Nonduality
Waking from the Meme Dream
Paper presented at:-
The Psychology of Awakening: International Conference on
Buddhism, Science
and Psychotherapy Dartington 7-10 November 1996
Susan Blackmore
Department of Psychology
University of the West of England
Bristol BS16 2JP
Wake up! Wake up!
Errrr, ummmm, grrrrggr, Oh yes, Im awake now. Wow, that was
a weird dream.
I really thought I had to escape from the slurb, and it mattered
terribly to
get to the cupboard in time. How silly! Of course, now I see it
wasnt real
at all.
Wake up! Wake up!
What do you mean, wake up, Im already awake.
This is real. This does
matter. I cant wake up any more. Go away!
Wake up! Wake up!
But I dont understand - From what? And how?
These are the questions I want to tackle today. From what are we
to awaken?
And how? My answers will be From the meme dream and
By seeing that it is
a meme dream. But it may take me some time to explain!
There is a long history, in spiritual and religious traditions,
of the idea
that normal waking life is a dream or illusion. This makes no
sense to
someone who looks around and is convinced there is a real world
out there
and a self who perceives it. However, there are many clues that
this
ordinary view is false.
Some clues come from spontaneous mystical experiences in which
people see
the light!, realise that everything is one, and go
beyond self to see the
world as it really is. They feel certain that the new
way of seeing is
better and truer than the old (though of course they could be
mistaken!).
Other clues come from spiritual practice. Probably the first
thing that
anybody discovers when they try to meditate, or be mindful, is
that their
mind is constantly full of thoughts. Typically these are not wise
and
wonderful thoughts, or even useful and productive thoughts, but
just endless
chatter. From the truly trivial to the emotionally entangling,
they go on
and on. And whats more they nearly all involve
me. It is a short step to
wondering who this suffering self is, and why I
cant stop the thoughts.
Finally clues come from science. The most obvious (and scary)
conclusion
from modern neuroscience is that there is simply no one inside
the brain.
The more we learn about the way the brain functions the less it
seems to
need a central controller, a little person inside, a decider of
decisions or
an experiencer of experiences. These are just fictions - part of
the story
the brain tells itself about a self within (Churchland and
Sejnowski, 1992;
Dennett, 1991).
Some say there is no point in striving for an intellectual
understanding of
spiritual matters. I disagree.
It is true that intellectual understanding is not the same as
realisation,
but this does not mean it is useless. In my own tradition of
practice, Zen,
there is much room for intellectual struggle; for example, in the
cultivation of the dont know mind, or in
working with koans. You can
bring a question to such a state of intellectual confusion that
it can be
held, poised, in all its complexity and simplicity. Like
Who am I?, What
is this? or (one I have struggled with) What drives
you?.
There is also a terrible danger in refusing to be intellectual
about
spiritual matters. That is, we may divorce our spiritual practice
from the
science on which our whole society depends. If this society is
going to have
any spiritual depths to it, they must fit happily with our
growing
understanding of the workings of the brain and the nature of
mind. We cannot
afford to have one world in which scientists understand the mind,
and
another in which special people become enlightened.
So I make no apologies for my approach. I am going to try to
answer my
questions using the best science I can find. We seem to live in a
muddle
that we think matters to a self that doesnt exist. I want
to find out why.
Darwin's Dangerous Idea
There is one scientific idea which, to my mind, excels all
others. It is
exquisitely simple and beautiful. It explains the origins of all
life forms
and all biological design. It does away with the need for God,
for a
designer, for a master plan or for a purpose in life. Only in the
light of
this idea does anything in biology make sense. It is, of course,
Darwins
idea of evolution by natural selection.
The implications of natural selection are so profound that people
have been
awe-struck or maddened; fascinated or outraged, since it was
first proposed
in The Origin of Species in 1859. This is why
Dennett (1995) calls it Darwins Dangerous Idea. Sadly, many
people have
misunderstood the idea and, even worse, have used it to defend
indefensible
political doctrines which have nothing to do with Darwinism. I
therefore
hope you will forgive me if I spend some time explaining it as
clearly as I
can.
All you need for natural selection to get started is a replicator
in an
appropriate environment. A replicator is something that copies
itself,
though not always perfectly. The environment must be one in which
the
replicator can create numerous copies of itself, not all of which
can
survive. Thats it.
Can it really be that simple? Yes. All that happens is this - in
any one
copying generation, not all the copies are identical and some are
better
able to survive in that environment than others are. In
consequence they
make more copies of themselves and so that kind of copy becomes
more
numerous. Of course things then begin to get complicated. The
rapidly
expanding population of copies starts to change the environment
and that
changes the selective pressures. Local variations in the
environment mean
different kinds of copy will do well in different places and so
more
complexity arises. This way the process can produce all the kinds
of
organised complexity we see in the living world - yet all it
needs is this
one simple, elegant, beautiful, and obvious process - natural
selection.
