RE: virus: agnosticism again (was Site du jour (Temple of the V

Robin Faichney (r.j.faichney@stir.ac.uk)
Wed, 7 Jan 1998 09:57:21 -0000

> From: MarXidad[SMTP:marxidad@innocent.com]
>
> > How do people feel about this: every time you "believe in"
> > anything, a meme has you in its thrall.
>
> I think saying that the acceptance of any meme puts you in its thrall
> is
> going a bit overboard. The memetically aware, such as ourselves,
> aren't
> necessarily enslaved by memes. Sure, we know that what we're doing is
> determined by whatever memes we're hosting, but I wouldn't say that
> we're
> helplessly following their dictates. Or maybe I'm being controlled by
> <free-will> :) .
>
You're not being controlled by <freewill> alone, but on a
thoroughly memetic perspective, that is just a meme, and
there is no such thing as free will. My proposition was
that it might be useful to take a less than thoroughly
memetic perspective, and assume that we can draw a
line between our use of memes and their use of us at
the point at which we begin to "believe in" a meme or
meme-complex. In practice, we only ever need "working
hypotheses", and to devote more of our resources to
any meme than that, is to be suckered by it. No?

> > So agnosticism,
> > applied generally, not just to belief in God, is the ultimate
> > meme-control mechanism. (To believe that something
> > does not exist is to believe, while to be agnostic as to its
> > existence is not.)
>
> You said that in last month's atheism vs. agnosticism thread. David
> cited
> something from Atheism Web; Here it is again:
>
> Disbelief in a proposition means that one does not believe
> it to be true. Not believing that something is true is not
> equivalent to believing that it is false; one may simply have
> no idea whether it is true or not.
>
I'm impressed by your retrieval capability, and I don't recall
the full context myself, but this quote only seems significant
re the meaning of "disbelief", which I'm not really concerned
about. Even though Collins Concise Dictionary has it as (1)
to reject as false or lying, and (2) to have no faith (in).

> > Sure, agnosticism too is a meme, but
> > it is a minimal one, unlike rationality, which is relatively
> > complex, and certainly very useful, but not as
> > fundamental as agnosticism.
>
> Rationality would have to be somewhat complex to be of some use. I'm
> not
> sure about agnosticism being more fundamental, but it is too simple
> for it
> to be of any use. Agnosticism is synonymous with ambivalence. Sitting
> on the
> fence to avoid being on either side doesn't do much.
>
Yes it does. It leaves open the possibility of learning, which
is closed by a decision to believe either way.

> Agnosticism is saying "There *may* be a God". Atheists, in general,
> see no
> reason to even entertain that idea. Now which is more minimal? I think
> it's
> the latter that uses Occam's razor.
>
I think that's an idealised version of atheism. Many atheists
in practice spend effort on destroying what to me is a straw
man. Not so minimal. I just don't concern myself with the
issue -- it's a waste of resources. And I think that by
focussing on the existence of God, you're missing the point
about agnosticism, which is that you should only believe in
*any* proposition, whether positive *or* negative, with
sufficient reason. Which I really don't see that you can
argue with.

Robin