No strings attached freedom

[LMNO]

I'm not sure I can buy into memetics 100%.  Or even 75%. 

It might be an occasionally useful metaphor, but I dunno.

But I suppose that's beside the point.

Or maybe that's the whole point.


I think I just derailed this thread due to my lack of understanding regarding memetics.

I don't think so. I think this has be an awesome thread.

I doubt we've gotten any answers, prolly more questions that anything. Once Cram gets back from his interview, maybe he can respond based on the AM book... I think I'll dig out my Book of Atem tonight and see what I can find  there. It might be interesting to see the memetic model from the "Art" perspective and the "Magic" perspective.

One thing I recall from Atem, was that Phil placed memetics in two categories:

Meme - an idea/concept/belief/gestrue etc
Memetic Entity - A system of beliefs, ideas etc.

So the entity, in his view, is a strong system that is somewhat self sustaining. So "Fnord" would be a meme, "Sink" would be a meme, "Hail Eris, Pentabarf, Eris" etc would all be memes... but "Discordianism" would be a memetic entity.

These entities, then can be accepted by the individual (either consciously or through infectious means)... and are modified by the other memetic entities within. So in his view, its almost memesexual... Discordianism and JWism (plus all the other memetic entities that wander around in my head) have a baby that's some memetic mix of the two, thus creating the unique memetic entity that most directly affects my Self.

In Phil's view one of the key aspects of "magic" is the conscious manipulation and modification of the internal memetic entities. In fact, it seems that he places the "Holy Guardian Angel" concept as the invoked form of the individuals internal memetic entity.

Kinda, based on my recollections from a year ago

Well, ok.

And I can see that if you start beliving in a certain kind of meme, it may appear to "force" you to do things.

But I still feel that the "I" still has ultimate control of the "AM", if the "I" chooses as much.

That is, the meme may have an internal structure, and might shape thought, to such a degree that the "I" may be subsumed, but there is still a choice, deep down there.


edited to bring the last post on the other page forward.

[Elder Iptuous]

I'm not sure I can buy into memetics 100%.  Or even 75%. 

It might be an occasionally useful metaphor, but I dunno.

But I suppose that's beside the point.

Or maybe that's the whole point.


I think I just derailed this thread due to my lack of understanding regarding memetics.

Based on my cursory understanding of memetics, i would say i am in the same boat.  it seems like a neat-o notion for looking at ideas as agents unto themselves, to understand their flows and interactions on the substrate of social interaction, but to say that the social interaction and constituent entities are nothing more than the memes seems like 'mistaking the map for the territory', right?

[LMNO]

I just wanted to leave a side note and say that my November would have been much cooler if I could have had these kinds of conversations.  But NOOOOOOO, I had to ban PD whilst I wrote my book!

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

LMNO and Iptuous, you hit my thought precisely.

Now, what if we combine this model with Freud's model of the Id, Ego and SuperEgo.

It seems to me that the Super Ego could be heavily influenced by memetics, the Ego could be influenced, at least in part, by memetics... but the ID, would mostly be meme free... I think.

Hrmmm....

[Manta Obscura]

LMNO and Iptuous, you hit my thought precisely.

Now, what if we combine this model with Freud's model of the Id, Ego and SuperEgo.

It seems to me that the Super Ego could be heavily influenced by memetics, the Ego could be influenced, at least in part, by memetics... but the ID, would mostly be meme free... I think.

Hrmmm....

Rather than Freud, I think a more illuminating psychological model to look at would be Erik Erikson's stages of conflict stuff. I'll see if I can find a link or some text to elaborate in a moment, but until then suffice it to say that I think Erikson's concept of facing various identity crises/milestones throughout one's life lends itself pretty well to the concept of freedom, memetic identity and personal choice.

[Manta Obscura]

Wikipedia, the ol' standby:

Even though Erikson always insisted that he was a Freudian, he is better described as a Neo-Freudian. Subsequent authors have described him as an "ego psychologist" studying the stages of development, spanning the entire lifespan. Each of Erikson's stages of psychosocial development are marked by a conflict, for which successful resolution will result in a favourable outcome, for example, trust vs. mistrust, and by an important event that this conflict resolves itself around, for example, meaning of one's life.