To make things more concrete lets imagine a primeval soup
in which a simple
chemical replicator has arisen. Well call the replicators
Blobbies. These
blobbies, by virtue of their chemical constitution, just do make
copies of
themselves whenever they find the right chemicals. Now, put them
in a rich
chemical swamp and they start copying, though with occasional
errors. A few
million years go by and there are lots of kinds of blobbies. The
ones that
need lots of swampon have used up all the supplies and are
failing, so now
the sort that can use isoswampin instead, are doing better. Soon
there are
several areas in which different chemicals predominate and
different kinds
of blobby appear. Competition for swamp chemicals gets fierce and
most
copies that are made die out. Only those that, by rare chance,
turn out to
have clever new properties, go on go on to copy themselves again.
Clever properties might include the ability to move around and
find the
swampon, to trap isoswampin3-7 and hang onto it, or to build a
membrane
around themselves. Once blobbies with membranes appear, they will
start
winning out over free-floating ones and super-blobbies are made.
Another few million years go by and tricks are discovered like
taking other
blobbies inside the membrane, or joining several super-blobbies
together.
Super-dooper-blobbies appear, like multi-celled animals with
power supplies
and specialised parts for moving about and protecting themselves.
However,
these are only food to even bigger super-dooper-blobbies. It is
only a
matter of time before random variation and natural selection will
create a
vast living world. In the process billions and billions of
unsuccessful
blobbies have been created and died, but such a slow, blind
process produces
the goods. The goods on our planet includes bacteria
and plants, fish and
frogs, duck-billed platypuses and us.
Design appears out of nothing. There is no need for a creator or
a master
plan, and no end point towards which creation is heading. Richard
Dawkins
(1996) calls it Climbing Mount Improbable. It is just
a simple but
inexorable process by which unbelievably improbable things get
created.
It is important to remember that evolution has no foresight and
so doesnt
necessarily produce the best solution. Evolution can
only go on from where
it is now. That is why, among other things, we have such a daft
design in
our eyes, with all the neurons going out of the front of the
retina and
getting in the way of the light. Once evolution had started off
on this kind
of eye it was stuck with it. There was no creator around to say
hey, start
again with that one, lets put the wires out the back.
Nor was there a
creator around to say Hey, lets make it fun for the
humans. The genes
simply do not care.
Understanding the fantastic process of natural selection we can
see how our
human bodies came to be the way they are. But what about our
minds?
Evolutionary psychology does not easily answer my questions.
For example, why do we think all the time? From a genetic point
of view this
seems extremely wasteful - and animals that waste energy don't
survive. The
brain uses about 20% of the bodys energy while weighing
only 2%. If we were
thinking useful thoughts, or solving relevant problems there
might be some
point, but mostly we don't seem to be. So why cant we just
sit down and not
think?
Why do we believe in a self that does not exist? Someone may yet
explain
this in evolutionary terms, but at least superficially it appears
pointless.
Why construct a false idea of self, with all its mechanisms
protecting
self-esteem and its fear of failure and loss, when from the
biological point
of view it is the body that needs protecting. Note that if we
thought of
ourselves as the entire organism there would be no problem, but
we dont -
rather, we seem to believe in a separate self; something
that is in charge of the body; something that has to be protected
for its
own sake. I bet if I asked you Which would you rather lose
- your body or
your mind? you wouldnt spend long deciding.
Like many other scientists I would love to find a principle as
simple, as
beautiful and as elegant as natural selection that would explain
the nature
of the mind.
I think there is one. It is closely related to natural selection.
Although
it has been around for twenty years, it has not yet been put
fully to use.
It is the theory of memes.
A Brief History of the Meme Meme
In 1976 Richard Dawkins wrote what is probably the most popular
book ever on
evolution - The Selfish Gene. The book gave a catchy name to the
theory that
evolution proceeds entirely for the sake of the selfish
replicators. That
is, evolution happens not for the good of the species, nor for
the good of
the group, nor even for the individual organism. It is all for
the good of
the genes. Genes that are successful spread and those that
arent don't. The
rest is all a consequence of this fact.
Of course the main replicator he considered was the gene - a unit
of
information coded in the DNA and read out in protein synthesis.
However, at
the very end of the book he claimed that there is another
replicator on this
planet; the meme.
The meme is a unit of information (or instruction for behaviour)
stored in a
brain and passed on by imitation from one brain to another.
Dawkins gave as
examples; ideas, tunes, scientific theories, religious beliefs,
clothes
fashions, and skills, such as new ways of making pots or building
arches.
