the subject, Dan places Creationists, Terrorists, Memes, and Viruses in the same basket. What comes out is a curious argument surrounding memes (pronounced meem, as in theme), presented in a rather entertaining and gently forceful manner. You are free to disagree with it, that may prove to be the harder part though.


[Above: Prof. Dan Dennet on stage of TED talking about Memes and their power.]

A few points that shall immediately stick an observer:

• Where is Economics? There is no apparent stab against commerce and economics, but there is no explicit mention of it as being one of the driving forces for T / E / D either. (Do have a look at the list of sponsors. After all, running TED is not without large commercial help.)
• If memes are all about spreading ideas, would you call TED's slogan a good meme? (Apparently, Dan seem to have taken a frown at all kind of memes.)
• Spending a good amount of time on Google wasn't that helpful in trying to ascertain the definitive difference between what Richard Dawkings coined as Meme in 1976, and what historians, philosophers and priests over the millennia have traditionally called a Metaphor.
• The viral social media seem to provide the perfect medium for meme concept; it remains unclear, however, how far and deep it take the impact of meme theory into the social fabric already. And what, where and who are the checks and balances?
• Dan and Dawkings may take offence on the use of the word coincidental on their part, but coincidental it might be that Meme and the social media moto of "Me, me, me..." sounds so alike. (If it was intentional on Dawkings' part, he is surely a visionary. And should belong to the Social Sciences rather than Biology.)

Daniel Dennet's book, Kinds of Minds, is as entertaining as it is serious and thought provoking.

• See also:
• Go here for the above video of Dan Dennet on YouTube, and here for more on memes.
• Go here for Ted.com and its various links, and here for subscribing to TEDtalk videos.

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The Dunbar Number and Limits of Our Social Networks

THE SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEB 2.0 (though both are considered synonymous by some) provided the netizens with amazing new possibilities, like a new universe opening up with everyone mingling with everyone else. While the web (no pun intended) of these collaboration network, social in nature, kept increasing in complexity and continued expanding, there was no measure for if it were to follow the same yo-yo model of the actual Universe (try here). In other words, it was very difficult to ascertain if the motion was inward or outward, for there were no clear boundaries defined or known.

The size of the neocortex of the brain allows humans to have stable networks of about 150. This is known as "the Dunbar number".

With the help of Dr. Robin Dunbar’s research, perhaps we now have the first indications toward the limitations of Web 2.0 vis-a-vis human psychology and behaviour. Dr. Dunbar is an anthropologist currently with the Oxford University and has studied primates and humans and their social behaviour.

Many of the activities and exchanges on the online social networks are considered "grooming". In the wild, grooming is time-consuming: keeping track of who to groom —and why— demands quite a bit of mental computation. One needs to remember who is allied with, hostile to, or lusts after whom, and act accordingly.

On the web, social 'networking' algorithms and computations power help with these calculations. Yet, the cognitive power of the human brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop. Dr. Dunbar suggested that the size of the neocortex of the human brain allows for having stable networks of about 148 connections (or 150 in round figures). This is known as "the Dunbar number", and recent sampling of Facebook users network gives an average of about 120, which seems consistent with this hypothesis. The research continues further as follows:

Many institutions, from Neolithic villages to the maniples of the Roman army, seem to be organised around the Dunbar number.

[In the modern era] An average man —one with 120 friends— generally responds to the postings of only seven of those friends by leaving comments on the posting individual's photos, status messages or "wall". An average woman is slightly more sociable, responding to ten. When it comes to two-way communication such as e-mails or chats, the average man interacts with only four people and the average woman with six. Among those Facebook users with 500 friends, these numbers are somewhat higher, but not hugely so. Men leave comments for 17 friends, women for 26. Men communicate with ten, women with 16.

Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.

This also goes on to say that if you are "in touch" with that person fairly regularly with whom you are perhaps yet to work out a one-on-one, you are better off treasuring those interactions, for you have gotten into the "core" within the Dunbar circle. At the same time, in his 2005 book —The Human Story— Dunbar quotes Bob Marley's Redemption Song (try here), suggesting not to fall pray to the omnipresent temptations of 'grooming'.

(More to read and write on the Attention Economy in the coming posts.)

• See also:
• Go here for the relevant research paper [PDF] by Dr. Dunbar titled "The Social Brain Hypothesis" at the University of Liverpool website
  
• Go here for The Economist article: "The size of social network".
• Go here for a video lecture by Dr. Dunbar titled "What Makes Us Human?" at pulse-project.org

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