Re: virus: Autocatalytic Idea System Examples

Eric Boyd (6ceb3@qlink.queensu.ca)
Thu, 29 May 1997 20:40:43 -0500


Chitren Nursinghdass wrote:
> >It's that level 3 beast again!
> >
> >> In fact what we should do is consciously favour memetic variation, selection
> >> then does the rest.
> >
> >Another memetic insight!
>
> Level 3 ? I guess you guys have already put numbers on meta-consciousness
> levels ?!

I didn't. It was that book! (which I have yet to read)
Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme by Richard Brodie

Level 1: monkey. Acting on instincts. No real thought
Level 2: normal human. Thought, reason, faith. Consistent set of
mutually supporting meme's.
Level 3: "meme space flexing on the fly" Switching between different
contradictory meme spaces. Knowing both sides of the issue. Seeing
past the duality. Embracing the contradiction. Using's meme and not
being infected by them. "Higher Intellectual Center"

> I guess I'll have to read all the saved messages I haven't read yet.

There, saved you some trouble.

> So where does it lead to ? Which conclusions do you reach about the
> universe, mathematics, free will, etc.. if you go on expanding you own
> meme-set.

Hold your horses, eh? One topic at a time!

> Can it all be reduced to one fundamental axiom, from which everything
> originates ?

Depends what you mean by everything... do you mean all knowledge? Yes
(I could look it up, but arn't there three? Each must be held to be
true:
1) A is A,
2) A or NotA, (either A is true or A is not true)
3) ummm... guess I've forgotten.

Anyway, it is #2 that level 3 transends.

> For the time being, I've reached the following conclusion (which doesn't seem
> to be shared by anybody except for people in Buddhist metaphysics).
>
> A perfect void which is itself a force (as we usually understand it in physics).
> >From there stem energy-mass which encapsulate the void, making in effect
> an information quantum.
>
> Anybody want to share their viruses on these ?

Ummm... I'll probably have something to say about your view in another
week when I finish "The way of Zen" by Allen Watts... till then, you can
go read my "Ripples on the pond of Life" message.

ERiC

We feel in one world, we think and name in
another. Between the two we can set up a
system of references, but we cannot fill the
gap. Marcel Proust (1871-1922)