Meme theory = mayavada?

[subala]

Many scientists, such as Susan Blackmore (The Meme Machine) and Richard Dawkins, advance what has been called ‘Universal or Neo-Darwinism,’ through the theory of ‘memes’. This theory proposes that all human belief and endeavor, from popular culture to religion and morality – indeed, any information that can be copied from person to person with variation and selection – is a form of natural selection.

As Blackmore put it, “ Memes are competing to use our brains to get themselves copied.”

According to Universal Darwinists, everything, including our sense of self, is an illusion – the simple result of our being colonized by memes.

This implies there's no truth to anything. If there is no final truth to anything – if it is all a contagion of ideas, whether true or not true, and the only point is that an idea survives, whether true or not – then how do we know meme theory has any truth to it? Or is it simply another popular meme, not substantially different than a catchy pop song? Is it another illusion?

Everything is illusion...correct me if I'm mistaken that's mayavada. Maybe I'm trying to generate a new meme?

[Galva]

Richard Donkeys? ;D hehaw! hehaw! hehaw! Waiting for the fellow to evolve perspectively, know what'm saying.

[vs]

Subala, the ''meme theory = mayavada'' is nothing more than a meme you carried over from your iskcon experience (where everything = mayavada, mayavada being a catch-phrase for everything they don't like), even though you were never in iskcon! Just see how deep the rabbit hole goes! Even if you weren't an official member of that org, somehow its memes caught hold of you via the people that you knew who were!

Like Nitai said, over 30 years later and he's still trying to shake residual iskcon memes off. Its a tough one!

Memes = samskaras. Or at least an aspect of samskaras.

Whoever the developed the theory, doesn't subtract from its obvious relevance. If we look around us, we see memes in action everywhere, including within vaishnava sangas, where we are encouraged to emulate certain bhakti-anukula behaviours.

I also don't have a problem with the their being no *absolute truth*, for, if nothing is certain, anything is possible!

ye yatha mam prapadyante
tams tathaiva bhajamy aham
mama vartmanuvartante
manushyah partha sarvasah

And yeah, the meme theory is just another meme, but one that makes sense.

If there is no discernable truth and only *ideas* survive, well that fits well with the model of raganuga bhakti. It fits very well.

[ST]

Subala, this fear, or at the least this loathing of mayavada, may perhaps be the one useful meme given to us by Bhaktivedanta Swami. Why useful? Because although politically incorrect in one level, the great mayavada dismissal does allow for a shortcut to every individual's actual concern in this and in any life: how to spend the hours.

We are dam right to be upset about how our Krishna Consciousness experience has turned out. We were lied to* (or we are left with some corny memories no one really wants to bother groking). But the utility of the great mayavada dismissal cannot be denied. There is a big advantage in being void free. And we can laugh and dance around the likes of Dawkins knowing exactly that the ones to be naturally selected, and the ones to be unselected, are not people but concepts.

*One of my personal whinning is about the *work now samadhi later* thing. I worked very hard, there wasn't a harder worker in the grounds, but its later now, and where is the samadhi? I in fact find that I have to work even harder now to keep a hold on the state I amazingly didn't know was samadhi then!

[ST]

VS, it may be true that Subala is carrying over an Iskcon catch-phrase (as you soooo observantly note :. However, like I said, even if inadvertently, Subala is in an advantage over, for example, you, precisely because of his Iskcon experience. Just face it VS, because you have not had the Iskcon experience, the early Iskcon especially, you do miss something . Its not Subala who does not understand some things, its you and those like you who dismiss Iskcon even as you do NOT know what really happened there, who are a bit meme impared. Even Nitai, who hates Iskcon absolutely, knows what I am talking about when I speak of that experience, while you can only theorize. It does make a difference. And if you say it doesn't, its you who does not understand mayavada and the joy of raspberrying it.

But its all good, bring it on VS: show us how the theory of memes is NOT mayavada?

[vs]

You want me to show you how samskaras are not mayavada?

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Mayavada is the theory that Bhagavan's avatars are maya.

Maya = illusion
Vada= theory

The theory that Brahm takes on an illusory and temporary form is mayavada.

Sorry, I wouldn't know where to begin with how the concept of samskaras fits or does not into the vada of maya, but perhaps Patanjali can help you out.



Thats all for today. I'm off to do some Trini-winin' at the soca/calypso fest.

Now that's a meme worth replicatin'!

[Nitaidas]

Thanks for bringing this topic up, Subala. It raises some interesting questions and several of those have already been raised.

