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Topic: The memetic fitness of CoV (Read 4698 times) |
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Pabreetzio
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Re:The memetic fitness of CoV
« Reply #15 on: 2005-05-05 02:11:08 » |
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Im new to this church, just joined earlier tonight. I had thought 'the world needs something like *this*' myself, and I thought about a church advocating mematics, but didnt know it actually existed. I randomly perchanced upon it tonight and was very excited.
From what I've learned so far everyone here is very excited about the idea too. I can tell because you are all so eager to spread such a good idea, and I was thinking wow i want to spread it to what can i do.
Then I read the very last post. I completely agree with what Sporky023! In fact (i'm not familiar with all the beliefs yet) but I think that if what Sporky said isnt one of our big advocacies it should be: "CoV is intended to be a benefit to mankind, and hence good effort should be made to ensure that it does not evolve into something which spreads for its own reasons, uses its hosts as some other large memeplexes do. increasing the memetic fitness of CoV will be in our interests as human beings and is good work to be taken on, just so long as the memetic engineers working on the project keep that ultimate goal in mind. This, I believe, is an important issue to put attention to because (1) CoV should constantly evolve to more effectively spread its beneficial effects throughout the world, and (2) by evolving quickly enough CoV can develop beyond our ability to use it, instead of it using us."
So use the precious time you have with something so managable to get things started off very well. Ask not how can we make CoV spread and grow fat, but how can we keep it lean. Seems like right now this whole church exists as forums. I know the forums should be open, but there should also be a way to refine the highlights of a topic after a certain point. Consolidate points, Archive posts, show the most viable memes (the points made in posts that are mosst convincing memes) and any memes that compete, and the leave the most recent for so long. If someone responds and mematically speaking kills a previous meme, archive the 'dead' post. I dont think these should go into practice yet, but i do feel its relevent for discussion in order to achieve a mematically fit CoV.
One of the big sellers of the CoV as I see it is Debate. I mean come on, its like sex: its fun, combines memes, and the offspring that survive are more mematically successful. So we need to set up some fun competitive debate structured forums that are gamelike and judicable. Sell it as a game, as fun. Set up blogging competitions: mematic engineering contets (write a paper, win noteriety, have it prominent for everyone here to read it and make a name for yourself) Have this all be explained on the main site and not hidden in any message boards either.
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MoEnzyme
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Re:The memetic fitness of CoV
« Reply #16 on: 2005-05-09 04:33:40 » |
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Welcome Pabreetzio. I like your enthusiasm and it comes at a timely point when CoV has become more active after a bit of a lull. I have seen BBS activity going up appreciably (often as many as 20+ guests where 4 and 5 were more common) , and the Journal of Memetics list has been very active as well -- too fast for me to keep up with anyway. We also have our Meridiontm reputation/rating system up and that seems to be encouraging some new kinds of conversations as well as solving some of our older problems. So it is a good time to feel optimistic for CoV.
I feel that CoV has some real memetic fitness through this seemingly backwards (to other religions) aproach. I think the central tenent in this gets hashed out in dogmatism as a sin. As I like to articulate it in CoV we see people as more important that ideas, and getting this priority backwards leads to dogmatism. This compliments our virtue of empathy as well, which would also place people over ideas.
We also accomplish this through the ideas as parasites, or memes metaphor. We recognize the power of ideas, and realize that we can come to better memes by not granting them absolute replicative power over us, which dogmatic thinking and behavior does. To replicate with us, ideas need to have use for and improve the lives of real people, not imaginary ones, and not simply for use in their own replication, which we still recognize as a necessary component as well.
To these ends we recognize the need for ideas to replicate within a community committed to reason, empathy, and vision, and avoidant of hypocrisy, apathy, and dogmatism. We assert this as the recipe for ethically better replication.
Warmest welcomes,
-Rev. Jake
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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David Lucifer
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Enlighten me.
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Re:The memetic fitness of CoV
« Reply #17 on: 2005-05-09 10:57:05 » |
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Quote from: Pabreetzio on 2005-05-05 02:11:08
One of the big sellers of the CoV as I see it is Debate. I mean come on, its like sex: its fun, combines memes, and the offspring that survive are more mematically successful. So we need to set up some fun competitive debate structured forums that are gamelike and judicable. Sell it as a game, as fun. Set up blogging competitions: mematic engineering contets (write a paper, win noteriety, have it prominent for everyone here to read it and make a name for yourself) Have this all be explained on the main site and not hidden in any message boards either.
