Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 13:40:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: Valla Pishva <vpishva@emerald.tufts.edu>
Subject: Re: The power to resist memes: reality or delusion?
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Mick Ashby wrote:
> It strikes me that many memeticians are carriers of the belief that
> having an understanding of memes makes them better equipped to exert
> conscious control over which memes they decide to believe in, and which
> they will reject. I would like to question this widely-held belief.
> [Note: here I use the term 'belief' rather than 'meme' because it is
> consciously held - that can be an important distinction]
>
> Mick Ashby, IBM Boeblingen, Germany.
>
Mick,
It very well may be that some people study memes to reinforce
their ability of "free will" but it seems like the first lesson of
memetics is that there is none!
What I think is even more dangerous is the "forcing" of memetics
on people that are not yet ready for its implications, since a corellary
of lesson one seems to be: you are not responsible for your own actions!
This can be very dangerous to society (you thought Dungeons and Dragons or
heavy metal was bad) and it's why I have qualms with people you take the
"ready or not, I'm going to shove it down your throat" view that some
writers have (Dennett, for example, seems to love provocative book
titles). I have no remedy for the reconciliation of morality with
memetics, though I wonder if others could help......
-val
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