Re: virus: Rationality

David McFadzean (morpheus@lucifer.com)
Sun, 2 Mar 1997 21:15:49 -0700


> From: Alex Williams <thantos@decatl.alf.dec.com>
> Date: Sunday, March 02, 1997 7:42 PM
>

> Mind is highly likely to be heavily tinged with sarcasm, for example
> ... but I could use the expression in its memetic context /as/
> sarcasm, which is rather the point, you see.

Granted.

> Does knowledge of Christianity /really/ denote `infection'? If we're

Not at all.

> going to use the bio-viral model, what would the equivalent of `once
> infected, infection fought /off/ successfully and antibodies still
> present or natural immunity'? We may carry memes that make up passive
> /knowledge/ of Christianity, but does that really imply infection?

Let me try again: For instance, if we both *sincerely* say "Jesus Christ
is my saviour", then that indicates that we are infected by the Christian
meme even though the actual information pattern that caused that particular
speech act to be executed may be radically different in our respective neural
systems.

--
David McFadzean                 david@lucifer.com
Memetic Engineer                http://www.lucifer.com/~david/
Church of Virus                 http://www.lucifer.com/virus/