Memetic meltdown

From: informe@best.com (Mike MacLeod)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,alt.memetics
Subject: The Antartica Incident: Memetic Meltdown
Date: 2 Jan 1995 11:49:43 GMT

In article <Pine.SCO.3.91.950101233623.12695C-100000@crash.cts.com>
Enid Vien <ladyv@cts.com> writes:

> On Sun, 1 Jan 1995, Mark Thorson wrote:
>
> > Could someone explain why Scientologists make so much use of
> > private language?  I can understand why special terms would be
> > needed to describe uniquely Scientological concepts, like "dirty
> > needle", "rock-slam", etc.  But the private language goes so
> > much further, e.g. instead of saying "I talked to him" they'll
> > say "I was in comm with him", or instead of saying "I started
> > a new project, then turned it over to somebody else" they'll
> > say "I piloted a new project, then passed the hat to somebody else".
>
>	     Count Alfred Korzibsky was extensively studied by Ron. He is the
> chappie who founded General Semantics. In his book Science and Sanity he
> states to form a cult it is necesssary to develope language that ensures
> members can only fully communicate with other members. This creates an
> 'us' and 'them' mentality.

Well, you won't find the Antartica Incident on the Bridge, but it's a
favorite story of mine, even if it amounts to a semiotic urban
(antipodal?) legend...

Some years ago, a group of scientists and support staff were scheduled
to arrive at a scientific outpost in Antartica for the regular
six-month shift. That is, one crew stayed over the winter months, and
another took over during the summer months. When the Winter crew
arrived, they came with the usual cargo of books, records, CDs, tapes,
and video cassettes to keep them amused. Winter conditions being what
they were at the base, radio communication was sporadic and terse. They
were basically cut off from the world for four months or so. (I
understand that this is no longer the case; they have the Internet
there, even...)

As the darkness dragged on, the crew had looked over all of the
videotapes several times, and were bored. Then some inspired person
took three of the videotape machines, hooked them together, and
proceeded to edit together a two hour collage of clips from, according
to the article I read, game shows, soap operas, science fiction movies,
westerns, and explicit pornography (sound familiar? ;>). The tape was
an instant hit and was run again and again by the crew members.
Shortly, events on the base began to be described in reference to
characters and situations on the tape. Segments of dialog from The Tape
became catch phrases that replaced spontaneous speech; behaviors were
evaluated in terms of how characters acted on the tape.

Bottom line: when the Summer crew arrived, they were barely able to
communicate with the schizoid Winter crew, and the unfortunate cultists
had to be "deprogrammed" before they could rejoin our more diverse,
subtle cult - western civilization...

Mike

From: simon@mahayana.demon.co.uk (Simon Gray)
Subject: The Antartica Incident: Memetic Meltdown
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 19:23:11 +0000

This sounds like an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation ('Darmok' 
I believe) which was recently screened here. In it the Enterprise met a 
group of aliens with whom even The Universal Translator couldn't make 
understood; phrases like 'Darmok & Jhalaar, at Tenagre', 'Tember, his 
arms open wide', & '[something], & the walls fell' kept cropping up. It 
turned out that they didn't actually communicate with direct sentences, 
rather by means of metaphors derived from their race's folk myths.

Simon

From: pnr@po.CWRU.Edu (Peter N. Risser)
Newsgroups: alt.memetics
Subject: Re: The Antartica Incident: Memetic Meltdown
Date: 7 Jan 1995 15:56:59 GMT

This was a cool idea, but if I remember correctly, the people only had
about 8 phrases that they kept screaming at each other.  So much for
communication.  I have no idea how anyone could achieve space travel
science with that kind of communication.
-- 
         I'd like to die peacefully in my sleep             !  
                 like my grandfather,                       !    Peter Risser
                not screaming in terror                     ! pnr@po.cwru.edu
                 like his passengers.                       !

