Re: virus: Virus Invades Cybernetics Conference

Tim Rhodes (proftim@speakeasy.org)
Sat, 19 Sep 1998 14:27:59 -0700


Hey, David, nice to hear from you agian!
(And now on to the fisticuffs...)

David R. wrote:

> I explained, "This is a Darwinian world view that is actually a
>religion--a religion in the sense that it is a meme-complex that competes
>with other meme-complexes. It is a religion that, ironically, is in
>Darwinian competion with other religions.

How?!? It offers a different view of the world, but that hardly qualifies
if as a religion on those grounds alone. If that were the case, all users
of psychoactives would be part of a "religion" as well. Do you make that
claim?

What about the literate vs. the illiterate? By teaching children to read
are we "converting" them? I fear that your loose use of the term religion
to cover everything everywhere involving humans renders it completely
useless. Not all of life is religion.

>It has all attributes of a
>religion. For instance, it even has a system of ethics--instead of, say,
>the 10 commandments, the metameme has "evolutionary stable strategies".

This is not ethics. An ethical system would need to imply which of the
*several* "evolutionary stable strategies" that are possible we should
follow. That judgement is not even hinted at by memetics.

>And, like other religions, the metameme bashes its competition in a drive
>for adherents.

Are Coke and Pepsi in a Holy War as well, David?

-Prof. Tim