virus: Level 2/3

Richard Brodie (RBrodie@brodietech.com)
Mon, 4 Nov 1996 17:17:11 -0800


Jason wrote:

>Richard Brodie wrote:
>> You would be collapsing an important distinction. The Level-2 mind sees
>> his world view converging on Absolute Truth which ever more accurately
>> maps Objective Reality. The Level-3 mind sees her memetic programming as
>> a collection of different, possibly conflicting ways to map Objective
>> Reality (if she chooses to use that distinction-meme).
>
>Does one have to exclude the other? Can a person collect
>information in an effort to accurately map OR while at the same
>time view hir memetic programming as something to be controlled
>and altered to suit hir purposes?

The problem is that there's not just one map. Unless you're willing to
let go of your most cherished beliefs you will be stuck, to some degree
anyway, with the map that came with the car.
>
>If I have two genuinely conflicting ways of mapping reality, I'm
>incline to say that one of them is wrong. I know, that's very
>level-2, but hear me out:
>I'm thinking about two conflicting ideas like "Joe is
>10 feet tall" and "Joe is 6 feet tall". The former isn't
>literally correct if you can only think about it from the right
>point of view. It is simply wrong. (Just to head off a possible
>objecting, I'll include the fact that the ruler is in the same
>frame of reference as Joe.) There can be other types of
>conflicting ideas but I think that most of the time, these ideas
>only *appear* to be conflicting because they are not sufficiently
>well-defined. The statements "my favorite colour is blue" and "my
>favorite colour is green" appear to be in conflict but if you
>understand that when I said the first thing I was speaking of
>clothing and when I said the second thing I was speaking of
>abstract art, then suddenly it is clear that these weren't really
>conflicting ideas. I think that most "conflicting ways to map OR"
>fall into this category.

You have accurately described Level 2!

Richard Brodie RBrodie@brodietech.com +1.206.688.8600
CEO, Brodie Technology Group, Inc., Bellevue, WA, USA
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie
Do you know what a "meme" is?
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm

>