Subject: Re: The Antartica Incident: Memetic Meltdown
From: Jim@indra.demon.co.uk (Jim Holmes)

In article: <4014570wnr@mahayana.demon.co.uk>  simon@mahayana.demon.co.uk (Simon Gray) writes:
>
> In article: <3e8p8n$b2t@news1.best.com>  informe@best.com (Mike MacLeod) writes:
>
  <snip>
> | Bottom line: when the Summer crew arrived, they were barely able to
> | communicate with the schizoid Winter crew, and the unfortunate cultists
> | had to be "deprogrammed" before they could rejoin our more diverse,
> | subtle cult - western civilization...
>
> This sounds like an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation ('Darmok'
> I believe) which was recently screened here. In it the Enterprise met a
> group of aliens with whom even The Universal Translator couldn't make
> understood; phrases like 'Darmok & Jhalaar, at Tenagre', 'Tember, his
> arms open wide', & '[something], & the walls fell' kept cropping up. It
> turned out that they didn't actually communicate with direct sentences,
> rather by means of metaphors derived from their race's folk myths.

I remember being annoyed about that episode because our language is 
also made up of metaphor.  "Aha, they speak entirely using metaphor"
was the dramatic moment of realisation in the story.  The fact that
is was entirely from their folklore was strange, but language consisting
of conventions of metaphor derived from common experiences is not at all
alien!

The Antarctica incident is interesting because new metaphors took over 
so quickly, perhaps because the stimulation was so limited and repeated.
The book "Metaphors We Live By" by Lackoff and Johnson discusses how
metaphor permeates language and thought.

ObMemetics: A metaphor is a meme?  If a new concept is explained to 
someone using a metaphor, and that person understands it and is able
to reason well using it, and therefore is more likely to become an
authority on that particular subject and explain it to others.  They
are likely to use the same metaphor in their own explanations.  So
"good" metaphors survive, and "bad" (confusing, innapropriate) ones
die, ergo evolving metaphors!  Hey, it's just an idea.
--
Jim Holmes               Jim@indra.demon.co.uk
Q: What's not tomatoes?  A: Everything else

From: nv91-asa@black04.nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,alt.memetics
Subject: Re: The Antartica Incident: Memetic Meltdown
Date: 02 Jan 1995 15:52:23 GMT

Enid Vien <ladyv@cts.com> writes:
>	     Count Alfred Korzibsky was extensively studied by Ron. He is the
> chappie who founded General Semantics. In his book Science and Sanity he
> states to form a cult it is necesssary to develope language that ensures
> members can only fully communicate with other members. This creates an
> 'us' and 'them' mentality.

This is a good memetic strategy. The cult meme must both protect itself
from other memes and make sure the infected cultists remain in the cult.
The first goal is usually achieved by making the cultists realize that
the outsiders don't know the Truth or even believe in falsities which
they will try to infect the cultists with. Using a private language
protects the cultists somewhat, since the cultists can easily see if
a meme is from the outside (and thus requires scepticism) or from the
cult (in which case its true).

Jargon also creates more unity, promoting intra-cult communication while
discouraging external communication (as mentioned above).

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg			 	  	     Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@hemul.nada.kth.se   http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y

From: pnr@po.CWRU.Edu (Peter N. Risser)
Newsgroups: alt.memetics
Subject: Re: The Antartica Incident: Memetic Meltdown
Date: 7 Jan 1995 15:59:42 GMT

In a previous article, nv91-asa@black04.nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg) says:

>This is a good memetic strategy. The cult meme must both protect itself
>from other memes and make sure the infected cultists remain in the cult.
>The first goal is usually achieved by making the cultists realize that
>the outsiders don't know the Truth or even believe in falsities which
>they will try to infect the cultists with. Using a private language
>protects the cultists somewhat, since the cultists can easily see if
>a meme is from the outside (and thus requires scepticism) or from the
>cult (in which case its true).
>
>Jargon also creates more unity, promoting intra-cult communication while
>discouraging external communication (as mentioned above).

One of the best memetic strategies that these guys have, to even further
the 'us' and 'them' feelings is the hotlines and rewards you get for
informing on other members who might be doing things that are 'against'
scientology and it's belief systems.  Things like that give me the creeps,
but it's a powerful meme.
-- 
         I'd like to die peacefully in my sleep             !  
                 like my grandfather,                       !    Peter Risser
                not screaming in terror                     ! pnr@po.cwru.edu
                 like his passengers.                       !