The implications of this idea are staggering and Dawkins spelt
some of them
out. If memes are really replicators then they will, inevitably,
behave
selfishly. That is, ones that are good at spreading will spread
and ones
that are not will not. As a consequence the world of ideas - or
memosphere -
will not fill up with the best, truest, most hopeful or helpful
ideas, but
with the survivors. Memes are just survivors like genes.
In the process of surviving they will, just like genes, create
mutually
supportive meme groups.
Remember the blobbies. In a few million years they began to get
together
into groups, because the ones in groups survived better than
loners. The
groups got bigger and better, and a complex ecosystem evolved. In
the real
world of biology, genes have grouped together to create enormous
creatures
that then mate and pass the groups on. In a similar way memes may
group
together in human brains and fill the world of ideas with their
products.
If this view is correct, then the memes should be able to evolve
quite
independently of the genes (apart from needing a brain). There
have been
many attempts to study cultural evolution, but most of them
implicitly treat
ideas (or memes) as subservient to the genes (see e.g.
Cavalli-Sforza and
Feldman, 1981; Crook, 1995; Durham,1991; Lumsden and Wilson,
1981). The
power of realising that memes are replicators is that they can be
seen as
working purely and simply in their own interest. Of
course to some extent memes will be successful if they are useful
to their
hosts, but this is not the only way for a meme to survive - and
we shall
soon see some consequences of this.
Since he first suggested the idea of memes Dawkins has discussed
the spread
of such behaviours as wearing baseball caps back to front (my
kids have
recently turned theirs the right way round again!), the use of
special
clothing markers to identify gangs, and (most famously) the power
of
religions. Religions are, according to Dawkins (1993), huge
co-adapted
meme-complexes; that is groups of memes that hang around together
for mutual
support and thereby survive better than lone memes could do.
Other
meme-complexes include cults, political systems, alternative
belief systems,
and scientific theories and paradigms.
Religions are special because they use just about every
meme-trick in the
book (which is presumably why they last so long and infect so
many brains).
Think of it this way. The idea of hell is initially useful
because the fear
of hell reinforces socially desirable behaviour. Now add the idea
that
unbelievers go to hell, and the meme and any companions are well
protected.
The idea of God is a natural companion meme, assuaging fear and
providing
(spurious) comfort. The spread of the meme-complex is aided by
exhortations
to convert others and by tricks such as the celibate priesthood.
Celibacy is
a disaster for genes, but will help spread memes since a celibate
priest has
more time to spend promoting his faith.
Another trick is to value faith and suppress the doubt that leads
every
child to ask difficult questions like where is hell?
and If God is so
good why did those people get tortured?. Note that science
(and some forms
of Buddhism) do the opposite and encourage doubt.
Finally, once youve been infected with these meme-complexes
they are hard
to get rid of. If you try to throw them out, some even protect
themselves
with last-ditch threats of death, ex-communication, or burning in
hell-fire
for eternity.
I shouldnt get carried away. The point I want to make is
that these
religious memes have not survived for centuries because they are
true,
because they are useful to the genes, or because they make us
happy. In fact
I think they are false and are responsible for the worst miseries
in human
history. No - they have survived because they are selfish memes
and are good
at surviving - they need no other reason.
Once you start to think this way a truly frightening prospect
opens up. We
have all become used to thinking of our bodies as biological
organisms
created by evolution. Yet we still like to think of our selves as
something
more. We are in charge of our bodies, we run the show, we decide
which ideas
to believe in and which to reject. But do we really? If you begin
to think
about selfish memes it becomes clear that our ideas are in our
heads because
they are successful memes. American philosopher Dan Dennett
(1995) concludes
that a person is a particular sort of animal infested
with memes. In other
words you and I and all our friends are the products of two blind
replicators, the genes and the memes.
I find these ideas absolutely stunning. Potentially we might be
able to
understand all of mental life in terms of the competition between
memes,
just as we can understand all biological life in terms of the
competition
between genes.
What I want to do now, finally, is apply the ideas of memetics to
the
questions I asked at the beginning. What are we waking up from
and how do we
do it?
Why is my head so full of thoughts?
This question has a ridiculously easy answer once you start
thinking in
terms of memes. If a meme is going to survive it needs to be
safely stored
in a human brain and passed accurately on to more brains. A meme
that buries
itself deep in the memory and never shows itself again will
simply fizzle
out. A meme that gets terribly distorted in the memory or in
transmission,
will also fizzle out. One simple way of ensuring survival is for
a meme to
get itself repeatedly rehearsed inside your head.
Take two tunes. One of them is tricky to sing, and even harder to
sing
silently to yourself. The other is a catchy little number that
you almost
cant help humming to yourself. So you do. It goes round and
round. Next
time you feel like singing aloud this tune is more likely to be
picked for
the singing. And if anyone is listening theyll pick it up
too. Thats how
it became successful, and thats why the world is so full of
awful catchy
tunes and advertising jingles.
