Dangerous Memes: Ideas To Die For By Dan Dennett

[Demeter]

VIDEO LECTURE--VERY INTERESTING!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26961.htm

[xchrom]

1. loved dennet and then was mildly discouraged

by some of the comments.

anyway -- he's a very interesting man with some very interesting things to say about memes.

[xchrom]

2. here's his response to rick warren

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_dennett_s_response_to_rick_warren.html

[struggle4progress]

3. It's sloppy thinking. He wants to use the example of an ant, infected

with a parasitic fluke, as a model to understand human behavior motivated by certain abstract ideas, which he believes can "infect" the mind in a manner similar to the fluke's infection of the ant

But "ideas" spread by human language require a great cultural super-structure of human interaction, which seems to be entirely invisible to Dennett. When the ant is infected by the fluke, no great "ant-culture" exists to persuadse the ant that it ought to react to the fluke in such-and-such a manner. But when people are exposed to the ideas that Dennett discusses, their reactions are driven and shaped by a large cultural super-structure: a word like "freedom," considered purely as a sound, would have by itself no effect on anyone: one does not expect a chimpanzee to be "infected" with moribund ideas upon hearing the sound

I regard this lecture as empty blather

[Forrest Greene]

5. I Haven't Yet Listened To The Lecture

...but I imagine the great structure of the ant's physical body, with it's various reactions to infection, could be considered analogous in this case to the great cultural super-structure of human, or ant, interaction.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

4. We must remember this man ...

is a philosopher. His descriptions of memes comes from a slightly different perspective.

We encounter memes everyday. Some fall subject to chosen memes in entirety.
We all have.

Examples:
The USA is the greatest nation on earth. We are all free and the most progressive country, ever!
Only believers will enter the kingdom of god.
Organic food means wholesome food.
Lower taxes for the rich mean more employment.
Democrats in the White House mean better government.

And on and on.......

Memes are the way the TeaParty has flourished. They are also called Talking Points.

Memes are powerful things. Not to be taken lightly.

We are all subject to them.

It is identifying the correct memes against the corruptible ones that may make a thinking person.

[pscot]

6. Memes are like bullets

one alone is harmless, meaningless. But they coalesce in dangerous ways. You can watch it happening around here. This place is the mother lode for memes.