Favourable outcomes of each stage are sometimes known as "virtues", a term used, in the context of Eriksonian work, as it is applied to medicines, meaning "potencies." For example, the virtue that would emerge from successful resolution. Oddly, and certainly counter-intuitively, Erikson's research suggests that each individual must learn how to hold both extremes of each specific life-stage challenge in tension with one another, not rejecting one end of the tension or the other. Only when both extremes in a life-stage challenge are understood and accepted as both required and useful, can the optimal virtue for that stage surface. Thus, 'trust' and 'mis-trust' must both be understood and accepted, in order for realistic 'hope' to emerge as a viable solution at the first stage. Similarly, 'integrity' and 'despair' must both be understood and embraced, in order for actionable 'wisdom' to emerge as a viable solution at the last stage.

The Erikson life-stage virtues, in the order of the stages in which they may be acquired, are:

hope - Basic Trust vs. Mistrust - Infant stage. Does the child believe its caregivers to be reliable?
will - Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt - Toddler stage. Child needs to learn to explore the world. Bad if the parent is too smothering or completely neglectful.
purpose - Initiative vs. Guilt - Kindergarten - Can the child plan or do things on his own, such as dress him or herself. If "guilty" about making his or her own choices, the child will not function well. Erikson has a positive outlook on this stage, saying that most guilt is quickly compensated by a sense of accomplishment.
competence - Industry vs. Inferiority - Around age 6 to puberty. Child comparing self worth to others (such as in a classroom environment). Child can recognise major disparities in personal abilities relative to other children. Erikson places some emphasis on the teacher, who should ensure that children do not feel inferior.
fidelity - Identity vs. Role Confusion - Teenager. Questioning of self. Who am I, how do I fit in? Where am I going in life? Erikson believes that if the parents allow the child to explore, they will conclude their own identity. However, if the parents continually push him/her to conform to their views, the teen will face identity confusion.
love (in intimate relationships, work and family) - Intimacy vs. Isolation - Young adult. Who do I want to be with or date, what am I going to do with my life? Will I settle down? This stage has begun to last longer as young adults choose to stay in school and not settle.
caring - Generativity vs. Stagnation - the Mid-life crisis. Measure accomplishments/failures. Am I satisfied or not? The need to assist the younger generation. Stagnation is the feeling of not having done anything to help the next generation.
wisdom - Ego Integrity vs. Despair - old age. Some handle death well. Some can be bitter, unhappy, dissatisfied with what they accomplished or failed to accomplish within their life time. They reflect on the past, and either conclude at satisfaction or despair.
On Ego Identity versus Role Confusion, Ego identity enables each person to have a sense of individuality, or as Erikson would say, "Ego identity, then, in its subjective aspect, is the awareness of the fact that there is a self-sameness and continuity to the ego's synthesizing methods and a continuity of one's meaning for others". (1963) Role Confusion however, is, according to Barbara Engler in her book Personality Theories (2006), "The inability to conceive of oneself as a productive member of one's own society" (158). This inability to conceive of oneself as a productive member is a great danger; it can occur during adolescence when looking for an occupation.

[Manta Obscura]

And a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erikson%27s_stages_of_psychosocial_development

[LMNO]

I'm not a big fan of Freud, so I'll let Manta take it for a little while.

[Elder Iptuous]

I'm not a big fan of Freud, so I'll let Manta take it for a little while.

Freud would be a big fan of Manta's avatar right now... 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I myself am a lightweight on Freud, and know only the basics of his theories... the only guys I've studied much of is Jung, Leary and Gurdjieff.

Manta, how does Erikson's view differ from Freuds in the respect you quoted? Also, I like his description, it brings to mind Wilson's comment about the Universe being a causal feedback loop wherein experiences inform thoughts and actions which of course modifyu experiences and further inform... in a big circle. It also reminded me of Leary's first and second circuit.

In Erikson's model then, would the ego be the tool that acts kind of like a memetic attractor, or more like a memetic selector (choosing which to accept and which to reject), or am I way off?

[Manta Obscura]

I myself am a lightweight on Freud, and know only the basics of his theories... the only guys I've studied much of is Jung, Leary and Gurdjieff.

Manta, how does Erikson's view differ from Freuds in the respect you quoted? Also, I like his description, it brings to mind Wilson's comment about the Universe being a causal feedback loop wherein experiences inform thoughts and actions which of course modifyu experiences and further inform... in a big circle. It also reminded me of Leary's first and second circuit.

In Erikson's model then, would the ego be the tool that acts kind of like a memetic attractor, or more like a memetic selector (choosing which to accept and which to reject), or am I way off?