But there is another consequence. Our brains get full up with
them too.
These successful memes hop from person to person, filling up
their hosts'
minds as they go. In this way all our minds get fuller and
fuller.
We can apply the same logic to other kinds of meme. Ideas that go
round and
round in your head will be successful. Not only will they be well
remembered, but when you are next talking to someone they will be
the ideas
on your mind and so will get passed on. They may get
to this position by
being emotionally charged, exciting, easily memorable or relevant
to your
current concerns. It does not matter how they do it. The point is
that memes
that get themselves repeated will generally win out over ones
that dont.
The obvious consequence of this fact is that your head will soon
fill up
with ideas. Any attempt to clear the mind just creates spare
processing
capacity for other memes to grab.
This simple logic explains why it is so hard for us to sit down
and not
think; why the battle to subdue our thoughts is
doomed. In a very real
sense they are not our thoughts at all. They are
simply the memes that
happen to be successfully exploiting our brain-ware at the
moment.
This raises the tricky question of who is thinking or not
thinking. Who is
to do battle with the selfish memes? In other words, who am I?
Who am I?
I suppose you can tell by now what my answer to this one is going
to be. We
are just co-adapted meme-complexes. We, our precious, mythical
selves, are
just groups of selfish memes that have come together by and for
themselves.
This is a truly startling idea and, in my experience, the better
you
understand it, the more fascinating and weird it becomes. It
dismantles our
ordinary way of thinking about ourselves and raises bizarre
questions about
the relationship of ourselves to our ideas. To understand it we
need to
think about how and why memes get together into groups at all.
Just as with blobbies or genes, memes in groups are safer than
free-floating
memes. An idea that is firmly embedded in a meme-complex is more
likely to
survive in the memosphere than is an isolated idea. This may be
because
ideas within meme-groups get passed on together (e.g. when
someone is
converted to a faith, theory or political creed), get mutual
support (e.g.
if you hate the free-market economy you are likely also to favour
a generous
welfare state), and they protect themselves from
destruction. If they did not, they would not last and would not
be around
today. The meme-complexes we come across are all the successful
ones!
Like religions, astrology is a successful meme-complex. The idea
that Leos
get on well with Aquarians is unlikely to survive on its own, but
as part of
astrology is easy to remember and pass on. Astrology has obvious
appeal that
gets it into your brain in the first place; it provides a nice
(though
spurious) explanation for human differences and a comforting
(though false)
sense of predictability. It is easily expandable (you can go on
adding new
ideas for ever!) and is highly resistant to being overturned by
evidence. In
fact the results of hundreds of experiments show that the claims
of
astrology are false but this has apparently not reduced belief in
astrology
one bit (Dean, Mather and Kelly, 1996). Clearly, once you believe
in
astrology it is hard work to root out all the beliefs and find
alternatives.
It may not be worth the effort. Thus we all become unwitting
hosts to an
enormous baggage of useless and even harmful meme-complexes.
One of those is myself.
Why do I say that the self is a meme-complex? Because it works
the same way
as other meme-complexes. As with astrology, the idea of
self has a good
reason for getting installed in the first place. Then once it is
in place,
memes inside the complex are mutually supportive, can go on being
added to
almost infinitely, and the whole complex is resistant to evidence
that it is
false.
First the idea of self has to get in there. Imagine a highly
intelligent and
social creature without language. She will need a sense of self
to predict
others behaviour (Humphrey, 1986) and to deal with
ownership, deception,
friendships and alliances (Crook, 1980). With this
straightforward sense of
self she may know that her daughter is afraid of a high ranking
female and
take steps to protect her, but she does not have the language
with which to
think I believe that my daughter is afraid ... etc..
It is with language
that the memes really get going - and with language that
I appears. Lots
of simple memes can then become united as my beliefs,
desires and
opinions.
As an example, lets consider the idea of sex differences in
ability. As an
abstract idea (or isolated meme) this is unlikely to be a winner.
But get it
into the form I believe in the equality of the sexes
and it suddenly has
the enormous weight of self behind it. I
will fight for this idea as
though I were being threatened. I might argue with friends, write
opinion
pieces, or go on marches. The meme is safe inside the haven of
self even
in the face of evidence against it. My ideas are
protected.
Then they start proliferating. Ideas that can get inside a self -
that is,
be my ideas, or my opinions, are winners.
So we all get lots of them.
Before we know it, we are a vast conglomerate of
successful memes. Of
course there is no I who has the
opinions. That is obviously a nonsense
when you think clearly about it. Yes, of course there is a body
that says I
believe in being nice to people and a body that is (or is
not) nice to
people, but there is not in addition a self who has
the belief.
