virus: Absolute Truth

Richard Brodie (RBrodie@brodietech.com)
Mon, 20 May 1996 09:54:21 -0700


It's comforting to hold beliefs in things like Absolute Truth, God,
Karma, and so on. But as a practical matter I'd rather program myself
with more useful memes.

Tad said:

>I am glad you've mentioned that. Many people believe that: because we
>are
>not able to find the exact truth, there is no Absolute Truth. I would
>like
>to challenge Richard on that. On p. 216 of "Virus of the Mind" he
>says:
>"the more you understand your memetic programming, the less anything in
>life
>looks like the Absolute Truth". His NFL example is more about choosing
>not
>to be too *accurate* for practical purposes, but it does not convince
>me
>that there is no Absolute Truth.
>
>This often leads to claiming that 2 + 2 may not be 4, and the next step
>is
>"anything goes". If two people have different memories of the same
>events
>(I think there was a good movie on HIS and HER story which showed how
>differently people perceive the same events). If I remember I did not
>say
>something, and someone tells me I did, there are two interpretations,
>but
>there is only one truth, which we can find if we had the conversation
>taped.

A tape of a conversation is just another inaccurate reproduction like a
memory. It has different kinds of distortions. But that's really a side
track. I don't really care whether or not there is an Absolute Truth;
it's angels on the head of a pin. My position is that a human mind can
never know the Absolute Truth, so you'd better realize that all your
memes are half-true at best.
>
>Richard says: "People programmed with the quest for truth meme often
>spend
>time analyzing past events, trying to figure out who was right, who was
>wrong, what people's true intensions were, and so on. Like stopping
>the
>football game for instant replays, stopping to figure out the "truth"
>all
>the time can distract from your enjoyment of life".
>
>Just a thought, Richard: if you did not get your royalties for the
>Polish
>translation of the "Virus of the Mind" next year, would you consider
>"analyzing past events, trying to figure out who was right" as a
>"distraction from your enjoyment of life"?

Most definitely. Instead I'd examine my options for the future. How much
money could I hope to recover versus how much would it cost to launch a
space expedition to conquer TeTa.
>
>Richard Brodie RBrodie@brodietech.com +1.206.688.8600
>CEO, Brodie Technology Group, Inc., Bellevue, WA, USA
>http://members.gnn.com/rbrodie
>Do you know what a "meme" is? http://members.gnn.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
>