Kent Stevens

The competition of ideas is a good way to characterise what happens in philosophy, religion, and politics. There are a range of potential philosophical ideas among which some ideas are more successfully received than others.

It becomes very apparent when we get to major ideologies which consist of ideas that there is competition between them. There is competition between Islam and Christainity for adherents. There is competition between Protestants and Catholics. Competition between Republicans and Democrats. Competition between Communism and Capitalism.

Though this shows competition between groups of people there is indirect resulting competition between ideas. Ideas do not really care whether they are widely accepted or not but politicians and religious people do care that their organisations and ideas are accepted.

In philosophy there may be ongoing arguments between groups of people. Some believe in Utilitarianism or some believe in Romanticism. Aristotle found himself in disagreement and competition with some of the ideas of Plato.

We could use this analogy of competiting ideas to come up with other concepts. We could say what is the competitive advantage of certain ideas. This could be also shortened to the term idea advantage. What makes some religions more popular than others? Is it because some religions promise more dire consequences if they are not accepted than others?

We could also talk about the determinants of idea competitive advantage. These would include the role of institutions such as the church or political parties. Related insitutions such as schools or the media would also play a role. Governments would play a role in the propagation of ideologies. The personal appeal of certain ideas or ideologies would also be important in their acceptance. If an ideology promises heaven and deliverence from hell it may provide considerable personal appeal. If an idea also promises close correspondence to reality this idea could also have much personal appeal.

Idea competition is related to the concept of memes. Memes however are a less widely accepted term than ideas. Memes are usually associated with replication. Something like if it can not replicate then it is not a meme.

Idea competition is also related to cultural evolution in that culture changes over time, as do ideas.

There would be something similiar to natural selection with ideas. There would be a weeding out of some ideas, a culling of ideas. Those ideas that are left would be well adapted to their environment. If we looked at successful ideas or ideologies we could see what the strategies or traits were of successful ideas.

In summary, the competition of ideas is a good way at looking at what happens in philosophy, religion, and politics.

jpbrooks

I agree that studying world-views from the standpoint of the social sciences is important. Views and religions are, after all, held by people.

However, if ideas are related to cultural evolution, how are they related? Do they, for example, cause cultural evolution, or are they caused by cultural evolution? If they neither cause nor are caused by cultural evolution, what is the nature of the relationship?

Kent Stevens

When I talk about cultural evolution all I am saying is that culture changes over a period of time. I deny that culture necessarily gets better or improves over time. Ideas which makes up part of our culture also change over a period of time.

Ideas make up part of the fabric of culture. This fabric changes over a period of time. This means that ideas which is part of this fabric also changes. But it would be a mistake to say that some part of this cultural fabric causes the overall cultural fabric to change.

You and others in the choice of products you buy or the ideas you believe in contribute to change in culture. In this sense we all cause cultural evolution.

1sec

Idea competition? I don't think so. It is rather a fight for vital space.

IDEAS
Ideas may contribute to cultural development as long as they are accepted or imposed to the whole social group.

CULTURES
Human beings have always organized in distinct groups that have generated their own cultures and holding them as true, valid and valuable while rejecting all others as false, unworthy and hostile.

CONFLICT OR COMPETITION
Cultures have most of the times borrowed from one another only after one has aggresively invaded the other.

In fact, there have not cultures winning against others but human communities assimilating or suffocating others.

WINNERS AND PROGRESS
Nowadays there is an open and "peaceful" on-going war between spheres of influence inside each nation.

There is progress fostered by idea competition (=cultural conflict}: nations that are able to assimilate external ideas that can ensure their survival or better adjustment to the changing environment will manage to have comparable advantage in terms of the military, economy, etc.

Kent Stevens

Tribalism does describe much of human history. That is we have tribes with a common culture that think treat other people outside their tribe with suspicion. There is extensive competition between tribes.

However, consider the different philososophers and their ideas. These ideas are not necessarily associated with one nation or ethnicity. The tribe of the ancient greeks may have changed completely but some of their ideas in Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, etc live on. But what about Mill and Utilitarianism, is that just part of the English nation? Or are the individual philosophies of Satre, Hume, Marx, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein just part of their respective nations?

There is competition between different ideas in Freethought. Some people are objectivists. Some people use relgious concepts yet still consider themselves to be humanists. Some people are secular humanists who do not associate themselves with religious concepts and want a separation of church and state. This subgrouping of people in one overall group is common to philosophy and religion. These groups differ in their ideas.