Now we have a radically new idea of who we are. We are just
temporary
conglomerations of ideas, moulded together for their own
protection. The
analogy with our bodies is close. Bodies are the creations of
temporary
gene-complexes: although each of us is unique, the genes
themselves have all
come from previous creatures and will, if we reproduce, go on
into future
creatures. Our minds are the creations of temporary
meme-complexes: although
each of us is unique, the memes themselves
have come from previous creatures and will, if we speak and write
and
communicate, go on into future creatures. Thats all.
The problem is that we don't see it this way. We believe there
really is
someone inside to do the believing, and really someone who needs
to be
protected. This is the illusion - this is the meme-dream from
which we can
wake up.
Dismantling the Meme-Dream
There are two systems I know of that are capable of dismantling
meme-complexes (though I am sure there are others). Of course
these systems
are memes themselves but they are, if you like,
meme-disinfectants,
meme-eating memes, or meme-complex destroying
meme-complexes. These two
are science and Zen.
Science works this way because of its ideals of truth and seeking
evidence.
It doesnt always live up to these ideals, but in principle
it is capable of
destroying any untruthful meme-complex by putting it to the test,
by
demanding evidence, or by devising an experiment.
Zen does this too, though the methods are completely different.
In Zen
training every concept is held up to scrutiny, nothing is left
uninvestigated, even the self who is doing the investigation is
to be held
up to the light and questioned. Who are you?.
After about 15 years of Zen practice, and when reading The Three
Pillars of
Zen by Philip Kapleau, I began working with the koan
Who...?. The
experience was most interesting and I can best liken it to
watching a meme
unzipping other memes. Every thought that came up in meditation
was met with
Who is thinking that? or Who is seeing
this? or Who is feeling that?
or just Who...?. Seeing the false self as a vast
meme-complex seemed to
help - for it is much easier to let go of passing memes than of a
real,
solid and permanent self. It is much easier to let the
meme-unzipper do its
stuff if you know that all its doing is unzipping memes.
Another koan of mine fell to the memes. Q. Who drives
you? A. The memes
of course. This isnt just an intellectual answer, but
a way into seeing
yourself as a temporary passing construction. The question
dissolves when
both self and driver are seen as memes.
I have had to take a long route to answer my questions but I hope
you can
now understand my answers. From what are we to awaken? From
the meme dream
of course. And how? By seeing that it is a meme
dream.
And who lets the meme-unzipper go its way? Who wakes up when the
meme-dream
is all dismantled?
Ah, theres a question.
Un quote
Firstly for me meme is nothing but concretized
"conditionings".
And in that last sentence is where Science will always come and
stop,
because it then needs for the observer to be observed.
When the observer is the observed, there is no observation left
and without
observation, science is no more.
What Is, ahhhhaaaaaaaa
Cheers
Subject:
Re: Waking up from Dreams-Memes
Date:
Fri, 27 Nov 1998 10:51:21 +0530
From:
"Sandeep Chatterjee" <sandeepc@bom3.vsnl.net.in>
To:
"Jerry M. Katz" <umbada@ns.sympatico.ca>
Hi Jerry,
You have raised a very important and interesting issue here.
>
>> And who lets the meme-unzipper go its way? Who wakes up
when the
meme-dream
>> is all dismantled?
>> Ah, theres a question.
>>
>> Un quote
>>
>> Firstly for me meme is nothing but concretized
"conditionings".
>>
>> And in that last sentence is where Science will always
come and stop,
>> because it then needs for the observer to be observed.
>>
>> When the observer is the observed, there is no
observation left and
without
>> observation, science is no more.
>>
>> What Is, ahhhhaaaaaaaa
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Sandeep
>
>Thank you, Sandeep. Excellent article. I did not know about
memes. It
>sounds like something scientists could sink their teeth into.
I agree
>with you in that it is nothing more than an appealing and
smart way of
>talking about conditionings, and that a final question always
remains. I
>guess we can ride those conditionings to the final question,
or to the
>last conditioning.
>
>My real concern is that I see a sort of following happening
on the
>Nondualism/nonduality salon list. I feel I've taken a
leadership role
>and created an atmosphere and have established that there is
a certain
>way of viewing the world which is quite pure, valid, rooted
in the heart
>of religious tradition, worthy, and knowable by focusing
one's attention
>on something such as the I Am.
>
>All that is a meme complex, isn't it?
Yes.
Till the moment "someone" is left to proclaim anything,
any view, Personal
Saviour, Nothingness, Enlightenment, or Nirvan, I Am or Oneness
of all etc
etc, these will all be variations of one meme or the other.
When the dew drop is no more, no meme can exists, only the Ocean
IS.