First of all, I must ask, have you read any of Dawkins or Blackmore? If not, I recommend it. Dawkins chapter on memes is short and really depends on his previous discussion of genes. I don't think either of these writers or any of the other writers who deal with memes thinks they are illusions. So how do you jump from memes, i.e. units of imitation, to illusions?

Memes like genes are real. What is illusory about them? Someone mentioned the old ISKCON experience. One kind of meme that stands out in my mind is the funny way everyone of BVS's disciples, well maybe not everyone, began talking like BVS. It is hilarious if you think about it. Young temple presidents or sannyasis sounding like little Prabhupads. This is an example of a harmless meme and it is true in my experience that not all the memes I picked up in IGM were harmful. Some indeed were good for me, like the liking for good Indian vegetarian food. That is a meme I don't want to rid myself of.

I agree nearly entirely with VS's comments and beg to differ with ST. I think the mayavada meme is quite harmful and needs to be rationally re-examined.

Now I am not sure whether memes can be equated with samskaras. Certainly, there is some overlap. One registers a meme through one's senses and thus it becomes apart of one's experience. Powerful experiences are recorded in the form of samskaras and if they are good experiences one is inclined to favor them at later times and if they are bad experiences one tries to avoid them at later times. Also repetitive acts build up samskaras. Sadhana builds up samskaras, for instance, and those samskaras, both present and past, lead to the experience of bhava and rasa eventually. Perhaps memes is a way of talking about the forms those samskaras take.

I see memes as the basis of our educations. We learn by imitating, reproducing what we hear and see. I also think that memes are the very foundation of sadhana. We become lila-parikaras by imitating lila-parikaras. In order to do that we need to be exposed to the memes of those lila-parikaras.

I see memetics as a powerful set of ideas with wide applications and also the potential for misuse or misrepresentation. Rather than labeling them all illusions we should be asking what is it about certain memes that makes them such good replicators?

[Nitaidas]

Jun 14, 2009 10:34:54 GMT -6 @ST said:

VS, it may be true that Subala is carrying over an Iskcon catch-phrase (as you soooo observantly note :. However, like I said, even if inadvertently, Subala is in an advantage over, for example, you, precisely because of his Iskcon experience. Just face it VS, because you have not had the Iskcon experience, the early Iskcon especially, you do miss something . Its not Subala who does not understand some things, its you and those like you who dismiss Iskcon even as you do NOT know what really happened there, who are a bit meme impared. Even Nitai, who hates Iskcon absolutely, knows what I am talking about when I speak of that experience, while you can only theorize. It does make a difference. And if you say it doesn't, its you who does not understand mayavada and the joy of raspberrying it.

But its all good, bring it on VS: show us how the theory of memes is NOT mayavada?

I am not quite sure what you are talking about here, ST. It sounds like Subala had even less of the IGM experience than VS. This Subala is not Steve Bolert. This Subala is someone else who apparently never was in ISKCON. Tell us, though, what you mean by "what really happened there." I don't absolutely hate ISKCON. I had lots of good experiences there. But, knowing what I do today, I would never recommend that anyone join it and I am very glad I left it when I did and found better shelter the way I did. I just can't help wishing that it had been genuine. How great it would have been if the mantras had real power and if Bhaktivedanta were really a pure bhakta. What an amazing movement it could have been. But instead, like its parent organization, it was built on a little lie. That doesn't mean that many truths did not seep in it by the shear force of the tradition it came to represent in the West. Those truths are the things I still cherish and, yes, am grateful for. Those truths are the memes I am keeping, but the mayavada meme gets tossed in the dust bin.

Perhaps I should say why the anit-mayavada meme is another bit of hucksterism. What is the problem with mayavada? Mayavada is just an extreme version of Advaitavada. Yes there is Advaita-vada that is not mayavada. And what is the problem with Advaitavada? Nothing. It is true and anyone who has thought about it knows it is. But, it is not the whole truth. It is true as far as it goes. Our tradition, remember, is both abheda and bheda. The abheda part is advaita. If you study the history of religious and philosophical thought in India you will discover just how much we owe to the Advaita-vadins, especially to one of the greatest of them, Sankaracarya. Sankara was not a mayavadin, nor was he a Saivite. He was a Vaisnava of the Nambudiri community in South India. It is quite likely, in my humble opinion, that he was our (CV's) real religious and philosophical ancestor/antecedent, not Madhva. Those of you who know me, know I have written much on this before in other forums.

