From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Mon Sep 23 2002 - 10:57:13 MDT
On 23 Sep 2002 at 10:15, rhinoceros wrote:
>
> [Joe Dees]
> Memesets are not automatically false simply because they are memesets.
> In fact, the exigencies of interrelating with the environing world,
> and the differential reproductive rates engendered (pun intended) by
> more successful vs. less successful environmental interrelations,
> facilitate the evolution of memesets more closely adherent to the
> referent reality they purport to represent.
>
> [rhinoceros]
> Of course, reality is only one, and a particular "more successful"
> memeset eventually prevails. Given the different competing memesets
> (points of view) we encounter in practice, does that mean that
> everyone should try to recognize and single out those "more
> successful" memeset and ride along with them? My own answer is no.
>
I agree, we should be endeavoring to engineer the more veridical
memesets (those that do in fact adhere more closely to a referent
reality) so that they win the Darwinian struggle, by (as I pointed out
earlier) either adding appeals to the basic drives of sex, security and
community to them, or by finding ways to discredit the similar yet
fallacious promises made by less veridical memesets.
>
> Also: Apparently, the reproduction rate of a memeset is largely
> affected by memetic mechanisms (e.g. mass media) which are controlled
> by other memesets with a very loose cognitive affinity to them. An
> example you might find easy to use could be: The USSR is going to
> civilize Afghanistan. To which the mujahedin reply: The mujahedin are
> going to liberate Afghanistan from allah-less communism. So, there
> seem to be a lot of memesets that don't compete based on their own
> merits. Can we say that a memeset which has won not because of its own
> merits is a successful memeset?
>
It has been provisionally successful, but that does not permanently
enshrine it in that position. Just because one memeset has proven to
be more successful in a fitness landscape than another does not mean
that it inhabits the absolute fitness peak. Memetic engineering should
be able to maximize the fitness of chosen candidate memesets within a
competitive landscape.
>
> [Joe Dees]
> This trend is most obviously observed in the advance of scientific
> knowledge. A memeset can actually achieve optimization with respect
> to its represented reality; for instance - can anyone imagine an
> improvement in the multiplication tables?
>
> [rhinoceros]
> I suspect that the (by definition) replicator aspect of memes, which
> differentiates them from other similar concepts such as "ideas", makes
> them less related to cognitive concepts such as mathematics and more
> related to the adoption and use of mathematics.
>
Adoption and propagation via promulgation and imitation are the form of
memetic replication; any particular set of concepts can serve as the
content communicated in that form.
>
> [Joe Dees]
> However, there are many memesets that have exploited and thus hijacked
> the use of the human drives of sex, survival and community; religions,
> of all forms, have historically despite their differeing yet
> universally manifest fallacies, done so unfortunately all too well.
>
> [rhinoceros]
> It has been made clear that the success of a memeset does not depend
> on its cognitive content. Can we say that these hijacking memesets
> also belong to the "more successful" memesets?
>
Actually, the success of a memeset depends upon more than its
cognitive content, but it depends upon that content as well. Some
memesets with deficient cognitive content nevertheless spread due to
other factors, such as their appeals to sex, security and community; a
memeset that does not possess the cognitive deficiencies and yet also
utilizes these appeals should outperform its cognitively flawed
competitors.
>
> [Joe Dees]
> The purpose of Virus is to create a religion that adheres to fact;
> that is, one that pushes the proper sex, survival and community
> buttons withpout having to suffer the downside of embracing logical or
> empirically evidentiary fallacies in order to do so. If such a
> religion can be engineered - one that possesses all of the assets and
> none of the liabilities of the traditional religions - it will
> inevitably outperform its alternatives and win the Darwinian struggle
> between belief forms. The major task facing this Church is how to
> appeal to people without lying; that is, how to frame our appeal so
> that we offer them sex, survival and community without deception.
>
> [rhinoceros]
> From the above, it follows that the cognitive value of the Virian
> religion is not necessarily what is going to make it successful. More
> likely, it would have to cover a "market demand". Is that so?
>
It would have to be "both-and" rather than "either-or"; that is, it would
require both reality-adherent content and basic-drive appeals.
>
> You have proposed that pushing the proper sex, survival and community
> buttons is what makes a religion successful. It would be interested to
> find out what the competition is in these three domains, sex, survival
> and community, and what the Virian memes themselves and their
> reproduction mechanisms would be.
>
The pushing of those buttons is not the only thing that makes a religion
successful, but it is a strong, and perhaps the strongest, factor - strong
enough to overcome deficiencies of content. A fact-based religion that
also utilizes these appeals would embody all the replicational assets of
traditional religions and none of their liabilities.
>
> Of course, there is also the possibility that we have missed some
> ingredient of a successful religion. For example, couldn't a crusade
> and the associated shared guilt be a requirement. Do we know of any
> clean and bloodless religions?
>
Buddhism has been (relatively) clean and bloodless, as have been
Taoism and, especially, Jainism.
>
> Trivia: Is the struggle Darwinian (acquired memes are not inherited)
> or Lamarckian (acquired memes are inherited).
>
It is nominally Darwinian, but, considering that these sorts of memesets
are typically passed on parent-to-child within a community that shares
them, the difference, while real, is not readily apparent.
>
> ----
> This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2002 board on
> Church of Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;thread
> id=26717>
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