Mind Viruses - Quareness Series 131st "Lecture".
Humanity's formal religions all tend to be variations on a theme involving strategies for evangelism, heresy, making sense, repetition and tradition. Most of them also tend to deploy a degree of emotional "button pushing" when it comes to matters of belonging (drawing people into group), crisis (e.g. imminent danger), dominance (e.g. status), food (and fasting), problem solving (requiring "hard to acquire" specialist knowledge), security (claiming to provide a safe haven from artificially induced dangers), and sex (tied into the belief system). In this of course they do not appear to be much different from many non-religious "cults". Another very striking aspect of our formal religions is their remarkable powers of endurance...a matter which does seem worthy of examination in a non-partisan way.
Many scientifically minded people tend to regard religion as believing in something without any evidence, or even despite evidence to the contrary. However, having faith in God may work well for us because when we have a purpose to our lives, we tend to accomplish a lot more. The beliefs we happen to hold at any given time program our minds to work in certain ways. If we believe that life is meaningless and random, such is more likely to manifest in our lives. If on the other hand we believe there's a purpose to our lives, we'll tend to try and accomplish that purpose. And maybe this sorta self-fulfilling strategy is one key reason why long-lasting religious affiliation works well for many. It's fair to say that we all necessarily live with a certain amount of delusion and self-deceit, and maybe we need to pick the right set of "delusions" to point us in the direction we wish to go.
Commitment to mission and the consequences of leaving are usually sufficient to harness people's lives and labour in any "cult". Combining these aspects with some form of evangelism tends to create a powerful virus (of the mind) that spreads automatically as far as it can throughout the population. Of course it's a lot more difficult to start from scratch on every issue and really think it through than to try and be consistent with a particular set of beliefs. Nevertheless alignment of purpose is not necessarily a bad thing...we may just need to ensure that the purpose is one we consciously subscribe to and that's honestly accomplishing what it says on the tin. It's also wise to bear in mind that once the shell of a successful mind virus is set up, we can plug in any agenda we wish as long as it doesn't interfere with the virus's primary function of self-replication. Evangelism is the common thread in all mind virus shells i.e. directly or indirectly recruiting members who recruit more members who recruit still more members. Silence and complacency do not cut it in the highly competitive world of mind viruses. In the circumstances we may need to develop personal strategies for "programming" ourselves:
- Consider what comes naturally i.e. our gut feelings (given that such evolved to maximise our DNA's chances of replicating) so as to enable us to consciously choose which beliefs to program ourselves with and which we want to spread.
- Look into our searching for truth, which is always based on some set of assumptions making certain things look true but hidden to ourselves until we've mapped out our belief programming.
- When we have the presence of mind to see beyond the day-to-day hassles of life, we hunger to fulfill whatever is our own self-selected life purpose...and when mind viruses leech our lives away from that purpose, we need to find and eliminate them.
- A zen-like "turning off" of our internal dialogue can help us toward freeing ourselves from the potential tyranny of mind viruses...looking at life from a series of different perspectives, we can eventually get to realise how many of those beliefs we have taken for granted about the nature of reality were really just figments of our programmed imagination.
Outgrowing any belief system is more of a transcendence than a repudiation. If we get stuck at the level of our genetic programming (e.g. through lack of self-discipline) we'll likely lack foresight and integrity and live rather chaotic and powerless lives. The next level up of our "learning pyramid" (with all its acquired skills and fields of study) sees many of us having invested so much time and effort to acquire all that knowledge, being very reluctant to give up the comfortable framework of the belief system that got us to that level. Being stuck here can see us becoming either resigned or cynical...clinging indefinitely to our beliefs and maybe attempting to repeat past successes, going back to school, learning new subjects or switching religions. In the absence of willingness to give up our reliance on the "truth" of our belief systems, we're a good deal more likely to remain at this second level perhaps living lives of quiet desperation or often feeling bored, confused, guilty, powerless, resentful, unmotivated, unworthy or just doing what we've always done without thinking much about what we want of life.
At the third level we can learn to look at life as something to be created out of our own personal programming and purpose rather than a maze of "settled" knowledge, beliefs, goals and challenges. Here we can be freed from societal pressures and guilt and mind viruses. If we commit strongly enough to a fulfilling, meaningful, motivating and rewarding purpose for our lives, the cognitive dissonance created vis-a-vis those old beliefs of ours that don't support this purpose will inevitably result in some reprogramming likely more suited to our living effectively.
It's hardly unreasonable to assume that the true purpose of education is to enable as many people as possible to have lives full of freedom and fulfillment. We need to be aware then of the many established sources willing to answer questions about the meaning of life which, however, may be either self-serving or part of some mind virus ready to hook us into a closed belief system. Sadly power tends to corrupt and any person or organisation with a charter to decide what values to teach can easily become infected with many a tricky and pernicious mind virus.
Evolving real education (from memorisation...to learning how to think...to facilitating the leap to that third level of the "learning pyramid") means empowering people to discover what excites and motivates them and makes them feel worthy. This can give life real meaning for them through understanding that the purpose of their lives is to make the most of such things rather than to be cogs in the self-perpetuating mechanism of random culture. It may be that the only way to wrest control of our evolution away from the random selective forces of locked memes (growing more and more prevalent at this time) is to be unwavering in a belief that each individual is entitled to their life and liberty. Unlike today's heavy emphasis on the pursuit of approval/grades (= an invitation to viruses) our children (and ourselves) need to be taught to discern and pursue their/our own true values.
Sean.
Dean of Quareness.
December, 2020.