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Debate as sex, debate as a game... I think we're on the same wavelength! Let's get more specific. How formal would you like it? We already have lots of "debate" on the list and forum here to the extent that members argue about stuff. But I'm guessing you are thinking of something a little more formal. Should we have a special area of the bbs for debates? Should it be like the formal live debates with a moderator, opening statements, rebuttals. Should a winner be declared, and if so, how?
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Pabreetzio
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Re:The memetic fitness of CoV
« Reply #18 on: 2005-05-09 20:55:13 » |
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Im no special authority: the question stands for everyone's imput on how to set up debates. I am personally coming from my last year of highschool, and I participated in policy debate all four years (although I wasn't as active in it or as good at it as most others at my school). That kind of debate is more like a sport, more like playing Age of Empires or Warcraft than the kind of debate which would happen in forums on the internet which is paced more like one of Sid Mir's turn based Civilization games.
The debate the goes on in the church of Virus, however, should not be debates between people- although people will certainly gain noteriety through them should they be persuasive enough. And the debates never really close either (however, I feel that we should take on individual topics at a time and focus on them as a church for a while). People will chapion their own individual personal beliefs and put them against others. "God works in mysterious ways" is strong enough to survive outside this church, but I feel that people as intelligent as ourselves will practically do away with such excuses and really get down to business. Dont hold onto your beliefs, and hopefully people will come to new realizations they never had before as they are persuaded by one side of the argument and the fittest meme gains yet another host.
The arguements ultimate determinate of mematic success is how many people are pusuaded to one opinion after everything is out in the open. We could take polls, with the prerequisite that the people being polled have read all they can on either side of the arguement. in theory if we were to debate a virtue of the church nearly everyone would be in agreement that the virtue's side was more convincing than say the side that relied on one of our sins.
However, rarely does everyone feel convinced of one thing. I remember when i was pretty young and talking to some girl on the internet i had the thought that if i talked to her enough id get her to believe what i believed. In practice this is a nearly impossible thing to do- you cant always convince people of whats right even though you know its right and even though you think you can explain every since reason why its right and refute every reason you think its wrong. I dont know though, maybe there are some ideas that people outside this church hold onto that we might be able to get past and reach consensus on some issues. In highschool debate there usually is a definate winner, not dependant upon the judges own beliefs.
Id love to see a pre-debate poll declaring us split on an issue, and then after people have read either side of the debate a near consensus on which sides right- where people actually changed their minds.
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David Lucifer
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Re:The memetic fitness of CoV
« Reply #20 on: 2005-07-17 13:43:03 » |
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I see your forum was inspired by http://www.actionforum.com/ which has some interesting features. I would eventually like to integrate Meridion with the discussion forum here so we can vote on individual posts.
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Mentor
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Re:The memetic fitness of CoV
« Reply #22 on: 2005-10-26 13:18:02 » |
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Should we spread the message of COV on other boards such as http://boards.billmaher.com/?
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MoEnzyme
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Re:The memetic fitness of CoV
« Reply #23 on: 2005-10-26 23:06:29 » |
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Quote from: aljis on 2005-07-31 14:40:32
interesting article. However all that stuff in there about "the hundredth monkey", is bunk. And not just from a being skeptical point of view . . . Lyall Watson later admitted that he made it all up (ie lied). It is interesting that the meme persists long after its own creator discredited it.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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MoEnzyme
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Re:The memetic fitness of CoV
« Reply #24 on: 2005-10-26 23:09:03 » |
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Quote from: Mentor on 2005-10-26 13:18:02
I personally favor spreading the message as far as it will go, preferably with a good reference and a link to us here.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Hermit
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Re:The memetic fitness of CoV
« Reply #25 on: 2005-12-04 07:57:06 » |
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Quote:
Quote from: Jake Sapiens on 2005-10-26 23:06:29
interesting article. However all that stuff in there about "the hundredth monkey", is bunk. And not just from a being skeptical point of view . . . Lyall Watson later admitted that he made it all up (ie lied). It is interesting that the meme persists long after its own creator discredited it.
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There is even a CoV FAQ about it: FAQ: The 100th Monkey or the Critical Mass of Enlightenment
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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