On Mon, 14 Oct 1996 22:45:40 -0700 Lior Golgher
<efraim_g@netvision.net.il> writes:
>The following excerpt explains how such a biological mechanism
>developed in the Penicillium mold. I believe
>it's just a matter of time until we discover a similar memetic
>mechanism, since the conditions are the same.
>I took it from Jack's "Bugs in the News" - What the Heck is
>Penicillin?
[clip]
>The question is - Which "commerical firms" would be interested in
>inducing memes to make lots of anti-memetic
>substances by limiting the amount of thought-resources within our
>minds?
>Tyrannies? Radicals? Preachers? Politicians?
>Or maybe real commercial firms -- Coca Cola against Pepsi Cola,
>McDonalds against Burger King, even Microsoft
>against Netscape...
Very interesting, but I think you've missed the pith of my question.
Mold and bacteria compete for food. Each is genetically programmed to
recognize the difference between comrades and enemies. If you are a
bacteria, other bacteria with your genetic make up on comrades and
everyone else who uses the same resources as you and your comrades is the
enemy. Memes seem to recognize some memes as allies and others as
competitors. The question is, "On what basis do they form competitive or
cooporative relationships with other memes?" Logically inconsistant
beliefs would be memetically incompatible in a perfectly rational mind,
but who's got one of those?
An atheistic meme-complex occupies an important position in my memetic
landscape, but so does my melioristic faith and gratitude to the Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas. The concepts seem incompatible, but as sets of mental
programming, they each serve useful purposes in my life. My brain has no
trouble accepting a scientific model of the universe along with some
version of Buddhist cosmology, but it has great difficulty reconciling
the scientific model with creationism. In my brain, science and buddhism
are compatible while science and creationism are incomapitble. I'm sure
that this is not the case for everybody, so my question is why are my
science memes at odds with other memes which in people other than myself
might be compatible with science?
-KMO