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Memes and Freedom
Over the last four months I have tried to give an explanation for how and why we know what we know. Our assertion is we can not assume anything. We can make observations and form relationships. We can not know what we can not observe. Culture and society can effect our observations unless we actively prevent it. The methods used to retain information can effect our observations. Our brain tends to store information in metaphors, and the metaphors will change with time. Our free will can effect observations based on our motivations.Do we even have a "free will" and how do we know it? I can not think of an experiment to conclusively prove we have a "free will," but if you have an idea please e-mail me. We can use a philosophical arguement instead. Assume we don't have "free will," then we must do what ever we were going to do and we loose our motivation to live. Then, we must be living a lie in order to live. Living a lie and knowing it leads to a lack of motivation to live. So, we could either have "free will," or we could be living a lie and not know it. We still don't know which is true, but we must assume "free will" in order to live a fullfilling life.
Since we have a "free will," we can choose to understand the universe to the best of our ability. We can first observe and understand the observable portion of the universe. We must throw away everything based on non-observables. But, why?
In order to understand why the non-observables need to be thrown away we need to learn about memes. Memes are pieces of information that replicate. An example of a memes could be the story of "Little Red Riding Hood." The story is told by adults and heard by children. It may change as it is retold from generation to generation. The changing of a meme is known as evolution. If the information becomes unimportant it dies. For example, the proper care for horses is getting less known. How to skin a mamoth is no longer readily known.
A meme's success is based on how well spread it is. A meme's soul purpose is to find a host and replicate itself. Some memes effect its host, while other's do not. Memes that do not effect the host are unimportant, and therefore die because of lack of need to be copied. Some memes effect the host negitively and others effect the host positively. An example of a meme effecting its host negitively would be: "If you die in the name of God, you wil go directly to Heaven. Suicide missions are needed to fight the Holy war for God." Hosts that take this meme to heart may not live to spread the meme to another person, or the Hosts death itself could spread the meme to more hosts. Therefore, the anouncement of the meme in the media could spread the meme to a wider audience of potential hosts. Since truth isn't a criteria for spreading the meme a wide variety of true and false memes occupy a culture at any one time.
So, if we limit ourselves to observables we stand a chance of knowing the truth. If we decide to question what we can not observe we are affected by social and cultural bias. Let us look at the history of social and cultural understanding of what we once could not observe, but through advances in technology we can now observe.
Example 1: The Earth. Many cultures once told us the Earth was flat and held up by elephants or Atlas. Obviously, this assertion was wrong.
Example 2: Other Cultures. Almost every culture believed other cultures to be bad, evil or worse. Once the culture is understood, most cultural practices become acceptable.
Example 3: Creation. The age of the universe is now known to be about 12,000,000,000 years old which counters the 5 or 6 thousand years old Judeo-Christian answer to this question. The age of the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. The time it took to create the Earth and all the life took 99% of this 4.5 billion years as opposed to the 7 day senario offered by the Judeo-Christians culture.
What do we say to this same Judeo-Christian culture when it tells us about other unobservables? First of all, do they have any correct predictions? If you know of anything Judeo-Christian culture has predicted and it was later proven to be correct by carefull observation please send me e-mail. With that track record, we need to be skeptical about what they tell us about any unobservables.
This was just an example aimed at an assumed audience predominently of Judeo-Christians so they can relate to what they know. But this extends to any cultural norm not based on observables. When we tell a culture eating your dead may spread Crutchfield-Jacobs disease, and the belief that eating the dead does not give the consumer strength we are fighting very strong cultural memes. When the meme has no observable to counter it it becomes very strong. If we think of cultural memes as viruses being spread through the culture, and those which survive are successful without reguard for truth. How can a meme be killed? One way is for the truth to be born out. So, if the meme is about something observable, it will die when many observations contradict the meme. If the meme is about something which can not be seen it can live forever if it has the favor of the host.
Michael Forbush5-25-99
More Life the Universe and Everything
