Memes and Gods
Are gods real after all?

by Lloyd Harrison Whitling

Language endowed humanity with an ability to describe and to explain, and so to learn not only how to speak about things, but also to tell how to make our own copies of whatever we found useful. Memes are ideas that have been copied, nothing more nor anything less. If memes do not exist or are nothing meaningful, that is to say the same about ideas, whose importance we take for granted.

What I find scary about memes is that, if Dawkins is correct, and they do gain physical existence in the way he said, then memes about God (god/gods/et al) arise into existence that way also, and it matters nought if we denigrate them as "human creations", they still exist for so long as people believe in them. (Shudder.) If that is even a little bit true, then it is religious belief that perpetuates the evils that ¹Arabic religiosity has introduced into the world. That is reason enough to seek religious belief's banishment from among human populations.

The kind of belief we are describing as 'religiously held' is about anything given credence without obvious and tangible reason, and held as true in the face of reasons contrary to it that describe it as false or, at least, doubtful. Religiously held belief is supported by apologia rather than hard evidence, as necessitated by its nature. If such beliefs can be accurately described as "resident in human nervous systems", even mild forms of them must be considered alive, malevolent and dangerous. Gods live while belief lives, and die when no one grants them any credence. Gods have a long history that demonstrates that to be factual.

Such memes tend to appropriate portions of the human nervous system dedicated to self-sense in natural human animals. The intention to do so can be found by reading derogatory condemnations of self-interest by the Arabic religions; also in the eastern religions, notably Buddhism; and in such secular philosophies as Determinism, where 'self' is denied an actual role in anything. It is their tendency to usurp selfness, and replace it with their own agendas, that makes parasitic memeplexes seem impossible to banish: When one describes the problem to their hosts, he is telling it to the memes and not the no-longer-present self each person might have otherwise been. If that is at all factual, the platitudes about "having Jesus in my heart" may be truer than was ever thought possible. The "supernatural" may be alive and well, just not "out there but unfindable", but "in there and too very much among us".

The certainty is, we all host memes. A certainty that results from that is that memes share the same kind of reality as ideas (which is what they amount to). To discredit memes as unreal requires that ideas share that exact form of denial, for the statement must include them (since memes are ideas of a certain kind). Real or not, memes are identifiable, observable and predictable in verifiable ways that can be subjected to testing and the results plotted as data which can then be demonstrated according to the various types: We can get an idea and predict the results. We can host a memeplex and, likewise, predict the results according to the various types. We can induce a memeplex into others and predict the results. All of that goes toward accrediting or denying a reality; whether our predictions prove right or wrong, all of that goes toward recording the nature of a meme, a ²memeplex, or their hosts, to increase the level of our understanding of what to expect from any particular species in the future.

Memeplexes affect our view of the world and understanding of how it works. That is called our 'bias'. A Muslim religionist is biased to view the world differently than a Xian, but not as much differently as in comparison to a natural scientist, whom we shall refer to as a naturalist in spite of a rigid philosophy parading under that name. Because her view is that nature has provided our senses (and sense of self) for survival guidance, and that we should rely upon verified data they produce (as well as, now, from the instruments developed specifically to enhance and extend them), the memeplex supporting that will provide her bias and she will justifiably regard with suspicion any statements that run counter to that. Reality, as it presents itself to her, will guide her assessments and conclusions. What she believes is what she can test and verify as true. What she refuses is what cannot be tested, verified, demonstrated in any form in the reality in which she lives.

Just like in electronic circuitry, the more tightly controlled is a worldview dominated by a memeplex, the higher will be the amount of bias applied to its results. A naturalist under the influence of a memes-dominated philosophy will behave in many ways very similar to those of any acknowledged religionist. What becomes important now is the nature of the memeplex by which any person is dominated.

[Memes and Freedom]  [Memes chapter] [Meme Quotes] [Meme Evolution]

FOOTNOTES:_________

1: Arabic religions are those originated in the middle east, generally of Semitic origin, the most notable (or, notorious) variants of which are nowadays known as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (or, Mohammedanism).               RETURN

2: Since an individual meme is rather ineffective on its own, the terms meme and memeplex are generally used interchangeably. Any meme can be disassembled and shown to consist of multiple ideas, at any rate, and so would be a complex form by itself, a memeplex.          RETURN

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"To deny a right to the experience of pleasure is immoral unless that denial can be justified by a valid presentation of how pain will result from that experience in an amount that would render the expected pleasure regrettable; or, if it can be shown that pain will be induced in others innocent of any involvement. The role of science in moral issues should be to test that, predict that, and find harmless ways to demonstrate that."

— L. H. Whitling in the eBook, Secular Morality —