From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: selfishness, Buddhism, and memetics
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:13:51 -0700
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19990414185900.00c21e40@popmail.mcs.net>
Aaron Lynch wrote:
<<On reading in the preface that Dawkins and
Dennett gave guidance to Blackmore's project, I am actually rather
surprised that they did not steer her away from incorporated Zen in a major
way. I would have expected them to recognize the risk of Zenification
making memetics look flaky to skeptical, critical scientists. So I would
have thought they would exert a more scientifically conservative
influence--even if they themselves are privately Zen Buddhists.>>
Science does not concern itself with how flaky its theories look to others.
Science concerns itself solely with making models that explain and predict
with accuracy.
As R.H. Blyth said, Zen is not a religion -- Zen IS religion. Zen is a
process for becoming aware of and gaining mastery over certain of my mental
processes. One scientific view of religion is that it is about "programming"
people with certain memes that influence their behavior in certain ways.
Pure Zen -- not speaking of life in monasteries or religious ceremony and
dogma -- is about self-determination in this process, and as such I am all
for it or for similar methods of raising consciousness to Level 3.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com
Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
Free newsletter! http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
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