What is a viral memetic infection of the brain and why should we be concerned about it to survive?
The following is a distillation of the following two Ted Talks:
https://www.ted.com/talks/diane_benscoter_how_cults_rewire_the_brain?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_blackmore_memes_and_temes#t-1131266
Starting with Dr. Susan Blackmore’s ideas on memes and temes, let’s adopt her preferred definition of a meme: The Greek term mimeme is shortened to meme and simply means “that which is replicated.” It is a term coined by a controversial evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. She argues that evolution is driven by what MUST happen when you have three conditions:
1) variation,
2) selection and
3) heredity or replication.
This leads to novelty, but it also isn’t driven by any morality or loyalty to human survival. This is the “Universal Darwin Principle” and it leads to this conclusion: “Any information that is varied and selected will produce design.”
Dr. Blackmore argues further that we have become meme machines, and memes have led to us having bigger brains. Now there are memes that are products of technology and when we have technology that can reproduce itself, it won’t need us to replicate memes. This will be very dangerous to us, let alone any life on earth.
She reports there are now three replicators on the planet and each new version of replication is very dangerous and might lead to our extinction. Indeed, Gaia has produced life forms that killed themselves.
So, the question becomes are there memes that lead to anhililation, and the answer is, “Definitely yes!”
In Diane Benscoter’s powerful Ted talk, she explains how cult’s promote viral memetic infections of the brain and when this happens circular logic takes over, as exemplified by the Moonie cult she quotes:
- Moon is one with God;
- God is going to fix all the problems in the world;
- All I have to do is humbly follow;
- Because God is going to stop war and hunger---all the things I wanted to do—
- All I have to do is humbly follow;
- Because after all, God is …going to fix it all.
You can take this circular logic and apply it to many different circumstances. It is a memetic that is potentially lethal, and humans are quite susceptible to it.
She explains that the most dangerous part of this is the creation of “us” vs “them” and “right” and ”wrong,” “good” and “evil” and in doing so, it makes anything possible, and anything can be rationalized. When this happens, “someone’s brain, someone’s mind can come to the place where it makes sense, in fact it would be wrong, when your brain is working like that----not to try to save the world through genocide.
Shocking, but true. This is how we annihilate other lives including our own. How close are the Trump followers to a cult? How different is the Moonie cult from the Faux viewer getting their daily dose of viral conspiracy theories that infect their rational thought processes? When will the next “savior” variation be born into the world of virulent memetic brain infections? When will we upend those climate denier’s who take the easy way out which will lead to the common life form annihilation?
Diane Benscoter says we must first admit we have the problem and when we work together, we can solve the problem--- because then there is no “us” vs “them.”