Now my saying so, thus a "me" around to say so, all
that I have done is
created another Meme of "Ocean IS".
However I fully agree with you, that one cannot speak orally or
over the
cyberspace with out creating memes one after another.
That is why for me the way of negation , Not this, Not this cuts
through all
memes including the meme which is this "concept of
meme".
Look at how the concept of meme is spreading through me. You are
reasonably
shaken up to see through your own motivations for the Nonduality
Salon.
Since I have let loose this article in cyber space, I am getting
flooded
with refutations and acceptances.
Since the meme survives even in refutance and definitely so in
approval,
what it seems I have done is let loose a Pandora's box which even
Susan (the
original writer of that article) may not have imagined.
Finally memes, it is also a joke, a game, just as the apparent
"solidity" of
all around us is a myth.
I know that. In fact, I have seen
>it form, and I see it grow. I'm not sure what to do about
that, other
>than to emphasize the principle of 'not this, not this', in
one form or
>another.
Yes Jerry.
The first thing that comes up for me is that the cyber space is a
virtual
world within the so called "actual" world.
Now if we accept that the "actual world" is itself an
illusion, cyberspace
is an illusion within an illusion.
So cyber talk is worth that much, unless somehow from "this
illusion within
illusion", a melting of the heart takes place, real tears
flow and one
starts "living" in a different way of beingness.
Why do scriptures amount to nothing as far as human evolvement is
concerned?
It is dead, not alive,and yet has a potential like a finger
pointing to the
moon.
Same as cyber talk or what you have created in your web page.
Your web page is an excellent tool to shake some body.
However, shaking is to happen, otherwise what will happen is
theological
excellence, now theology not being about God, but of
"IAM" and "Nothingness"
etc.
>Really, we talk to people on and off these lists, in person
and
>otherwise, yet we really cannot communicate Truth. We can
only point the
>way. But isn't it memes pointing the way? Don't we have to
keep burning
>the memes (the bridges) until we get to our destination? Is
not a meme
>like a raft to the other shore, which is then left to float
away or rot?
Yes. Totally agree.
All I was trying to convey there, was the mechanism how
"conditionings"
work, perpetuate and strengthen their survival skills.
A very apt example indicating what you said is through desires.
Throughout the history of humanity, "desires" and the
"desiring ego" has
been the Devil to be stamped out in any spiritual path.
Now God, Existence, Whatever in order to "created" this
multiplicity,
"desired" so and hence was born the EGO (lets denote it
in big letters to
differentiate with the small ones of ordinary mortals.
What's the difference between EGO and ego, in essence)
The example goes on to indicate that it is the very path of
desires which
has to be traverersed, in order to reach that "original
state" from where
the EGO sprung.
The ladder through which the descent to Hell took place (grin),
is the same
ladder on which the ascent back to Heaven is to take place. No
other Ladder
available.
This very illsuion needed to BE, so that piercing through takes
place to
which is not illusory.
The meme's required to be burned so that in that very light,
"that" which is
not a meme can been seen, can be melted into, so that no body is
even around
to confirm or proclaim the happening.
Thus with all dues respects to people like Harsha who keeps
proclaiming his
Nirvakalpa Samadhi , I smile at this "ancient meme"
struggling to keep
alive.
>We have to recognize memes, and when a group forms around us,
memes form
>very quickly and grow quickly and, like the Blob (remember
that movie?)
>they consume the origin, the purity.
Absolutely.
The tool in the hand has become the hand.
To recognize what is a meme, a simple test is enough.
Whatsoever has "happened" to oneself if one can
explain, describe, proclaim,
bring it into the confines of words, language, any forms of
communication,
anything on which one can "think", "reflect",
"ponder" all these are
possible, any positive assertions, any affirmations, all one has
done, is
either one has discovered an ancient meme or created one new one.
That is why can you see Jerry, those who 'attained" did not
even say "IT IS
ONE" because what else is this but another meme.
99% of those who "attained" remained silent and hid
from mankind because
they did not even wished to create a "meme" which was
that "Silence was the
way to indicate about THAT".
Those who saw the suffering around of ones asleep and spoke out
of
compassion, used the path of negation. They said it was Not Two.
(Advait)
Buddha said "you" will be not.
What will be, he kept silent.
(He did not want to create any more memes)
>I'd like to hear your comments, especially on what
specifically could be
>done to keep the meme from taking over a group. Meanwhile,
I'll pass the
>article along to the mailing lists and recommend it be
studied.
>
>It is my opinion that Sharleen has been very sensitive to
this
>conditioning and has tried to approach me on it, as she
senses that a
>conditioning lies as a veneer over my 'truth'. Lobster speaks
also of
>this conditioning. I don't. But I agree with them. I just
don't talk
>about it. And so there is a healthy division between what
Lobster does
>and what seems to attract people on the nondualism list. I'd
appreciate
>any comments you have on that.
