Transcript Seeing through the layers

Making sense through
the struggle of memes
Presentation by Kate Jones
at 2011 Double Festival of
Project Renaissance
Making sense with memes
• Each human mind is a unique combination
of perceptions, concepts, experiences,
contexts, beliefs and goals.
• Both the physical Universe and the
individual mind evolve through emerging
layers of combinations, from unity to
complexity, from chaos to organization.
Both are combinatorial and associational.
Polyominoes sizes 1 through 5
Rhombic Pentominoes
Matching shapes – wavy fives
Sextillions (the 35 hexominoes)
The 108 heptominoes
The 369 octominoes
All polyominoes 1 through 9
The polyiamonds 1 through 7
The 66 octiamonds
The polyhexes 1 through 5
The 82 hexahexes
Roundominoes – circle forms
Super Roundominoes
Grand Roundominoes
Matching paths - squares
Matching paths - hexagons
Matching paths - octagons
Matching paths - pentarcs
Colors/shapes – “Hexdominoes”
Colors and shapes – “Intarsia”
Combinations without limit
Harmonic balance
A new theory of human
consciousness
• Introducing memes
• What are they, where are they, how do
they get transmitted?
• They get encoded into the mind’s
software. They are replicators.
• They take on a life of their own and act like
any life form seeking to preserve itself
from destruction and change.
Defense
• Input filters check for similarities,
differences, and any associated hazards.
• Repetition of experiences reinforces
impressions and context.
• Every stimulus gets a value tag based on
what’s already in the file.
• The value tag triggers a complex of
emotions. It hijacks the lower functions.
Enemy or kin?
• The brain and body’s diagnostic system
does lightning-swift calculations,
comparing the new data against all
previous similar data, and instantly
decides whether an idea is friend or foe.
• Based on this value judgment, the other
person, who is the bearer of the
questionable memes, is likewise judged.
Truth or fiction?
• Humans are inundated all their lives with
outpourings of facts and make-believe.
Fortunately we have a truth-seeking
device built in.
• This device is not failure-proof. Sources of
error (list 4 minimum):
• Rationalizations that protect error (list 3
minimum):
Language
• Certain sounds come to represent code
standing for objects and relationships.
• Names have implicit value quantities and
qualities, based on how well they
contribute to the organism’s survival,
stability, comfort and pleasure.
• Become aware of what makes you happy,
and why.
The macro vs. the micro
• In a well-integrated consciousness, all the
contents of the mind are organized along a
hierarchy of values, from the smallest
point to the largest picture.
• The system automatically calculates its
balance sheet from moment to moment.
• The system also calculates the investment
needed to gain or maintain a value.
It’s to die for...
• The lion stops running when she can’t
catch the gazelle within a reasonable
amount of time and effort.
• Some things just aren’t worth the effort.
• Some things are of such importance that
any price is worth their attainment.
• A meme sees its host’s function as part of
a higher value: the group versus the one.
War and sacrifice
• When a nation makes war, it “spends”
many of its members’ lives and happiness
for the protection, enrichment, security of
the rest of the people.
• The volunteer military are gambling that
they individually will survive this meatchopper process, and have convinced
themselves that the cause is worth it to
“save” their country.
Rational self-denial
• Beyond the initial demands of a baby for
food, warmth, love, the growing child is in
a process of learning delay in gratification.
• Individuals postpone some pleasures and
satisfactions so as to invest in a larger
future gain, the next level.
• Rational self-interest takes others’ needs
and interests into the calculation.
The totalitarian temptation
• Along the hierarchy of values, there is a
continuum. The mind’s calculus posits the
largest and the smallest, galaxies vs. the
quantum level, infinity vs. the singularity.
• Any quality can run to the totality of its
potential and is driven by the engine of life
and growth.
• Unchecked, a system moves toward the
totalitarian terminus.
The purpose of purpose
• Through natural selection, the most potent
and self-preserving functions survive.
• If staying alive is the highest priority, all
else is subsidiary to that main purpose.
