Re: virus: Hosts

KMO prime (kmoprime@juno.com)
Sat, 12 Oct 1996 04:59:49 EDT


No simple answer to that question would be particularly revealing, but if
pressed for a nutshell account, I'd say that your bother received regular
reinforcement for holding and or expressing religious beliefs in a way
that you did not, and you were reinforced for questioning your religious
upbringing (notice I'm making a lot of assumptions here) in a way that
your brother was not reinforced.

The memes that find lasting instantiation in your cognitive architecture
shape the memetic landscape making it difficult for later competing memes
(glossing over the large ambiguity which shadows the concept of memetic
incompatibility) to take hold. The memes already in place in your mind
act as a filter for incoming memes such that two people who are exposed
to identical experiences can each find reinforcement for diametrically
opposed mental models. You and your brother could witness the same
event, and because the differences in your existing memetic structures
influence which details you take to be relevant, you could each find
validation for your existing structures (beliefs) in that event.

Take care. -KMO

On Fri, 11 Oct 1996 01:15:16 +0000 "Hakeeb A. Nandalal"
<nanco@trinidad.net> writes:
>Has anyone discussed why different minds adhere to different memes?
>For
>example, why am I an atheist but my brother a religious fanatic?
>
>
>