Waarschuwing: Wetenschappelijk Engels en veel text:
Een goede vriend van me is doctor (Dr. Philip Jonkers) in de theoretische natuurkunde en heeft na het lezen van de internetpagina direct het boek gekocht, en is er nog eens op door gaan denken en heeft Susan Blackmore, de schrijfster, daarna een een hele vette email gestuurd met zijn aanvullende ideeën.
Het is een hele lap text, maar ik kon er niet in knippen, aldus zijn mailtje:
Dear Dr. Blackmore,
Recently I purchased your book, `The Meme Machine'', and started reading in it.
I instantly became enthusiastic about the theory of memetics. Although I have
not read much
(Ch. 1,2,3 and part of 15) I have come up with some ideas I would like to have
your opinion about.
Firstly, I would like to make myself known as a physicist, for I am one trained
to be.
I refer to page 12 of your book. Sometime ago I was active in a forum which
discussed the question whether or not there exists true randomness in nature.
One of the forum members made the naive suggestion that if the clock were to be
turned back
to primeval times and exactly the same earthly boundary conditions (positions
and momenta
of all particles on earth) were to be achieved, history would repeat itself
perfectly.
In practice, of course, no such thing is possible and chaos theory (CT), as you
correctly mentioned,
predicts an entirely different today''s state of nature (i.e. differently evolved
species and different abundancy distributions etc.). Before the advent of
quantum mechanics (QM), CT
would be recognized as the sole agent responsible for providing significantly
different outcomes
to slightly different initial circumstances. QM is a truly probabilistic theory
which inherently
contains elements of randomness. It is simply impossible to return to the
hypothetical situation that
all variables again adopt precisely the same initial values at primeval times.
QM forbids this to happen
from first principles, as is reflected by the Heisenberg indeterminacy
relations. These inequalities
say that, for instance, both position and momentum of a particle cannot
simultaneously be known
to arbitrary precision. Therefore, QM and CT go hand in hand since QM states
that the initial
conditions cannot again be defined perfectly. This renders impossible the
situation to
arrive at precisely the same state of nature after repetition of history.
Therefore I champion
that CT combined with QM theory are responsible for the occurrence of a
different scenario to
the present state of nature after repetition of history. Also I have wrote a
little treatise on
the the subjects of randomness in nature and free will, I can send it to you if
you are interested.
I will now proceed with my ideas on memetics inspired by your texts. In chapter
15 you come to treat
religions interpreted as powerful memes, or better memeplexes. To any modern
human being enlightened
by the explanatory powers of science, albeit always of a modest kind and
inherently incomplete,
the frameworks of religious belief-systems seem ridiculous and irrational to the
utmost degree.
What then, you ask, lies at the heart of their constant and virtually
undiminished successes almost
throughout the entire history of man, as testified by huge numbers of devoted
followers
unconditionally prepared to vehemently protect their religious memes and
meme-plexes?
The answers in terms of memetics you, some also on behalf of Dr. Dawkins I
presume, provide interesting
and compelling insights in disclosing the mechanisms responsible for their
success.
I have not read the entire chapter but I believe there is one more additional
reason why religions
are so universally successful. I have always thought that religions make death
acceptable and
bearable. Through our egocentric nature brought about by our unique high level
of consciousness,
few people can cope with the idea of death being the ultimate end of existence.
Most people simply find this prospect emotionally unbearable and any belief
system refuting
the consequence of death as an end of being is warmly welcomed in spite of its
unavoidably
metaphysical and irrational basis. In fact, authorities of any kind: emperors,
kings and the like, have
exploited this false meme-notion throughout history. For instance, kamikaze
pilots were eager to die
for their emperor in WWII to attain a place in Japanese heaven.
By the way, I frequently hear people wonder why there is war or armed conflicts
in the first place.
In the light of the Darwinian principle of the struggle for life this is, I
believe, easily understood.
We, like every other animal, are genetically programmed to fight for our lives
by competition and have
a genetic tendency to increase in numbers at the cost of other forms of life.
After all, we,
omnivorous creatures, need to feed ourselves. We are simply programmed to
struggle and fight.
This is testified by the ever lasting phenomenon of armed conflicts between
rivalling communities.
We hardly think twice to destroy life in favor of our own survival, be it
species or clan.
The practice of hooliganism sets a relatively innocent but appropriate example.
Furthermore, to testify of our success as a species and our aggressive and
dominant nature we have
reached an unprecedented level of potential destructiveness that enables us to
eliminate all
life on earth, including our own, simply by pushing some most dreaded buttons.
