Re: virus: Science and Religion

KMO prime (kmoprime@juno.com)
Wed, 25 Sep 1996 04:18:42 EDT


On Tue, 24 Sep 96 15:57:00 PDT "Chelstad, Erik" <chelste@data-io.com>
writes:

>If all you want is a religion that is "continuously integrating better
>(more
>accurate,
> more useful) concepts while ensuring the survival of its believers,"
>you
>might
>as well jump on the Christianity boat, as it seems to mutate and
>evolve to
>keep
>with the times.

I see a crucial difference between the Church of the Virus and
Christianity in that while both mutate and constantly integrate new
memes, Christianity does so in a largely unconscious fashion; it's only
"end" being it's continued propagative success. The new memes are
selected for the good (continued propagation) of the institution, whereas
CoV memes are largely selected for their usefulness to the individuals
who sustain them. Sure, church leaders do add their conscious direction
to the selection process, and many of our Virus threads twist in
seemingly random ways and introduce memes that no one intended to
introduce, but there is still a basic distinction between the two kinds
of memetic evolution. One is largely unconscious and oriented towards the
success of a meme-complex, and the other is consciously directed and is
oriented towards the well being of the individuals who adopt and promote
a meme-complex. That's the theory as I understand it anyway.

Take care. -KMO