Is God a memeplex?

What an interesting way of looking at religion. I had never heard of it but it strikes me as being extremely plausible indeed. I will have to look into this idea more!

I want to start by giving out some lurve, this is very well worded, and a thought provoking question in which I think both atheist and religious people alike can discuss, good question.

As someone without religion, I think that religion is one of the most interesting socio-evolutionary developements in all of humanity. I feel that the notion of divine beings solved two initial problems, that became more and more intricate as the tangible sciences developed:
1.) a basic and understandable method to describe how and why previously undescribed occurrences in the natural word actually happen. Human beings are naturally human-centric. How does ‘X’ effect me? what I feel often happens due to that mindset is the notion that ‘X’ exists because of you or exists to serve and supplement your existence. for example, “why does the sun rise and fall every day?” without religion, there was no answer to this question given to limited tools of observation at the time in which this question first arose. So naturally, if one can only create deductions based on a Human-centric perspective, the answer can only be “someone/thing put it there to give us night and day”

2.) A means to veil the otherwise inevitable event of non-existence. without religion, when one dies, humanity would be forced to come to terms with something that, by nature, we can not fathom easily, the notion of ceasing to exist entirely. Since one has been aware of one’s own consciousness for one’s whole life, the idea of all thought, function, and consciousness inevitably coming to an end is a vastly difficult one to comprehend. Religion solves that problem, “fear not, you’ll always exist, for ever and ever, in a wonderful place” is often a preferable alternative to “you’re not unique, when your body stops functioning, you will no longer exist, period.”

Naturally, as time and science have advanced, these ideologies have evolved, but the basic fundamentals of Religion have not changed, it is an easily comprehensable alternative to problems in which currently have no answer.

I’m not entirely sure, but this seems like a lot of difficult words strung together in a rather abstruse way that hides something that is perfectly obvious. I suppose I might not understand the difference between an idea, a myth and a meme, and my misunderstanding might explain why this seems obvious to me.

However, as I have written many times before here, I believe that the idea of God serves as a protective mechanism. It makes people feel like they know something when, in fact, they don’t. Why would humans need such a mechanism? Because we are driven by not-knowing. We have evolved to feel acute uncomfortableness when we do not know something, especially things that seem important to our survival.

However, we do not want to become dysfunctional when we can not find an answer to some important question. Therefore, we have developed the ability to create the appearance of an answer that fills in when it seems otherwise impossible to find an answer. It seems to me that a memeplex would be an ideal way of describing such a mechanism. It is complex enough that whichever way you turn (metaphorically) you have protection from the not-knowing.

The concept of God serves fairly well in this function. God is the answer to everything. God provides guidance for everything. God protects. God punishes wickedness. God makes things come out right. God is an explanation that is a non-explanation if you have the eyes to see.

God is perfect for assuaging our need to know when we can not know the answer to extremely important questions. These are questions where if we don’t have the answers, we are in danger of being unable to function. Period.

In order for the idea of God to survive, people must constantly seek to validate God as the answer. Since there is no other evidence for God, the only evidence can be personal. So religious adherents must proselytize, for by spreading the idea can the idea be validated or proved.

It is also possible to validate the idea by remaining in a community where everyone shares the idea and limiting your exposure to people who have other ideas as much as possible. However, this does not seem to be enough for many ideas about God, and so many people with such beliefs must attempt to spread them.

Sometimes we call these organized attempts to spread the ideas a cult. However, religions tend to do exactly the same kinds of brainwashing techniques as cults do. The only difference is that they comprise enough people that they must be considered part of the mainstream, and thus be acceptable.

As such, a memeplex, like a meme, is viral in nature. It is a distortion of comprehension that spreads—or can spread like an infectious disease.

Another function of a memeplex, it seems to me, could be to help build a culture, which binds people together in a community. Of course, in this sense, a memeplex is a belief system. I’m not sure we need the word because “belief system” is a synonym as far as I can tell. In any case, it is useful to bind folks together in a community because it allows for the more efficient development of cooperative self-help mechanisms, such as education systems.

So I don’t understand how calling God a memeplex helps us understand the function of the God memeplex any better. Perhaps it is a bit more sophisticated than a single meme, but it seems perfectly obvious that memes can be conflated and conflations of memes can be separated out into various components, and one might call those components memes. However the separation out into individual memes is probably an infinite process.

@daloon “a memeplex, like a meme, is viral in nature. It is a distortion of comprehension that spreads—or can spread like an infectious disease.”

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is also a memeplex; so is the discovery of perspective in Renaissance art. So viral does not equal distortion does not equal bad.

“I don’t understand how calling God a memeplex helps us understand the function of the God memeplex any better.”

It certainly makes the question, “Does God exist?” more tractable.

@MontyZuma ”It certainly makes the question, “Does God exist?” more tractable.”

How so?

because you can prove the existence of a memeplex

@MontyZuma: But “Does God exist?” and “Do people believe in God?” are two different questions. Proving the existence of the God memeplex only answers the second question.

There’s a difference between God and religions. Religions can indeed be defined as memeplexes, like other belief systems or philosophies, even more recent ones such as transhumanism. You might be able to prove the existence of a memeplex, but this isn’t a proof for the existence of God. Such a proof doesn’t exist scientifically speaking.

@mattbrowne
@barumonkey But you are both assuming that God is something different from a memeplex. And you are assuming that God is separable from religion, and exist separately from it. That, I would humbly submit, is still a memeplex.

@MontyZuma: Most religions (though not all) consider God to be an entity, as opposed to a collection of thoughts.

