At Tue, 9 Feb 1999 17:44:55 -0800, you wrote:
>
>So you see no advantage in asking advice from the Dalai Lama or a heroin
>addict; you just sort it all out objectively and disregard where the advice
>comes from. Is that correct?
No, that's a straw scarecrow. I'd more likely ask the Dalai Lama how to inspire people to have faith in me and my opinions, as well as Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, and Pope John Paul II, and Bill Clinton, and the ghosts of Carl Sagan, Ayatollah Khomeni, Mao Tse Tung, Martin Luther King, Mohandis K. Gandhi and Adolf Hitler, because all of them have demonstrated an ability to inspire just such faith in multitudes. I'd ask a number of heroin addicts how much was too much and how much was not enough for a newbie; the fact that they're addicts proves that they were right the first time. This brings up a problem with your level 3 (not that I accept your meme of a hierarchical system of enlightenment/understanding categorization in the first place...). But, given such an assumption, although it may be a level 3 to reject absolute commitment to a single memeset in favor of a relative, but absolutely equal, acceptance of many, it is a naive 3. A more sophisticated and nuanced understanding would arrange and distribute them according to probability landscapes, where they are each provisional maps for a chosen territory. If one wishes verisimilitude, usefulness in dealing with one's surroundings and predictive accuracy in the physical realm, science provides by far the most useful memeset. If one wishes that which enables one to get along with one's neighbors, and personal integrity is not an issue, any memesets, whether they be racial, sexual, economic, religious and/or political, reflective of the vast majority of them are superior. The probability topogra! phy of the memeset map you use (which memesets are given greater weight) depends upon the territory to which it is to be applied. It also depends upon the person applying it, and how white or dark a lie they are willing to tell themselves and others.
>Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/
>Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
>http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
>Free newsletter! Visit Meme Central at
>http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
>Of joe dees
>Sent: Monday, February 8, 1999 4:56 PM
>To: virus@lucifer.com
>Subject: Re:RE: virus: from the Skeptic's newsletter..
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>At Mon, 8 Feb 1999 06:28:42 -0800, you wrote:
>>
>>What would enable you to decide whether someone has advice worth taking?
>
>I ask people with varying world views and basic assumptions, and try to
>tease out common threads which may be to some degree independent of
>particular views and assumptions since they occur in people who don't
>otherwise share them. Then I take these threads and do a personal wheat and
>chaff on them, based on my own experiences and sensibilities, to see which
>of them apply best to the situation as I see it.
>
>>
>>Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/
>>Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
>>http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
>>Free newsletter! Visit Meme Central at
>>http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
>>Of joe dees
>>Sent: Sunday, February 7, 1999 7:31 PM
>>To: virus@lucifer.com
>>Subject: Re: virus: from the Skeptic's newsletter.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>At Sun, 7 Feb 1999 19:33:15 -0700, you wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Richard Brodie <richard@brodietech.com>
>>>To: virus@lucifer.com <virus@lucifer.com>
>>>Date: Sunday, February 07, 1999 6:08 PM
>>>Subject: RE: virus: from the Skeptic's newsletter.
>>>
>>>
>>>>No thanks. I'm here to aid people's growth, not deter it.
>>>
>>>Psst, Richard. Your dogma is showing.
>>
>>Perhaps the claims of those who claim to have seen through and transcended
>>gospels and dogmas are simply parts of their particular and different, but
>>still existent, gospels and dogmas, just as much as claims of enlightenment
>>or higher/deeper/more profound understanding or nirvana or salvation may
>be.
>>Even universal scepticism is a faith in the illumining power of doubt.
>>Joe E. Dees
>>Poet, Pagan, Philosopher
>>
>>
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>Joe E. Dees
>Poet, Pagan, Philosopher
>
>
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Joe E. Dees
Poet, Pagan, Philosopher