Re: virus: A memetic revelation

tom.holz (tom.holz@pobox.com)
Wed, 03 Sep 1997 01:45:53 -0400


[Apologies if more than one copy make it too the list. Ironic considering
my first paragraph, no?]

>As they say in The Forum...

Forum??

This is the first of two posts (we shall see) responding to this. First I
will reply directly to the content (agreement/disagreement/comment), then
again to how/why you constructed this post. The second post is more likely
to be annoying, so I'm saving it till /after/ the discussion. [1]

>Life is empty and meaningless.

On the physical level, I agree, there is no inherent value in anything.

>And the fact that it's empty and meaningless is empty and meaningless.

Why do you decide this (by the end of the paragraph, I agree with you)? I
can look into a Christian comunity and see that they live differently,
exactly because they believe their lives are not empty and meaningless. So
the fact that you belive life is empty is very meaningless, in that it
precludes the possibility of meaning. Unless of course, you think you are
/really/ right, and the Christians are /really/ wrong, in which case:
Because they can belive in meaning without it's existance, the lack of
meaning is no problem.

>Attaching a value to the fact that all our meaning is made up is making the
>same mistake as when we don't realize that all our meaning is made up.

which follows (in my logic) directly from what you said.

>That said, life is meaningless only on one level.

Dear God! (name in vain! name in vain!) I feel like I'm dealing with a
large mathematical equation with integrals and infinities and recursive
functions... so much meaninglessnes, so little meaning. So much meaning.
...Did you get that /at all/?

>The other day I had a revelation. My first?

I had one two... Perhaps one day I shall relate my Singlular Event What Has
Changed My Life And Unless You've Had One Too You Don't Know What I'm
Talking About So Nyah Nyah.

>The revelation was that God exists.
>
>It is perfectly possible, scientifically, for God to exist.

Um..... Presume, 2. to assume as true in absence of proof to the contrary.
However, I, too share your belief (though underleying structures vary
significantly, and my belief exists only because of <Christianity>).

>The Spirit is a tangible force that is created, not creator, of the human
>mind. This force exists and causes things that no individual or group is
>consciously causing, just as the human mind causes things unbeknownst to
>the underlying cells of the body.

This seems to lead to the interesting conclussion that each civilization
(in this case, planet) has its own god, which operates independently from
the other gods out there. If we go back before Saint Paul, where a memetic
group was a genetic group, and apply the same principle, each society/tribe
would have it's own god and they would fight. <Christianity> just gained
10 points in my head.

>Complexity theory tells us that the nature of an emergent phenomenon is
>unpredictable from and unrelated to the mechanics of its underpinnings.
>
>So the fact that all our memes are empty and meaningless does nothing to
>negate the possibility of a meaningful God, an emergent property of memes.

This seems to be one of those obvious statements which is so obvious I
never bothered to think it. Which is a /bad/ thing. <replicate/mutate: It
takes a genius to state the obvious>

>The INSTANT I had that revelation, I felt a tangible shift in my feelings,
>my energy. Since that day, now a couple of weeks ago, I have been lovingly
>and peacefully accepting and creating.

Same thing with my SEWHCMLAUYHOTYDKWITASNN (see above for expansion).

>Wow.
>
>Contact.

Are you, perchance have one of those ill-defined mental orgasms?
Are you, perchance, refering to the movie?

I /wanted/ to 'zzz', but you posted this...
tom .

[1] Ok. I'm not going to post any second post. Here are the baby ideas
which I would have thought out: You're post was very un-you-ish. Part of
me suspects you are making 'stuff' up--the same way people didn't believe
in XYZ Customer Support.