Re: virus: Rationality

Alexander Williams (thantos@alf.dec.com)
Mon, 03 Mar 1997 13:57:24 -0500


David McFadzean wrote:
> 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.

Absolutely, its evidence of infection by the Christian meme-complex.
However, the underlying memetic emergence that /caused/ that vocal act
/is/ important. Is it coming from the Missionary Subsystem, responding
to a challenge of belief and thus acting as the outward manifestation of
Anti-meme Response? Is it a sincere voicing in an attempt to convince
/ourselves/, and thus another manifestation of the Anti-memetic
Response, but one which suggests a vastly different internal stance?

In short, behaviour can point the finger at what memes are hosted in a
given memesphere ... but its no guarantee. An Athiest masquerading as a
Christian with a good internal model of what you'll find `sincere' can
voice the same thing and use your now misinterpreted spawned memes to
cause you to evidence behaviour that profits him. An Athiest that just
gets `darn lucky' and lucks into you misparsing his signal and
memetically modeling him as infected with Christianity may go to great
effort to change that misinterpretation if your evidenced behaviour is
at odds with his intent.

-- 
   Alexander Williams{thantos@alf.dec.com/zander@photobooks.com}
The  Mekton  is a  powerful tool,  both  physically and emotionally.
There is something that  happens to an  enemy when he sees his  home
and family stepped on by a hundred ton metal man.    -- Arkon Verian
====================================================================
Of  all the weapons of the  Empire, the  greatest and most respected
were the Metal Knights.  These Knights had served the leaders of the
Bendar for Generations,   righting wrongs and  bringing  fear to the
Empire's Enemies.  It is  said that these  metal giants were  shaped
like men so  that the alien servants of  Evil would know that it was
Man who defeated them.
                               -- Scribings from the Murian Archives