Inspired by ideas from memetics I have come up with related hypotheses at a more
neurochemical
level. I have come to believe that ultimately the power of memes is to be found
in the rewarding
center of the human brain, which I think is superiorly developed in comparison
to animals. The
religious memeplexes, for instance, after inauguration covers its followers with
a heavy envelope
of guilt and pain for the things they, either supposedly or ostensibly, have
done wrong.
Similar feelings are imposed on to people who were not yet inaugurated.
After all, to people who lack independence and good health of minds, the
prospect of burning in hell
or purgatory is not a very attractive one indeed. Consequently, they are
temporarily left in a state of
misery and confusion.
This is the state of mind at which they desperately seek sympathetic relief and
are most receptive for
consolation and redemption. They wish to return to feelings of happiness and
pick up their
`normal'' lives again. The rewarding center of the brain now `yearns'' for
stimuli. This is where the
real power of religion enters. It offers a mythical and irrational basis for
forgiveness of their
(make-belief) wrong-doings or pagan adherence. This process of forgiveness
triggers a quantum leap
in the state of mind. The transition from a state of misery to the state of
elation created
by the blissful act of redemption provokes feelings of reward and well-being. In
neurochemical terms,
and this is my hypothesis, this process corresponds to marked releases of
relevant neurotransmitters.
Dopamine is released, the neurotransmitter issuing sensations of reward and
pleasure. Endorphines,
our own extremely potent pain-killers, induce a further feeling of satisfaction
by easing pain,
of the mind in this case. If I am not mistaken, this hypothesis can be tested by
means of ordinary
neurochemical methods. For instance, one could measure the increase in released
amounts of
dopamine and endorphines present in the brains of Roman Catholic people after
sessions of
confessions to a priest. Please bear with me though that I have no background in
neurochemistry, and
cannot back up my hypothesis by solid scientific references.
To go even beyond this viewpoint, I am entertaining the even further-reaching
hypothesis that this
Dopamine/Endorphine Release System (DERS) has evolved to a very high level ever
since man has
departed from its retarded more animal-like progenitors. Once the first memes
started to flush
the brains of early man, after the facility of speech had sufficiently evolved,
the stage was set
for the development of progressively larger brain providing more storage room
for memes and memeplexes.
The usefulness in life of memes gave humans with bigger brains an evolutionary
advantage thus inducing
the growth of ever larger brains. A corrolary to this scenario is that human
communication
(by language) finally lead to the development of our big brains.
I am really excited about this idea as this helps to answer another great
question
which until now remained quite oblivious to me. It helps to explain the
phenomenon of human addiction.
I believe that people suffering from addictions of whatever kind, for instance
to drugs or gambling, have reward centers which do not seem to be able to
receive sufficient stimuli.
In the context of memes this comes down to lack of sufficient useful and
benevolent memes, which
due to their lack of it, cannot induce sufficient levels of feelings of reward.
I acknowledge however
that events of trauma might also induce this depressive state of mind, thus
increasing receptiveness
to addiction. Perhaps traumatic events leave their victims bereft of useful
memes.
Anyway, lack of memetic value leave potential addicts with a deficit of
objectives in life. This harmful position triggers them to seek compensation by
stimulating
there reward centers through usage of artificial and harmful agents, as opposed
to the more natural
meme-induced satisfaction.
Another example capturing the imagination in which compensation is sought by
artificial agents
other than derived from true memes is given by the world of cosmetics and
fashion.
These are also very powerful memes, especially to women. Fashion-like memes
create standards of
living which upon failure to comply to the images raised by them leave their
obsessed unfortunates
in a state of frustration and depression. The desire for compensation leads to
excesses such as
eating disorders, boulimia and anorexia nervosa being the most familiar ones,
which are rigidly
adhered to well beyond any reasonable limit (if any). Again, all but too often,
consolation is
sought in destructive drug-afflictions. Surrogate behavior reflected into eating
disorders and
drug addictions have, I believe, the subconscious purpose to stimulate the DERS.
As a further example of the power of memes I cannot resist to mention the
extremely malign and
destructive memeplex of Nazi ideology. I have glanced through your book but was
unable to find any
reference to this equally potent as harmful memeplex. The power of this memeplex
lies, I think,
largely in its timing. In the inter-war years Germany suffered from a state of
utter depression.