I'll try my best to respond to your questions but, in the interest of being as clear as possible, I'm going to do so in the reverse order in which you wrote them. Also note that I have not read any primary Freudian/Erikson works in about two years now, so my information is based off of old notes, textbooks, and various other secondary sources.

In Erikson's model then, would the ego be the tool that acts kind of like a memetic attractor, or more like a memetic selector (choosing which to accept and which to reject), or am I way off?

Erikson, though self-identified as a Freudian analyst, did not seem to tri-furcate the brain into id, ego and superego as much as Freud did. Freud's creation of the three mental aspects was influenced in a large part by his work with unusual or rare instances and cases of neuroses, whereas Erikson based a good portion of his work on the observation of repeated trends among people, specifically adolescents. For Erikson, the adolescent stage - Identity vs. Role Confusion - was the most pivotal point in an individual's development, because it, for a large part, determined much of the future character of an individual.

To get to your question, the "ego" among psychoanalysts such as Erikson (and to a lesser extent Freud) usually signifies the part of the consciousness that is actively involved in intellection, conflict resolution, logical thought and other choice-based mental initiatives. In this sense, yes, Erikson's idea of "ego" would be the agent involved in choosing, the "I" in "I AM" that everyone was mentioning earlier. As for whether this ego acts as a memetic "attractor" or a "selector" seems to vary depending on which of Erikson's stage one is talking about. Erikson didn't seem to talk in terms of the memes involved with each conflict, but instead was focused on the conflicts themselves, so a bit of extrapolation is needed to come to the aforementioned conclusion.

For instance, in the Trust vs. Mistrust stage of infancy, the ego would attract the meme based on its environmental cues. If a baby is born into a family where its primary caregiver is neglectful, it will develop a basic mistrust of the world, in Erikson's conception. In this sense, the "I" entity would be attracting a meme through no industry of its own.

Fast-forwarding to the adolescent stage, "Identity vs. Role Confusion," the focus shifts to a conflict in which one must decide what type of person one wants to be for the rest of one's life. The adolescent asks themself what type of job they want, what type of person they're attracted to, et hoc genus omne. This stage seems to be a combination of "attractor" and "selector," because the ego in question is acting off of memes it has acquired/been exposed to previously (e.g. "I sure as hell don't want to work in customer service, because people are cruel and aren't trustworthy") while simultaneously creating or selecting new memes to add to its personality (e.g. "My guidance counselor says I should go to a business college, but I want to go to a fine arts school instead").

In general with Erikson's stages, the higher the stage one is in, the more that person seems to be a memetic "selector" rather than an "attractor," at least in regards to how one resolves the conflict of the stage itself. This is not to say that we don't continually collect or choose memes throughout our life, only that as we grow we exercise more of the "virtues" of self-determinacy gained from the previous conflict stages. Conversely, someone who failed to cultivate some of those virtues might be more of a memetic attractor than a selector, depending on which virtues they did or did not develop. Tell me if this makes sense for really real, or if I'm just expressing a rant that only sounds good in my head.

Manta, how does Erikson's view differ from Freuds in the respect you quoted?

Taking all of what I said previously into account, there are several differences between Erikson's view and Freud's view. Freud seemed to see one's personality in terms of being a "memetic attractor," in that the experiences of infancy and childhood not only affect our developing experiences, but determine the underlying personality that results. In his ideology, the id is a quasi-animalistic drive that gets assualted with stimuli that stick to it and incite base urges (e.g. "Sexual stimulation feels really good; I really want to have sex") , and the rest of personality develops as a way of justifying those forces. Superego creates the internalized morals based on societal expectations (e.g. "God says I can't have sex before marriage"), and the ego tries to reconcile the two (e.g. "I want sex, but it's forbidden until marriage. I value marriage as an institution" Note: this is a really sloppy interpretation, so don't take it too much to heart). Memetically, Freud's concepts barely put us above Skinner's behavioristic view of people, wherein we are all just big response-machines that act according to various stimuli. Only with Freud, the motivating forces are presented to us at a young age and continue to percolate within us for a long time.

Erikson leaves more room for identity creation, posing the issue of identity in terms of various major milestones which must be faced. If you fail to resolve a conflict and develop its virtue, the effect sticks with you (e.g. the case of the mistreated infant from earlier), but one still has the ability to respond to the new conflicts as they arise. Also, the irresolution of previous conflicts can be mitigated in part by the resolution of future conflicts. For instance, Mistreated Infant spends its whole childhood feeling pretty sour towards the world, chooses the life of the artist in adolescence, and goes on to find beauty in people by experimenting with various artistic concepts. The effects of the infant attracting memes becomes lessened by its selection of certain memes later on.