Different ideas are competiting with each other in the fields of truth or logic. Do we consider that mathematicians or logicians to be tribes in competition with other tribes?

In the field of science we have a number of ideas that seem to have been in competition with each other. The notion of the flat Earth versus a spherical Earth for example. Or ideas of evolution in conflict with those of creationism. Ideas of Newtonian Physics in conflict with Aristolean notions. In turn Einsteins Theory in competition with traditional Newtonian concepts such as absolute space and time.

In law there is conflict between two different sets of ideas. One idea that a certain person is guilty, the other idea that the person is innocent. While it is people interested in their personal gain doing the competiting, indirectly there is also competition between ideas.

In the U.S. there is conflict between groups. Those people who think that much more should be spent on defence versus those who do not. People who want to go along with environmental concerns versus those who are not that concerned about the environment. Those people who think abortion is wrong versus those that think abortion is permissable. Those people who think that marijuana should be legalised versus those that think it should be kept illegal. We end up having a great deal of different sub-groups. While these groups are competiting directly, indirectly there is also competition for different ideas.

In terms of progress I do not really disagree with you. Over a long period of time there does seem to be an increase in complexity of cultures as they try to gain an advantage on one another. However there can be times such as the collapse of the Roman Empire where the sophistication of culture goes backwards. Therefore, there is no guarantee that there will be progress, just as there is no guarantee of progress in biological evolution.

John Page

My sentiment is with Kent's direction. If an idea is useful, in the sense of conferring an advantage upon its adopters, it has succesfully competed for mindspace against other ideas.

Now, the above is an idea which is competing with other ideas in this forum. Those with persuasive sophistry may get their ideas adopted.

Good ideas increase our potentiality and, as we move further away from the ages of muscles and machines, ideas are the dominant determinant of success.

Look at the historical trends for expenditure on R&D as a % GNP and the leading positions of societies that invest heavily in their intellectual capital. QED, I think.

jpbrooks

I see your point, Kent. But if all we have had throughout the entire history of the development of human ideas is change without progress, what's the point in studying the history of ideas? If there can be no means by which one idea or set of ideas can be evaluated as being "better" in some way than others, then why bother assessing the views of others at all? It seems much easier to make up your own ideas as you go along in life.
IOW, the whole history of philosophy, seems to be nothing more than an entertaining curiosity that is otherwise worthless if no progress in understanding philosophy is possible.

[ February 24, 2002: Message edited by: jpbrooks ]</p>

emphryio

I like you Kent, I'm glad to have you on the secular web.

I agree with what you have said here and feel that it is fairly obvious but still good to define it.

The only exception may be when physical violence overides the better idea?

Laurentius

I know that one may either come up with a new idea or support an idea that he/she has come across with. Or both. My opinion is that ideas can only be generated individually, that is by separated individuals, independently - even when they work in a team. This is the birth. It is then the community's turn to contribute to the success of a fruitful idea by accepting it into its common body of ideas that make up its culture.
Culture is therefore supra-individual. It grounds not only on the body of ideas in the society but also on the biological substrate of human existance. The collective pattern of human interrelationships includ: (a) rapports between individuals; (b) rapports between institutions; (c) rapports between individuals and institutions.
Ideas do compete, but they only win as long as they help improve these rapports. I think the idea competion cannot really work separately from the other forms of competition in the human society.


[ February 24, 2002: Message edited by: Laurentius ]</p>

Laurentius

In relation with how progressive ideas win over conservative ones, I have just remembered the concept of "historical abandonment".
Culturally dominated nations have always tended to adopt an attitude of desolidarization toward the center emitting the dominating ideology. This attitude varies from passively tolerating this ideology to actively ignoring it. The theory of "historical abandonment" claims that nations like Siria or Egypt did not accept the Romans because they held their solutions superior to their own, but simply because they considered them a necessary evil, while the Romans themselves represented some useful barbarians. An contemporary example would be South Korea, which has not adopted the Western philosophy because they actually believe in its superiority, but because they consider it a temporary compromise, necessary to their development.
The "historical abandonment" claims that as soon as the necessity has passed, the dominating ideology is rapidly discarded, and people return to what they have been deeply holding as being true and valuable (and which obviously stems in tradition).
Therefore, mentalities and not scientific ideas and systems are taken into consideration by the theory of "historical abandonment" since mentalities, with their vast pervasiveness and inertia, represent the actual cultural constants that determine the evolution of humanity.