• Other “purposes”, whether careers or art
or social structures, can grow only out of a
surplus built from the previous level.
• “Transcendental” seeks the next level.
Is progress mathematical?
• Consider human societies from clan and
tribal to global groupings, and acquiring
the support structure from direct raids and
conquests to subtle diplomatic deceptions.
• Productive cooperation—can it work at the
largest societal level without sacrificing the
unit, the individual?
• Resource management for the long term.
How does the system know?
• The human software’s hierarchy sorts
itself by patterns. It follows a template,
from DNA replication to meme structures.
• From the unit building block of survival
needs to the most complex legal contract,
the memes cohere in ascending sizes of
conceptual complexity.
• Any meme “bundle” can be unpacked into
its contributing components.
The tenacious meme
• A meme is a unit of electromagnetic data.
It will hold its pattern as the DNA passes
on its genetic code for replication.
• Through language and action, a meme
seeks to spread itself to others.
• Its diagnostic detection program sniffs out
any threats and goes on the defensive and
offensive to protect itself from change.
When ideas conflict
• Ideologies are huge clusters of memes
that have rationalized their structure and
will seek to maintain their control and build
their ever-increasing power over others.
• Because the emotions are programmed
into the memes’ modus operandi, the host
is virtually helpless to “rethink” a
proposition. Feeling trumps thinking.
Free will
• Abstract thought is a relatively recent
development of the brain. Thinking about
thinking is an emergent property.
• Understanding ourselves and examining
our meme set dispassionately is not a
ready skill. Re-evaluating our belief
systems and voluntarily making changes
based on better evidence takes an effort of
will—a supervisor meme.
The self looking at the self
• Introspection is an emergent skill. When
does a child become aware of itself, and of
how much about itself?
• Can the mind reprogram itself? Can it be
self-correcting? Yes, with sufficient input.
• The scientific method shows human
knowledge is cumulative and correctible.
Myths, faith, rationalizations have no place
here. We need the “truth” meme.
What about imagination?
• Memes can project future developments
based on what is already known. A pattern
replicates like a fractal. The template
keeps building. The system is “sticky”.
• Human ingenuity and inventiveness are
attributes of this reaching forward and
stretching higher. Induction, deduction,
inference, logic—tools built of memes.
Everything is a metaphor
• All learning (programming) is through stories—
fables, allegories, nursery rhymes...
• All our entertainments are in the form of
stories—movies, books, plays, TV, even songs,
radio plays, news reports, celebrity gossip. We
are steeped in the artificial excitement of fiction
every waking moment. Every story reinforces a
meme. How can we tell the real from the makebelieve?
Everything is a symbol
• Symbols (icons) are the mind’s shorthand
way of picturing its memes. Each symbol
sits atop a huge pyramid of supporting
concepts and may, in turn, be a building
block for a larger chain. Check the
premises.
• Words are symbols, too. They are memes
made visible.
Making sense of it all
• In conflicts and confrontations, ask: What
memes are at stake here? What are the
participants defending?
• It’s more important to be right than to be
thought to be right. It’s OK to make
mistakes as long as they’re corrected.
• Watch out for concept splicing. That’s
bootlegging of memes.
Making sense
• There are no paradoxes. There is no
conflict of interest. Go to the next level.
• Know thyself. Be your own explorer,
anthropologist and archeologist of your
unique meme set. Then enjoy
encountering others and sharing their
unique insights in camaraderie and
compassion.
Making more sense
• If evolution favored the predatory and
ruthless, that does not work in building
lasting civilizations. We need the next level
of cognitive development. These brains of
ours have the complexity of a galaxy. We
just need to look inside.
• Win’s methods are a step in the right
direction for dynamic thinking. It’s time to
break the old paradigms.
Truth, goodness, beauty
• The Cosmos awaits us, and our memes
are the tools. They have brought us this
far. Now it’s up to us to become selfdirecting and self-correcting.
The adventure continues...
• Infinite diversity, from infinite
combinations.