3 ms·

Reason as memetic immune disorder

36 points by jeremynixon 11y ago

chipsy 11y ago
This is a great companion to Arthur Melzer's "Philosophy Between the Lines". It has the subtext of answering how to convey an idea without also creating dangerously fanatical thought about that idea.
biomcgary 11y ago
Excellent article. The author notes that new converts to a religion are often zealous in dangerous ways relative to those raised in it because they take everything a bit too literally. Interestingly, I've seen the same pattern holds true of "converts" between various relatively similar strains of Christianity. Recent "converts" to atheism and rationality also frequently follow this pattern, but they tend to temper with time as well (or they just exhaust themselves).
- norea-armozel 11y ago
  As someone who's been on both sides of the conversion to/from Christianity (and strong atheism) I can confirm there's a moment where you just switch off all reasoning with others but after a time it becomes more stressful than it's worth. Eventually two things will occur from what I've noticed in others: either you get tired of the bs (like you hinted at) and mellow out or you double down on the fanaticism. I can't figure out why the latter occurs considering how much stress it seems to put on a person both psychologically and physically. You'd think the body's own limitations would be the ultimate stop button but it seems the human mind/brain is more stubborn than I'd like to believe. :/
xlm1717 11y ago
Interesting read, showing a possible dark side to "blind reason". This line was most interesting to me: "Communism and fascism both begin by exercising complete control over the memetic environment, in order to create a new man stripped of cultural immunity, who will do whatever they tell him to." You often hear that communism "makes sense on paper", or that it is a "perfect philosophy" implemented imperfectly by humans. You can hear perfectly reasonable arguments why communism is the best way for people to live. It will provide for everyone, no one will want. Everyone will be on a level playing field in terms of access to resources and have freedom from suffering. Lenin and Trotsky ended up using these well-reasoned arguments to convert tsarists into bolsheviks and, by stripping their followers of their previous cultural immunity, utterly destroyed the existing power structure and replaced it with themselves at the top. I think this connects to the author's mentioning of radical Islamists and how a great many of them have gone to western universities before becoming radicalized. I doubt for many of them, just reading the Koran after losing their cultural immunity will cause them to be radicalized. It's coming under the influence of charismatic but radical leaders that causes them to become radicalized, to serve their leaders' ambitions of power. Also interesting are the author's proposed antidotes against following bad cultural memes to their logical conclusions: either watch out for deviating from those around you, or follow your feelings. Even with the power of reason, the author suggests you have to listen to your feelings to avoid stripping yourself of cognitive immunity to a dangerous idea. The brain is a tricky instrument indeed.
- norea-armozel 11y ago
  I think in both instances you're dealing with people who feel they're not being represented. It's easier to feed people an ideology no matter how it's sold so long as it promises the redress of grievances left unaddressed by the old order. It's like how people talk about how a specific politician will fix everything if we all just vote for that one politician. Or how even my fellow libertarians promise a utopia if we just abolish the government. Obviously, complex problems don't always yield to simple answers. But our minds are tuned to accept simplicity and the ideal over anything that's less than perfect. Perfection is such a sweet delusion to buy into.
al2o3cr 11y ago
"One heuristic to counter this loss of immunity, is to be very careful when you find yourself deviating from everyone around you." For instance, if you find yourself suddenly obsessed with speeding up the production of super-intelligent AI...

36 points by jeremynixon 11y ago

This is a great companion to Arthur Melzer's "Philosophy Between the Lines". It has the subtext of answering how to convey an idea without also creating dangerously fanatical thought about that idea.

biomcgary 11y ago

Excellent article. The author notes that new converts to a religion are often zealous in dangerous ways relative to those raised in it because they take everything a bit too literally. Interestingly, I've seen the same pattern holds true of "converts" between various relatively similar strains of Christianity. Recent "converts" to atheism and rationality also frequently follow this pattern, but they tend to temper with time as well (or they just exhaust themselves).

norea-armozel 11y ago
As someone who's been on both sides of the conversion to/from Christianity (and strong atheism) I can confirm there's a moment where you just switch off all reasoning with others but after a time it becomes more stressful than it's worth. Eventually two things will occur from what I've noticed in others: either you get tired of the bs (like you hinted at) and mellow out or you double down on the fanaticism. I can't figure out why the latter occurs considering how much stress it seems to put on a person both psychologically and physically. You'd think the body's own limitations would be the ultimate stop button but it seems the human mind/brain is more stubborn than I'd like to believe. :/

xlm1717 11y ago

Interesting read, showing a possible dark side to "blind reason". This line was most interesting to me: "Communism and fascism both begin by exercising complete control over the memetic environment, in order to create a new man stripped of cultural immunity, who will do whatever they tell him to." You often hear that communism "makes sense on paper", or that it is a "perfect philosophy" implemented imperfectly by humans. You can hear perfectly reasonable arguments why communism is the best way for people to live. It will provide for everyone, no one will want. Everyone will be on a level playing field in terms of access to resources and have freedom from suffering. Lenin and Trotsky ended up using these well-reasoned arguments to convert tsarists into bolsheviks and, by stripping their followers of their previous cultural immunity, utterly destroyed the existing power structure and replaced it with themselves at the top. I think this connects to the author's mentioning of radical Islamists and how a great many of them have gone to western universities before becoming radicalized. I doubt for many of them, just reading the Koran after losing their cultural immunity will cause them to be radicalized. It's coming under the influence of charismatic but radical leaders that causes them to become radicalized, to serve their leaders' ambitions of power. Also interesting are the author's proposed antidotes against following bad cultural memes to their logical conclusions: either watch out for deviating from those around you, or follow your feelings. Even with the power of reason, the author suggests you have to listen to your feelings to avoid stripping yourself of cognitive immunity to a dangerous idea. The brain is a tricky instrument indeed.

norea-armozel 11y ago
I think in both instances you're dealing with people who feel they're not being represented. It's easier to feed people an ideology no matter how it's sold so long as it promises the redress of grievances left unaddressed by the old order. It's like how people talk about how a specific politician will fix everything if we all just vote for that one politician. Or how even my fellow libertarians promise a utopia if we just abolish the government. Obviously, complex problems don't always yield to simple answers. But our minds are tuned to accept simplicity and the ideal over anything that's less than perfect. Perfection is such a sweet delusion to buy into.

al2o3cr 11y ago

"One heuristic to counter this loss of immunity, is to be very careful when you find yourself deviating from everyone around you." For instance, if you find yourself suddenly obsessed with speeding up the production of super-intelligent AI...