Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA25329 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 24 Mar 2001 15:09:48 GMT Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 15:00:25 +0000 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: The Demise of a Meme Message-ID: <20010324150025.C1030@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <3AB9F107.24707.4CDB9B@localhost>; <20010323105240.E520@reborntechnology.co.uk> <3ABB4CD5.14022.8C6349@localhost> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.15i In-Reply-To: <3ABB4CD5.14022.8C6349@localhost>; from joedees@bellsouth.net on Fri, Mar 23, 2001 at 01:17:09PM -0600 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Fri, Mar 23, 2001 at 01:17:09PM -0600, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On 23 Mar 2001, at 10:52, Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> > So what do you think they're hooking in to, Joe?
> >
> There are a couple of ideas; #1 the idea of expanded or
> transcended awareness (which assumes that a) our everyday
> waking consciousness is inadequate for the pursuit of self- and
> reality-understanding and b) there are ways in which we can
> augment or extend it, one of which is focused concentration, a
> second is repetitive ritual and a third is the disruption of normal
> consciousness), and #2 the idea of seeing beneath the apparent to
> the real (which assumes the unreality of the apparent).
<snip>
That was a highly interesting little dissertation, Joe. Thanks.
Your approach is that of the professional philosopher, while I'm more
occupied by what goes on on the ground.
I'm totally with you regarding the necessity of genuine agnosticism
in the "phenomenological epoche" -- as you'd expect, given my regular
endorsements of Buddhism Without Beliefs.
Bringing it all back home, I'd like to make the following suggestion:
there are just two major factors (as well as many minor ones) that explain
the success of religious memeplexes in general: social control/conformism
(that's one), and the induction of altered states of consciousness.
Personally, I think of the former as bad and the latter as good, so
I say the "real" business of religion is to encourage and support the
attainment of beneficial altered states, but YMMV. (For me, the best
method of inducing the most beneficial altered states is meditation.)
Of course, memes aren't necessarily successful because they benefit
their hosts. A much more reliable strategy is to induce enjoyment.
I don't have the details to hand, but a book came out a few years ago
suggesting that humankind has, in effect at least, an innate tendency to
attempt to achieve altered states, whether through alcohol, marijuana,
mushrooms, meditation, chanting, pentecostal type stuff, etc, etc.
As a generalisation, we tend to enjoy them. This is where the major
western religions have generally fallen down, leaning too heavily on the
social control/conformism side, without offering enough in the way of
fun times to retain the adherence of the populace. (I speak, of course,
of the west generally, in which traditional church attendance has been in
fairly steep decline for decades. The US is exceptional in this regard.)
It is no coincidence that Buddhism has been found highly attractive by
relatively large numbers of "druggy" counter cultural types since the
fifties, at least (vide Kerouac, Ginsberg, etc).
"I wanna get high..."
-- Robin Faichney Get your Meta-Information from http://www.ii01.org (CAUTION: contains philosophy, may cause heads to spin)=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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