[ST]

I know, Nitai, that our philosophy is 50% abedha. I am not one of those Iskcon anti-mayavada freaks myself. I know in order for the bedha half to be real, the other half has to be realized as well. There is, however, what I believe bhaktivedanta and others like him call "the mayavadins", and these are just about any half-baked "investigator" such as Dawkins who have not even considered other religions outside Christianity to be religions, what to speak of representing them in any way. Yet these embarassing fools want to protest with some stupid logic like, "There probably isn't a God so stop worrying and enjoy life." What kind of "philosophy" is this? Can the world afford any more such crap? And if Bhaktivedanta happens to call such people assess and camels, I don't care whatever else he might have said, in this one thing at least he was absolutely right.

I thought Subala was indeed the Subal das from Hawaii. So it is someone who was never in Iskcon; so what then is VS's complaint that he's got those memes from Iskcon and blah blah blah? If he was never in Iskcon, he figured the mayvada thing on his own and that is even more to his credit.

[St]

To be fair, Iskcon itself is a great generator of "mayavadis", i.e., half-baked "personalists" such as Satyaraj Das and quite a few like him. Because of a sheer lack of a due system of checks and balance, the intitution operates from an anything-goes philosophy. And the rule is simple: when anything goes, it goes lame, missing the other, the personal half.

[TBT]

Speaking of anything goes, VS better watch out for that one particular meme...

[Nitaidas]

Jun 14, 2009 14:39:28 GMT -6 @ST said:

I know, Nitai, that our philosophy is 50% abedha. I am not one of those Iskcon anti-mayavada freaks myself. I know in order for the bedha half to be real, the other half has to be realized as well. There is, however, what I believe bhaktivedanta and others like him call "the mayavadins", and these are just about any half-baked "investigator" such as Dawkins who have not even considered other religions outside Christianity to be religions, what to speak of representing them in any way. Yet these embarassing fools want to protest with some stupid logic like, "There probably isn't a God so stop worrying and enjoy life." What kind of "philosophy" is this? Can the world afford any more such crap? And if Bhaktivedanta happens to call such people assess and camels, I don't care whatever else he might have said, in this one thing at least he was absolutely right.

I thought Subala was indeed the Subal das from Hawaii. So it is someone who was never in Iskcon; so what then is VS's complaint that he's got those memes from Iskcon and blah blah blah? If he was never in Iskcon, he figured the mayvada thing on his own and that is even more to his credit.

Subal das from Hawaii was a member here for a while and then he went off in a huff when I questioned his diksa. Jeezz, people are so touchy about that I still think it is important to start out on the right foot. Maybe that's an old IGM meme I have not yet sufficiently scrutinized. Here again, though, think of what a guy like that with his brains and talent and a good heart could do if he just got the right start. It is hard as hell to make changes things once they get started.

I can only half agree with you ST once again. I don't think Dawkins is a half-baked investigator; I think he is brilliant. He is a secular humanist and a more or less honest one at that. When it comes to evolutionary science and genetics and so forth, one can hardly do any better than Dawkins. But, when he writes about religion he is a fish out of water. Just as in the study of any specialized field, one should give more credence to someone who has deeply studied the field and examined it from the inside out. Dawkins does not have those credentials when it comes to religion. Still, everyone is entitled to his view in matters of religions and politics and he has every right to write on a subject that he has very little understanding of. We have a right too not to give his ravings and rantings on religion much consideration, along with those of Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. Religion deserves to be sharply criticized, but not by people who don't know it very well. It may well be true, as a number of commentators have noted, that their books have had the opposite effect from the one they intended.

If I were a conspiracy theorist I could well imagine a scenario in which all the leaders of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, specifically the more conservative ones, get together and say "Look, things are getting kind of slow. Our flocks are not growing very fast lately. We should hire some scientists to attack religion. That will drive more simpletons to our doors." That seems to be the effect of the recent spate of anti-religion books.

That said, I must admit, I love them all. I am honored to share the planet with them. I have all of their books (except for Hitchens' whom I am not all that fond of). We all want the same things. They want the population of the earth to become atheists and stop killing each other because of religion and I want also want to become an atheist who just happens to have a thing for a cute little blue guy who lives next-door.

[ST]

I still maintain that he is a half-baked investigator because he blew his own purpose. Brilliant, what brilliance? Did he forget to investigate other religions? Even if, from his scientific perspective, all religions are intrinsically the same, a scientist first and foremost subdues his own passion. Indeed there is brilliance in passion, the kind that blinds and disorients. Any average Joe on this side of the world can and IS "exposing" religion. No conincidence a purposeless event is compared to light, forever.

