Joe wrote:
[RB]
>So you see no advantage in asking advice from the Dalai Lama or a heroin
>addict; you just sort it all out objectively and disregard where the advice
>comes from. Is that correct?
[JD]
<<No, that's a straw scarecrow. I'd more likely ask the Dalai Lama how to
inspire people to have faith in me and my opinions, as well as Jerry
Falafel, and Pat Robertson, and Pope John Paul II, and Bill Clinton, and the
ghosts of Carl Sagan, Ayatollah Chimney, Mao St Tug, Martin Luther King,
Monads K. Gandhi and Adolph Hitler, because all of them have demonstrated an
ability to inspire just such faith in multitudes. I'd ask a number of
heroin addicts how much was too much and how much was not enough for a
newbie; the fact that they're addicts proves that they were right the first
time.>>
OK, that's what I was getting at. Your first reply to my question of who you take advice from didn't include any discrimination among individuals. We have the same heuristic then, modeling people who have demonstrated success in the area in question.
<<This brings up a problem with your level 3 (not that I accept your meme of a hierarchical system of enlightenment/understanding categorization in the first place...). But, given such an assumption, although it may be a level 3 to reject absolute commitment to a single memeset in favor of a relative, but absolutely equal, acceptance of many, it is a naive 3. A more sophisticated and nuanced understanding would arrange and distribute them according to probability landscapes, where they are each provisional maps for a chosen territory. If one wishes verisimilitude, usefulness in dealing with one's surroundings and predictive accuracy in the physical realm, science provides by far the most useful memeset. If one wishes that which enables one to get along with one's neighbors, and personal integrity is not an issue, any memesets, whether they be racial, sexual, economic, religious and/or political, reflective of the vast majority of them are superior. The probability topography of the memeset map you use (which memesets are given greater weight) depends upon the territory to which it is to be applied. It also depends upon the person applying it, and how white or dark a lie they are willing to tell themselves and others.>>
There is no conflict between what you describe and Level 3. You've given a good sketch of Level 3. Unfortunately, it tends to be the kind of thing that Level-2ers think they understand without really understanding.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/
Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
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