For another example, I'll point you toward the movie "American History X," wherein the main character grows up picking up racist memes, only to reform after spending time in prison. Both his initial character and his reformed character are formed in part by his conscious choice of memes and in part by his attraction of memes; he is surrounded by anti-black/Jew/whatever sentiments, and he willingly selects them and participates in them. Then, he experiences someone who challenges his concepts, and willingly changes. His change reconfigures some of his earlier conflicts by giving him trust in a mistrusted demographic, giving him the industriousness to change the situation, altering his identity, developing wisdom, etc.

So short story very long, Erikson takes a lot of the power away from our infant stages and says that we continue to shape our identity - and have our identities shaped - by forces in the world and how we respond to the various challenges within our lives.

Tell me if I hit the mark and answered your questions, or just made a big fool of myself by going off on a long lecture.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Manta, that was beautiful.

I now must think more before posting on this topic!

[Manta Obscura]

Manta, that was beautiful.

I now must think more before posting on this topic!

Thank ye, Rat.

FYI: Most of my research into Eriksonian psychoanalysis has yielded results dealing with the young part of one's life, up until the "Intimacy vs. Isolation" stage. I am unsure about some of his work and its relation to memetics in the later conflict stages, but will see what my research digs up. Erikson was sort of enamored with adolescents (on an intellectual level, that is), so I haven't read a lot of his work on gerontology.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Some scientific type really ought to nail the concept of memetics down soon because it's fast becoming a really wooly terminology and it deserves better.

The way I see it we have a root "I am" which isn't really a meme or a memeplex as much as a seed or hook where the rest attaches or grows from.

The memes themselves I see as functioning like cells in a body. I don't think any of our psychology "software" is composed of anything that could not be described in terms of a meme or memeplex so the whole "is memes all we are?" argument breaks down along the same lines as "is cells all our bodies are?", in that the meta-result of all these little units acting in concert is something much more than the sum of its parts.

The realisation that you, in the "I am" sense are a program, full of buggy, glitchy subroutines and all sorts of malware and spam can be a bit of a shock to the system and certainly fucks with the whole "freedom" thing in a huge way but do not underestimate the power of the "I am" core - pretty much any meme or set of memes can be deleted or modified, by greater or lesser act of will. The key is to take an active role in deciding which parts you want to keep and which parts you want to get rid of.

That's freedom to me. Freedom to, quite literally, make my own mind up. Any other freedom, freedom to act in x or y fashion are all restricted, whether that be by the machinations of other men or the laws of physics. After all society may grant me the freedom to flap my arms but it's a conspiracy of gravity and biology that denys me the freedom to fly.

Free thinking is the only practical freedom that we can possibly aspire to. And, low and behold, it's the one freedom that seems to be the most under siege in this year of our imaginary friend, two thousand and eight.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Some scientific type really ought to nail the concept of memetics down soon because it's fast becoming a really wooly terminology and it deserves better.

The way I see it we have a root "I am" which isn't really a meme or a memeplex as much as a seed or hook where the rest attaches or grows from.

The memes themselves I see as functioning like cells in a body. I don't think any of our psychology "software" is composed of anything that could not be described in terms of a meme or memeplex so the whole "is memes all we are?" argument breaks down along the same lines as "is cells all our bodies are?", in that the meta-result of all these little units acting in concert is something much more than the sum of its parts.

The realisation that you, in the "I am" sense are a program, full of buggy, glitchy subroutines and all sorts of malware and spam can be a bit of a shock to the system and certainly fucks with the whole "freedom" thing in a huge way but do not underestimate the power of the "I am" core - pretty much any meme or set of memes can be deleted or modified, by greater or lesser act of will. The key is to take an active role in deciding which parts you want to keep and which parts you want to get rid of.

That's freedom to me. Freedom to, quite literally, make my own mind up. Any other freedom, freedom to act in x or y fashion are all restricted, whether that be by the machinations of other men or the laws of physics. After all society may grant me the freedom to flap my arms but it's a conspiracy of gravity and biology that denys me the freedom to fly.

Free thinking is the only practical freedom that we can possibly aspire to. And, low and behold, it's the one freedom that seems to be the most under siege in this year of our imaginary friend, two thousand and eight.