Jerry just what drives you to do all that you do, the web site,
Nonduality
salon?
I only sense in you Jerry, a deep compassion without any message
to be put
forth.
Just like creating a Sarai (water hole), anybody thirsty come
over, seek
your thirst quencher and stay or go about, whatever.
Does this describe your inner most essence.
Have a look as to what drove you to have this question in you ?
Cheers
Sandeep
Recently, an article appeared in New Scientist about memes.
The issue was brought forward earlier but this article leaves no
doubt and offers a simple experiment. Here is a part of it:
"Hold out your arm in front of you. Whenever you feel like
it, of your own free will, flex your wrist.
Repeat this a few times, making sure you do it as consciously as
you can. You'll probably experience
some kind of decision process, in which you hold back from doing
anything and then decide to act.
Now ask yourself, what began the process that led to the action?
Was it you? Neuroscientist Benjamin
Libet of the university of California in San Francisco asked
volunteers to do exactly that. A clock
allowed the subjects to note exactly when they decided to act,
and by fitting electrodes to their wrists,
Libet could time the start of the action.More electrodes on their
scalps recorded a particular brain
wave pattern called the readiness potential, which occurs just
before any complex action and is
associated with the brain planning its next move. Libet's
controversial finding was that the decision act
came after the readiness potential. It looks like there is no
conscious "self" jumping into the synapses
and starting things off. This and other research has led me to
believe that the idea of "self" is an
illusion. You are nothing more than a creation of genes and memes
in a unique environment. Memes
are ideas, skills, habits, stories, songs or inventions that are
passed from person to person by
imitation. They have shaped our minds, leading to the evolution
of big brains and language because
these served to spread the memes. But the memes with the
cleverest trick are those that persuade us that
our "selves" really exist. We all live our lives as a
lie."[...]
This means the end of ego; from the perspective of memes,
meditation is a tool to still especially competing memes. Instead
of
speaking about Self-realization, it is more appropriate to speak
about getting rid of self-illusion. It is possible to shut up all
memes to the extent that they will only come to the surface when
a condition arises requiring a response; without that condition
the mind remains blank.
From the perspective of memes, religions, cults and methods of
meditation are a kind of virus; they will start competing with
the
already present memes and if one is "lucky", the
virus-meme will win and become dominant. If this is accompanied
by "special"
visions and experiences, one will claim "realization",
whatever that means and attract followers, eager to have these
visions and
experiences too. Such a meme, being able to multiply, is called
successful. It is contrary to knowing one's real nature, as this
means getting rid of (dominance of) memes, the most important one
being the illusion of self.
Jan Barendrecht
Jodyr:
> If that set of self-replicating ideas known as the selfplex
> comprises what we might call the illusory self, then it is
> that particular idea of "me" that is the linchpin
of the
> whole structure.
>
> When the idea of "me" is obliterated due to full
absorption
> in the Self, the other ideas that comprise the selfplex
> continue to exist as impressions in the mind. You still
> have the idea that "you" are making decisions, but
when
> you "decide" to remember who you are, there is
nothing
> there to remember except the Self.
Jan B.:
Unless the self-meme has disappeared, one cannot know other memes
were
dependent on it. Without the dependence caused by the self-meme,
the others
are just assets, as their former importance was derived from the
self-meme.
In order to exclude confusion, one could "link" the
disappearance of this
meme to the disappearance of the third eye as a focus for
concentration.
Jodyr:
> Will we be able to convince science such a Self exists?
> I believe not. There is simply no way to verify the
> existence of the Self. While some scientists may infer
> It's existence based on what they've come to understand
> about the phenomenal universe, because the Self Itself
> lies completely outside the manifest reality, it is not
> there to detect *except* by Itself.
Jan B.:
As the differences between presence / absence of the self-meme
will be
measurable in some way, eventually science will find
circumstantial evidence
for its absence. The remaining set of memes will
"behave" very different
after "attainment" of moksha. Though this doesn't prove
"existence of Self",
it will point in the direction.
Phil Burton wrote:
The implications of memes preserving and
replicating themselves are on the edge of spooky. I (meme) don't
(meme)
know (meme) what (meme) to make (meme) of it (meme). It seems to
me you
could drive yourself crazy trying to unravel that one. And I
doubt that the
meme of doing meditation (to outwit memes in general) is a
meaningful way of
doing meditation, or even effective. Buddha was enlightened under
the
Buddha-tree, went around yadda-yadda-ing for scores of years, and
has his
legion of imitators. The meme goes on ...
