Perception Theory and Memes — Full Circle
It seems straightforward to integrate Perception Theory with Meme Theory. Perception Theory has been introduced and experimentally tested on various issues and topics within this website Beyond Good and Evil or www.ronniejhastings. com (Perception Is Everything, [Jan., 2016], Perception Theory (Perception is Everything) — Three Applications, [Feb., 2016], and Perception Theory: Adventures in Ontology — Rock, Dog, Freedom, & God, [March, 2016]). The theory of memes was developed by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1989, Oxford University Press, New York, ISBN 0-19-286092-5 (pbk.) ) and expanded by Dawkins in A Devil’s Chaplain, Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love (2003, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, ISBN 0-618-33540-4). Daniel C. Dennett in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995, Simon & Schuster, New York, ISBN 0-684-80290-2) dealt with the philosophical implications of memes in evolutionary theory.
Generally, memes are synonymous with the non-veridical (subjective) ideas, concepts, memories, meanings, algorithms, symbols, theories, and language all illustrated in Figure 1 of Perception Is Everything, [Jan., 2016], as well as the interactions of the non-veridical interactions among memory loops, ideas, self-perception, and concepts represented in the same figure. In other words, memes are the constituents of the non-veridical “world display screen” presented to our “mind’s eye” illustrated in Figure 2 of Perception Is Everything, [Jan., 2016]. ( For example, quoting from The Selfish Gene, “If the meme is a scientific idea……a rough measure of its survival value would be obtained by counting the number of times it is referred to in successive years in scientific journals.” ) Figure 2 is a collage of both veridically and non-veridically produced results “projected” on the “screen” that makes up what we experience as perception. So, why were memes not used from the very beginning of Perception Theory (2016)? Mainly because memes by 2016 were associated with Dawkins’ theory that “religious” memes were like infectious, toxic “viruses,” meaning that in his view religion functioned like a mental disease. In the minds of many of the religious, therefore, the word “memes” meant some sort of atheism, especially as Dawkins became demonized among some believers as a professed atheist. So, at the beginning (2016) of the development of Perception Theory, the use of generic and more “benign” terms like “ideas” and “concepts” rather than a “toxic” term like “memes” seemed “fairer” and more “open minded” to both believers and non-believers alike. Only when Perception Theory led to a possible “common ground” of agreement among theists, atheists, and agnostics in Perception Theory: Adventures in Ontology — Rock, Dog, Freedom, & God, [March, 2016] and after Perception Theory was applied to philosophical and religious cultural concepts such as belief, hope, faith, prayer, and free will (I Believe!, [Oct., 2016], Hope and Faith, [Jan., 2017], Prayer, [Feb., 2017], and The “Problem” of Free Will, [June, 2018]), keeping memes out of the language of Perception Theory would make the theory appear incomplete; the “cat was out of the bag;” there was no longer any need to be concerned about open-mindedness, as the religious basis of such concerns had been exposed in the understanding of religion itself through the memes of Perception Theory . Succinctly, since all theories are concepts, all theories are memes. All religions are memes. Memes are the common specie of human culture, and Perception Theory is an ontological approach to all culture. Therefore, Perception Theory is another meme dealing with the production of memes, or, actually, a “meme of memes.”
It is possible Perception Theory is the most “self-contemplative” meme yet, a meme exploring the ontology of memes. I suppose I could have entitled Perception Is Everything “Memes Are Everything” instead.
Therefore, the word “meme” could have been substituted for many of the different terms sprinkled all over Figure 1 of Perception Is Everything, [Jan., 2016] and substituted for all the drawn symbols ( both solid and dashed ) and written equations sprinkled all over Figure 2 of Perception Is Everything, [Jan., 2016]. But that would have been a too ridiculous application of Occam’s Razor, losing all categorical distinction of one meme from another (not to mention making two figures covered with the same word obviously unnecessary). But using the word “meme” now, in coming full circle back to the beginning of Perception Theory as represented by Perception Is Everything, [Jan., 2016], may be useful in furthering understanding of the “subjective trap” introduced in Perception Is Everything, [Jan., 2016]. Could “meme” get us out of the trap? Could “meme” help us “prove” that other minds like our own exist? Could “meme” help us actually perceive the perception of another person? “No, not really” is an appropriate answer to all three of these questions. But because of the broader concept of the non-veridical products of our epiphenomenal mind that the term “meme” brings — namely, that memes “spread” from mind to mind — the assumption of other minds around us becomes more intellectually palatable, more “comfortable” than just the stretching of “our limits of credulity into absurdity” presented in Perception Is Everything, [Jan., 2016]. ( Again quoting from the same sentences as above from The Selfish Gene, “..[the scientific theory meme’s] spread will depend on how acceptable it is to the population of individual scientists…” (brackets mine).) Because our minds are filled (or “infected” to use Dawkins’ term) with memes that have “traveled” or been “transported” from meme sources other than our own mind (“Thank you! I never thought of that!”), our tendency is never to doubt that “new” memes are from sources like we have within our own skulls — our brains. Looking at the “behavior” of memes, the subjective trap seems not as isolating and bound to solipsism as it first appears.
The specie of human culture, the meme, allows Perception Theory to be thought of collectively, not confined to our own personal experience. Perception Theory is a meme that provides a possible explanation of the production and evolution of memes in the epiphenomenal non-veridical mind of the veridical brain. And cultural evolution can be understood as the flow of memes, the flow of humanly “made up” information, some of which we revere (because it is AVAPS,” as veridical as possible, stupid) — revere as “knowledge.”
RJH
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