Hi,
Does this make sense to anyone? In terms of memes "controlling" genes? I would be dreadfully embarressed if I'm just repeating what someone else has thought of a thousand years ago. But what the heck ... the "courage to write" ...
EARS: Sound -> best rhythm & beat -> swooning (hysterical teen required) -> get laid (love for one, not the other) -> lots of teenage pregnancy (big problem) = "good/successful" gene goes onward. Usually No Dad/Wrong Dad.
EYES: Colour/Symbols -> best team/platoon (fanatic supporters required) -> survive -> win battle -> get laid (rape & pillage, relief to burn off *madness* of war) -> "good/successful" gene goes onward = lots of half-cloned psychos (worst problem). Often No Dad/Wrong Dad.
That was the close-to-worst case downside of basic simple "fun luv'in" sex,
how the Beautiful Warrior People mainly do it. There has to be a
close-to-best case upside (result = Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela?)
otherwise there's no balanced system, and from what my eyes and ears tell me
(thus questionable), the system is reasonably balanced, at this moment in
time, no matter how precariously cos I'm not dying any faster than otherwise
can be expected. So I'm sure there's a way to derive "Great Dads" too, very
useful for creating woman leaders and succeeders. Maybe. And so on through
the permutations of 5 billion "intelligent" humans rutting whenever
possible, thus quite a lot of potential pairings at any given moment in
time.
Excuse the little equation but I'm mathemetically retarded. I can use Excel and that's it. It's severe and on-the-fly shorthand, which could probably fill a few pages of manuscript with description but that will take a while and I prefer reading. The lines (spaghetti lines .. buckets full) of thinking is derived mainly from Richard Brodie's report of the lecture in England .. Meme Update #24 .. the stuff about music from the Dennett lecture. I combined that with stuff read about the importance of symbols by Dr. Athony Storr, academic psychiatrist. I'd recommend buying every single one of his books, they are all highly revealing. Then more recently I learned about "intuition dumps" from a Dennet book so the above is just that, an intuition dump, false or otherwise. If it stimulates better/cleaner/refined thought, then it's done it's job. That's the objective of these lists, right? Teach me, my brain is open.
I *think* (intuition dump warning) the problem is that in this last
millenium, or century, or decade, or few years, it's suddenly becoming a
whole lot less essential to survival of the species to rush the job of
mating in a manic summer of activity. And the "balance" or equilibrium of
our system, Earth, driven totally by technology, is showing clear signs of
swinging very sharply the other way (and potentially out of balance
extremely quickly, in cosmic terms) i.e. the longer one's parents took to
hook-up and mate, the better the chance was of them *thinking* more about
it. More importantly, the potential consequences (i.e. you) and what to do
about/with you, which would likely result in you being at least slightly
less miserable than say a Rwandan tribesman. A human who has never touched a
book, seen a movie or a parent or anyone that can provide some clue
(software) as to what it is he is involved in, outside of providing a free
"toy", an AK47. Who's currently taking his last few wretched breaths as his
body his hacked by machettes wielded by "children" in the name of a
gene+meme mix that went horribly wrong from the get go. Gruesome? Not
really, not compared to the war movie, CNN, one of the <rapidly replicating>
"windows on our world". There's obviously something to be said for
marriage, no matter which false religion is pushing the concept. I've
already blown my own marriage, and know my children will live to regret it
in some way or another. And I think I'm "civilised" in that I enjoy "good"
music, don't have any major sexual perversion that I know of and am
*rabidly* pacifistic.
I have not being able to do any "work" since reading Meme Update #24, for a
variety of reasons. Other posts in the various lists I'm watching (extropy,
virus, memetic and virtropy .. it's all one "organism" to me. Same tune,
different words) have kind of prompted me to think about things "nasty" and
<unspoken> such as rape and how that associates with music, thus the
association cascade as I like to call it. My science method is so "bad"
that it doesn't exist. I'm "feeling" my way through so much software
(movies, books, CDs, MP3, newslists, CNN, BBS blah blah blah) that I often
wonder if I can stay sane. I go to sleep when genuinely in doubt. So the
way I see it is that I don't need "credentials" so long as I tell the truth
about who I am and why so that my garbage/art can be judged accordingly and
not according to the symbols I hang on my wall or my haircut or lack
thereof. So I will describe myself and produce a link to a photo, if asked,
this seems like the kind of place where one can get away with telling the
truth about oneself mostly "unnoticed".
Dave
[Durban, South Africa]