Tim Gerchmez responded:
It seems to meme... err, to me, that (formal) meditation is
only a
temporary pushing aside of memes. If self comes back after the
meditation,
what's the gain (other than a sense of relaxation)? No memes that
I know
of are "destroyed" in the process. Unless the loss of
self is lasting,
perhaps following years of meditation and other forms of
practice. Then
one might say that a meme has been "killed." Seems like
an awfully long
process just to kill off one single meme (the sense of self).
There are
certainly other methods aside from meditation.
This brings me back to J. Krishnamurti's words again about
"conditioning."
Perhaps the best we can do is to avoid cultivating further memes.
Don't
watch TV, don't follow formal religions, live for the Now only...
or
perhaps in the absence of *attachment*, memes die naturally. It's
difficult to say.
Perhaps one day we'll have medicines for "curing"
various memes. Hell, we
already have antidepressants, antianxiety agents, etc... why not
antimeme
drugs? :-)
I'd like to tack on my thoughts to the Meme thread.
Memes are a fun concept to think about, and as a metaphor they
have a kind
of extravagant appeal, but I want to suggest that the Meme
Metaphor is, at
best, mind candy. That is, fun to chew, great tasting, but
without a lot of
nutritive value.
Meme theory tries to explain the way ideas replicate by drawing
an
elaborate analogy to genes and they way they replicate. Richard
Dawkins,
who wrote "The Selfish Gene", also invented the concept
of Memes. Dawkins
is a Darwinian who, in effect, says that gene-based beings are
nothing more
than hosts that support the persistence of genes.
This is an idea out of flatland. It commits the Materialist
Fallacy. The
Materialist Fallacy is a worldview which must of Western science
is already
growing out of. It says that there is only one level of reality,
the level
of matter, and that all of life can be explained in terms of
chemical
goings on in matter. The materialist denies that there is such a
thing as
Spirit, and that there is such a thing as a Great Chain of Being.
The Holy
Grail of the world view is to explain consciousness in terms of
matter, in
terms of chemical reactions in the brain. Explaining
consciousness in terms
of memes is a natural extension of this fallacy.
The key phrase to a Materialist is "nothing but".
Consciousness is "nothing
but" chemical activity in the brain. Sexual attraction is
nothing but a
chemical response to pheromes. Life is nothing but a project on
the part of
genes to perpetuate themselves.
This is like saying that computers are just the way that
processors built
by Intel and Motorola perpetuate themselves. My writing this
mesage is a
way my Pentium II gets me to perpetuate its race.
The article in question that started this thread uses this
"nothing but"
argument implicitly. It says "Meditation is itself a
meme" (hear the
implied "nothing but"). It also says "the choices
you make are not made by
an inner self who has free will, but are just the consequence of
the
replicators playing out their competition in a particular
environment."
Note the phrase: "just the consequence", another
variation of the "nothing
but" theme.
I've heard this said by a psychiatrist whose main healing
protocol is the
dispensing of Prozac: "Depression is nothing but low levels
of serotonin in
the synapses of the brain."
I had a discussion once with a Materialist about near-death
experiences. He
maintained that the typical reports of those who have died but
come back of
white lights, visions of their dear departed waiting for them,
etc. as
nothing but the brain's interpretations of random chemical events
occuring
in the dying brain.
Richard Dawkin's view of the Selfish Gene is a rogue theory which
is not
even given credence by other evolutionists.
Meme theory attempts to explain the way ideas spread. How is it
that jokes
suddenly appear all over the country? Suddenly on Monday morning
the same
Monica Lewinsky joke is being told around thousands of office
water coolers
- why? A highly succesful meme. And I find that the idea of a
meme is a
useful way to explain the infection caused by Computer Virus
Warnings, in
which well-meaning people email all their friends the latest
warning about
the latest virus. The major infection occurs in the minds of the
people
spreading the virus warning, not in actual computer systems
(okay, the
Melissa virus was an exception, but notice how quickly it was
stopped.)
By contrast to the Materialist, Flatland view, the spiritual view
is one of
hierarchies - from inanimate matter to animate matter to soul, to
spirit,
to the Subtle, to the causal, to the NonDual (I take this from
Ken Wilber
with deep apologies for oversimplying). Each level of the
hierarchy
subsumes the lower levels. A higher level can explain the lower
levels but
not vice versa. What goes on in a rock cannot explain what goes
on in a
cell. The soul can intuit spirit but can't explain it. A gene
can't explain
soul. A meme can't explain consciousness - or meditation.
As a spiritual community it would be suicide to accept a
"nothing but"
explanation for things like meditation. Meditation is an entry
way into
increasingly subtle experiences of the transpersonal realms, and
not "just"
a way to clear-out the meme of self.
Of course, what I have said is "just" a meme that I
learned from reading
Ken Wilber, a meme which is at this very moment trying to infect
you. <g>
---David Hodges