Re: virus: MAIDS

Tadeusz Niwinski (tad@teta.ai)
Thu, 18 Sep 1997 14:05:15 -0700


Reed wrote:
>Agreed.

Approved :-)

>One of the problems is the inconsistencies. Any real theory or practice has
>them. One of the parts of self-direction is the acknowledgement that
>knowledge is always incomplete and at least partially incorrect.
>That doesn't have to lead to authority-worship or a crisis of
>confidence, but blindly worshiping your own personal ideology isn't
>significantly different than blindly worshiping someone elses.
>
>>Exactly. It's the "authority worhip" which is the main component of MAIDS.
>>It's not the same as simply rebelling against authority (as in some
>>movements). It's the lack of trust in one's own mind. The MAIDS virus
>>seems to prosper in abandoned minds.
>
>I think I understand what you're getting at. You are holding up memetics as
>an example of this? Or only certian expressions of it? It seems to me the
>problem you are pointing out is equally applicable to any sort of ideology
>or institution. I think it's refered to as "meme-bot" in the memetics
>dictionary.

How does MAIDS realate to memetics? Good question. Speaking of memetics.
It just occured to me that we take certain things for granted here. Can we
control memes we process and can we prove it (one way or the other)? I
think it's time to formulate our axioms. Let me start with some three axioms
(three because I want to become the Ayn Rand of Memetics):

(1) Memes exist.
(2) Memes control what we do.
(3) We are capable of selecting memes we let control what we do.

Assuming (3) is true, the more we learn the wiser we can control memes in
our minds (would it be another axiom, or can we prove it?)

Our capability to select memes is like an immune system of the mind. This
is what the MAIDS virus attacks.

Regards, Tadeusz (Tad) Niwinski from planet TeTa
tad@teta.ai http://www.teta.ai (604) 985-4159