After losing the Great War, poverty, low economic and financial prospects and a
damaged collective
self-esteem left the state in a great crisis. Any form of revolutionary change
for the better was
highly desirable. The entering of the popular Nazi doctrine engulfed
the state with its apparent positivism and was therefore warmly welcomed by
virtually the entire
German population, however twisted and irrational its mythical axioms were.
It made Germans feel good about themselves once again, and moreover, it made
them feel superior to
all other nations except Jews. Nazism channeled and increased anti-semitic
feelings and tendencies.
Jews, besides being held responsible for the bulk of misery in Germany, were
considered to be inherently
evil and a life-threatening competitive danger to the Aryan `race''. The `Jewish
threat'' had to be
eliminated at all cost to pave the way for world domination by `Germania''.
If you watch war documentaries (at Discovery, for instance) and observe the
faces of German soldiers,
you notice that either they look very proud and steadfast or are smiling in
front of cameras all of the
time (unless they were beaten, of course). This is because, I think, they truly
believed that what
they were doing was right no matter how warped the `logic'' of the underlying
basis of Nazism.
They were made to feel great and important, a typical characteristic of a
successful meme,
and were ready and willing to die for their `good'' cause. In terms of the
mentioned DERS,
the Nazi memeplex invoked excretion of high amounts of dopamine and endorphine
to its craving
clansmen at times when it was received most welcome. That is, it invoked a
strong mental quantum jump.
Excited as I am about these ideas, I do not hope to have invented the proverbial
wheel twice
(after a Dutch figure of speech). If you consider these hypotheses to be
fruitful for further
scientific exploration please do contact me, as I would like to become involved
in testing them.
To demonstrate the power of religious memes being capable of infecting the most
able of minds,
I will now quote one of my scientific heroes, the late Nobel laureate and super
physicist
Paul A.M. Dirac. The quote was extracted from the book `Physics and Beyond''
authored by another
great giant from physics: Werner Heisenberg. The setting of the quote is a
conversation about
religious matters between Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Heisenberg and Dirac.
``I don''t know why we are talking about religion,'''' he [Dirac] objected.
``If we are honest -and scientist have to be- we must admit that religion
is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea
of God, is a product of the human imagination. It is quite
understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to
the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified
these
forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many
natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can''t for the
life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way.
What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive
questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the
exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might
have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means
because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want
to keep the lower class quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern
than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also very much easier to
exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself
into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated
against the people. Hence [there''s a word missing here, my guess is that
it should be a proverb such as `establishing''] the close alliance between
those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the
illusion that a kindly God rewards -in heaven if not on earth-
all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their
duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion
that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as
the worst of all mortal sins.''''
[Note that Dirac speaks of religion as a kind of opium for the people, a point
of view consistent with
the notion of the religion-meme its endorphine releasing function (endorphines
are emulated
by opiates!).]
The extremely gifted Paul Dirac was only 25 (in 1927) when he made this
enlightened statement.
Religions are, or ought to be, superfluous to modern day honest and steadfast
humans. It is all-the-same
remarkable that the otherwise extraordinarily rational Dirac ultimately did
became infected
by the religion meme. He even became a personal friend of the pope!
The religious memeplex infected his mind to such an extent that he spent the
remainder of
his life being spellbound by his transcendental working-principle and powerful
meme of
`God using beautiful mathematics in the act of creating the world''. He set
himself the goal
to cast the entire realm of physics into a unified and beautiful mathematical
framework.
In the light of the proposed DERS system it can be understood that, in the name
of God, he
incessantly craved to be neurochemically rewarded for his ambitious search for
this
ultimate and beautiful theory. Incidentally, as a physicist and admirer of Dirac
I truly consider
it to be a shame that he never succeeded.
By the way, a similar fate was predisposed to Einstein who, as you might know
from his famous slogan
`God does not throw dice'', too was incurably infected by the religious meme.
These cases of Einstein and Dirac demonstrate that the false religious meme and
their scientifically
questionable memes that go with it indeed have paralyzing and counterproductive
influences on the work
and minds of otherwise highly rational scientists.
Enough already. I would be delighted to receive your opinion and comments to the
above mentioned
hypotheses (and anecdotes, if you wish). In the meantime I''ll commit myself to
learn more about
the attractive and promising theory of memetics. In case you are not impressed I
apologize for having
absorbed your precious time.
At any rate, thanks for your time and I would be honored to receive word from
you,
Kind regards,
Philip Jonkers.
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