Not necesarily a disease. It has some survival value when it blocks the
mind. As one priest said once to me: "if there were no God, one could as
well kill himself". He was serious and very open. It looked like this was
the only reason for him to live. It is very hard for our brains to process
information that there is no higher power (look at Mr.Hyde...)
> Memetics, as studied at CoV, is an organized form of
>mysticism that is typical of modern cults and religions.
Do you really have to go to extreems, Mr.R? (I know who you really are :-))
The fact that Mr.Hyde is making his mystical statements about Level-3 is NOT
what the whole CoV is about. What WE say about Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Six
Pillars of Self-Esteem is also CoV, isn't it? The way we "study" memetics
at CoV depends
on ALL the participants (forgive me again for telling Richard about this
list and letting him try his tricks on us).
>4 symptoms of such organized mysticism that are exemplified by CoV are:
>1. Pseudo-scientific doctrine.
>2. Drug-like delusions
>3. Modern version of Plato's philosophy
>4. Inability to distinguish between essentials and non-essentials
Again, you are only talking about the Level-3 nonsense. Very well put
together if you remember that Richard is NOT memetics.
BTW there seems to be a confusion about the title "Virus of the Mind", which
Richard Brodie unintentionally borrowed from Richard Dawkins' article
"Viruses of the Mind" (see: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dawkins/index.html).
Memetics *can* be studied scientifically if we make three assumptions, as
you very well put it (now I have no doubt it's you, Richard!, Mr. R. eh?):
>1) there is an external reality of which to study,
in which case: no more mental masturbation with stupid discussions if
reality and objectively-subjective objective truth exist!
>2) a competency of the scientist(s) to study it,
and all those who think their thinking is inferior (because they /only/ work
in food business, or they drink too much coffee, etc.) are welcome to
participate *without* finding excuses why what they say may not be as wise
as Guru's nonsens.
Great. We *assume* we are competent. If one *assumes* one is incompetent,
one should not take our time by masturbating in public.
>3) that which is studied has a nature to be understood.
I think it's time we memorize those three assumptions, or maybe ask David
McF. to add them to "Virian Ethics"
(http://www.lucifer.com/virus/ethics.html) right after: "Think critically,
act rationally" (I hope it is still there...).
Please stop drinking this stuff, Dr.Jekyll and brainwashing us with Mr.Hyde,
so we can start talking about memetics.
Regards, Tadeusz (Tad) Niwinski from planet TeTa
tad@teta.ai http://www.teta.ai (604) 985-4159