Okay, a meme bashing I will go. Can't say I've studied the concept of
memes. Can't say my friend's concept of "Ablevs" for parts of language is
correct. I can say that the word "concept" seems to be able to replace the
word "meme" in any of the associated sentences I've yet to see here or
elsewhere ("Memetic" would equate to "conceptual"). 'Twas suggested that it
is wise to keep things simple. I agree. "Keep It Simple Smarty" (KISS) is
one of my favorite slogans.
Let me get down off of my high horse here for a bit and see if I can find
one or more of you that finds the following interesting and I'll try to keep
the subject in line with a mailing list for new religion synthesis.
Is the universe steady-state with no beginning/end or otherwise? If it is
steady-state then everything that evolves to the point of self recognition
will evolve again over and over. For the sake of brevity let's assume the
universe is steady-state. Death then is not a subjectively experienced
phenomenon. We can only experience the death of others and they can
experience our own deaths but we don't see ourselves as dead. In short a
real-time reincarnation ocurrs. Maybe I jumped ahead too quickly here. How
many things could happen to stop your next breath? Did any of them happen?
I conjecture that at the point where everyone else might experience one's
death, the person who died loses the ability to perceive until similar
enough conditions evolve again that lack that cause of death. In short, we
die every moment and are remanifested immediately to our own perspective
with no lack of continuity. Consider the general theory of relativity,
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the probabilistic nature of atomic and
subatomic physics; exactly what the universe appears to be is directly
dependendent on who or what is doing the perceiving. Have you ever known
the state of being dead? If not then the only way we can accept that death
is possible on a personal subjective level is by hearsay alone. Hearsay is
not something on which to base a scientific hypothesis. Does spiritual
meaning and goals for righteous living or valid moral allegiance exist with
such a perspective? Yup. It sure does.
If the universe will meet with a total unrecoverable end then there is no
point to anything at all and we might as well not take that next breath
because any kind of progress will mean naught in the final analysis. Who
will be there to make the final analysis? If you believe that "god" is
something that is outside of universe then maybe you can ignore the above as
just poppycock. Myself, I believe much as Buckminster Fuller, my "god" is
all. Universe is the only totally regenerative system. Nobody will ever be
able to ultimately prove that universe will end because nobody will be
around to report all's demise.
BTW, I shared my work with Bucky shortly before he died to our perspectives.
He had dinner at our house, my step-father being the head of the math
department of my college and our having a solar heated home that we had
built and I had instigated the processes that brought Bucky to our school
for a presentation. It was the second time I met with Bucky. He was able
to peruse some papers of mine and his private comment to me the next morning
at the airport was "There appears to be a reasonable excitation."
Should I go on? Any reasonable excitation out there? Strange the
fortuitous results of serendipity. Reminds me of a play and movie by the
name of (lets see, what was it called? Oh yeah.) Auntie Meme.
Dream, scheme, go ahead and loosen that social fabric seam.
Spread intelligence as wings and fly high beyond the blanket of sky.