And yeah, I can only imagine how concerned Dawkins and friends must be with the earth's population 'killing one another': "Why can't we just live in pure joy and harmony together, why, why, why?

You want to become an atheist? The other kind, right?

[Nitaidas]

What other kind of atheist?

Atheism is the end result of bhakti as Mahaprabhu gave it (that is, raga-bhakti). It is also what Krsna wants from us. Otherwise, why does he focus so much of his great power on hiding his god-hood?

You're angry with Dawkins because he didn't mention Hinduism?

Dawkins in The God Delusion (p. 1):

I suspect---well, I am sure---that there are lots of people out there who have been brought up in some religion or other, are unhappy in it, don't believe it, or are worried about the evils that are done in its name; people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents' religion and wish they could, but just don't realize that leaving is an option. If you are one of them, this book is for you. It is intended to raise consciousness---raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled. That is the first of my consciousness-raising messages.


See, the book is not for you. You are not the adhikari intended here. Moreover, it is a noble cause meant to help people be happy as atheists. That is what I want too. Atheism and love. All this God-talk is delusional if you think about it. Who can understand it? It gets you nowhere. We can't conceive of infinities. The worst thing is that everyone who uses it thinks they know what they are talking about. The cause of all causes? Who can even conceive what that means? It is the ultimate in hubris and one of the biggest stumbling blocks to really getting to know Krsna.

[malati]

Radhe

I am not here to debate, ok , just my 2 cents worth. I enjoy reading about science especially about the cosmos and physics and I try to see where they fit in with my God worldview. I just want to share what I read and how I relate it to my GVism understanding.

Nitai das said: Memes like genes are real

That is NOT correct. As Oxford molecular biologist turned theologian , Alistair McGrath says: There is no direct observational evidence for the existence of `memes' themselves. Dawkins is aware that his thesis is seriously underdetermined by the evidence. Another objection is that we don't know what memes are made of, or where they reside. Memes have not yet found their Watson and Crick; they even lack their Mendel. Whereas genes are to be found in precise locations on chromosomes.

Nitai das to Subala: So how do you jump from memes, i.e. units of imitation, to illusions?

Granting that memes are real, Subala’s jump from meme as cultural/intellectual replicator to illusion (mayavada) is not such a quantum leap. “Why is there something rather than nothing?” asked the 19-20th century German philosopher Martin Heiddeger. Being Christian, his question was influenced by the Christian faith whose concept of cosmic creation came from the Bible. When big bang theory as a point of singularity came the 5th century Christian philosopher St. Augustine was asked: “ Before the big bang is there time?”

And I ask the same questions in a different form: Before the big bang is there something? If our thinking, feeling, sense of consciousness, sense of “I” comes from atomic/biological evolution and if meme’s existence is dependent on such atomic processes, what and where was “I” before the big bang? The answer is “I” am nothing. When “I” and everything in the physical world (which is made of matter) cease to exist therefore, because meme is dependent on the atomic evolution/processes, meme ceases to exist also. When meme dies “I” die. “I” and everything in the physical world turn into nothingness. Thus the essence of “I” and everything is nothing and what we see or feel, etc is not real. Because the truth is that there is nothing. Therefore just an illusion.

Abour karma and samskara. As a GV I ask: If meme is a by-product of biological evolution then where does meme go in the juncture between this “I”s body to the next and in the infinite loop of succession of the jiva’s body changes in different worlds. Not much scope for the meme in the other infinite worlds.

I don’t know why theists like us would want to believe in the meme concept. Dawkins is a militant atheist and out to convert. He clearly tell us his goal in The god Delusion: “If this book work as I intend, then readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down”.

Dawkins says that meme is like a virus. And that our belief in God comes from memes. And that the “God meme” is like a virus transmitted from culture to culture like an infection that invade a healthy mind. Surely we, theist, don’t like to be labelled irrational, sick in the mind or insane.

We, GVs believe that the “I” or the jiva has an inherent nature that transcends this physical time. And that the feeling of and the longing for transcendence is an intrinsic nature of the jivas. The cream of our siddhanta is embodied in the madhurya lila narrative of that sweet longing of the manjaris for Krishna. Surely we don’t see our longing for Krishna because of our separation from Him as just a bunch of memes.

Anyway, nice forum you have here Nitaidasji. Advaitadas will not like it that Im talking about these things. He’s right. But somehow I guess, we can see God’s nature in nature.

Jaya Sri Radhe-Krishna

* Correction: "why there is something rather than nothing" was actually asked by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz an 18th century German philosopher and mathematician