Re: virus: Re: How did we get here?

Dave Pape (davepape@dial.pipex.com)
Tue, 11 Feb 1997 13:08:13 GMT


At 19:08 10/02/97 -1000, Peter wrote:
>Hakeeb A. Nandala wrote:
>
>>It's my belief that a lot of people on this list thought up the "meme"
>>concept long before they came across the formal Dawkins definition.
>>It's also my belief that people gravitate towards ideas that they already
>>have i.e. their "meta-memes".
>>
>Definitely. In turn these meta-memes interact as distinct individuals with
>other meta-memes, forming ever larger groups until there exists the single
>homo-sapien "consciousness" who looks out across the universe wondering if
>there is an inter-stellar E-mail group it could correspond with.

I used to promote the idea of global meta-consciousness, and talked/thought
about Group Nervous Systems which functioned as the interaction of Central
Nervous Systems, and processed information in similar ways. A lot of people
hammered me though, saying (rightly) that there was no evidence to back up
my ideas, to distinguish them from "just" analogies.

My favourite joke defense of GNS theory was that maybe global consciousness
hasn't bootstrapped yet, and won't do until most people think "Global
consciousness exists, and I am part of it- Gaia knows herself!" IE, there
aren't enough self-referential memes in Gaia's memespace to make her very
conscious. ALTHOUGH THEY'RE RISING IN POPULARITY, and anyone who likes the
idea, look for web references to NOOGENESIS, because this'll get you in
touch with people who are a bit too mystical for my GREAT liking... and also
email Duen Hse Yen (yen@noogenesis.com), because he loves the idea, and
feels lonely because not many people get in contact with him.

I got into memes because I thought global conscoiusness, if it does arise,
will arise through the interaction of globally processed and culturally
transmitted ideas. I though I'd look after some pennies and let the pounds
look after themselves (old English proverb implying that pounds are an
emergent metasystem arising from the interaction of penny units).

MAIL YEN!

Dave Pape
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