@barumonkey but it’s the belief in that entity that makes it such.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03: Sorry, what does “such” refer to there? Are you saying that belief in an entity makes it an entity?

@barumonkey It is the belief that makes it a memeplex. Or, to put it another way, which makes it seem plausible that you, oh lowly miserable worm that you are, could know anything about the ultimate cause of everything.

makes it a memeplex, apologies.

Yes, I believe God is separable from religion, and exist separately from it.

Is the support of the concept of memeplexes a memeplex in itself?

Okay, but the fact that God is a memeplex does not lend argument to whether or not God exists (as an entity, which is how the question is most often approached).

@barumonkey
I agree.

@mattbrowne meaning you feel that the existance of a divine being/god/what have you is rather a scientific phenemena that can not be proven or disproved by it’s nature, instead of a “I’m watching you so be good” sort of idea?

@mattbrowne “Is the support of the concept of memeplexes a memeplex in itself?” Why, yes, of course.

Your belief, any belief, is a memeplex. The idea that there is a sun at the center of the solar system is a meme, that fits within the larger memeplex of the solar system, which is nested within the memeplex of science which, in turn, fits within the larger memeplex of our understanding of the universe, life, and everything.

God is a cluster of memes (he is omnicient, he is omnipotent, he is not named Allah, etc), that fits within the larger memeplex of theology (things we believe about gods). Theology fits within a larger memeplex of things that exist outside of nature; which is to say, things we believe are revealed truths, which are independent of, and not verfiable by, the methods that apply to the rest of our knowledge (which is reality tested, rather than postulated or revealed).

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 – Not at all. Not a scientific phenomenon for us to observe directly. I meant to describe that my belief is strengthened the more I understand about our universe and its ingenious order.

I’m planning to see District 9 at the memeplex today.

@AstroChuck I want to see that so bad it’s absurd.

and inglorious bastards

but back on topic

@MontyZuma – From your description I’d say it’s fine with me to see God as a cluster of memes as well. However, as I said in the other thread, our way of thinking about memes or about a non-existence or existence of a non-physical plane of existence is the product of the human brain. Even the most intelligent physical computer constructed from 10^80 atoms will eventually reach a limit and can never come up with an ultimate concept, an ultimate memeplex fully describing God. We have to accept our limitations. Memeplexes will have limitations. Science has to accept its limitations. But we should go as far as we can get.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03
@AstroChuck
Ooo ooo! Let’s all go!

@mattbrowne “our way of thinking about memes or about a non-existence or existence of a non-physical plane of existence is the product of the human brain.”

Sorry, if I am being overly literal here, but our brains don’t produce memes; these are cultural artifacts; they are seeded with a few basic postulates and then operated on like fractals to produce the same basic structure from one mind to another (otherwise there would be no inter-subjectivity and communication would be impossible).

I’m not sure what you mean by a computer the size of the entire universe having “limits” in any meaningful sense. Theoretically you could have a quantum computer on your desktop because, thanks to superposition, the remaining computing area would be distributed across parallel universes. I don’t recall, from anything I’ve read, why, if you could build something that large (actually, it would have to build itself), why you would run into any limits at all. It would be so powerful it would know the answer to your question before you asked it (New Science magazine, I think).

Of course “memeplexes” will have limitations. That won’t stop us from proposing a “theory of everything” and honing it down to it’s irreducible simplicity. Its not a question CPU power or “bandwidth” its a question of coherence. And reality-testing.

A hypothetical question: Three people. all believe in God. The beliefs they share about God are: God is the creator of all, God is eternal, God is all-powerful. One and only one of the three believes each of the following statements: God is the same as Allah; Jesus is the Son of God; God hears all prayers. Would the collection of these beliefs in God constitute a memeplex?

@Yetanotheruser I don’t know. It is possible that these three people subscribe to three mutually exclusive memeplexes. On the other hand, they may all subscribe to one an over-arching memeplex defined by their shared beliefs and there is no conflict because the beliefs they don’t share are inconsequential. If the beliefs they don’t share are “deal breakers” in their getting along, then I would call these separate competing memeplexes. There is no contradiction here because the divergent beliefs are nested within a common belief.

I’m not gonna go too deep into this right now cause I have little time, plus you probably already know about this book:

Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality. Actual occasions and divine relativity. PM me if you want and I’ll get a lot more detailed this weekend.

@MontyZuma – Cultural artifacts are ultimately the products of human brains. Large-scale quantum computers are able to solve certain problems much faster, but not all problems. Ultimately superimposition will reach its limits too. Even a newly discovered ToE cannot cover “everything”. Why would the unification of four elementary forces be “everything”? And the question what is beyond a superintelligence will remain open. Maybe nothing, that would be the atheist interpretation of the universe, maybe God, that would be the theist interpretation of the universe.

Science has the potential to explain any natural phenomenon, but it can’t explain and will never be able to explain the meta-phenomenon of existence itself.

@Yetanotheruser – If a single deity is a memeplex and it is real too (we can’t know for sure, but we can believe it) then God and Allah and Yahweh and so forth must refer to the same “entity”. To me Jesus being the son of God has a symbolic meaning.

@mattbrowne “Science has the potential to explain any natural phenomenon, but it can’t explain and will never be able to explain the meta-phenomenon of existence itself.”

Your idea of science is reductionist and, I’m sorry to say, out-dated. We are now in the post-reductionist era of dynamic systems, population dynamics, chaotic effects and emergent phenomena. Memes and memeplexes are emergent phenomena, which are co-created by many minds, much the way statistical distributions are the product of the stochastic processes that generate them—e.g., price data over time. The memesphere (culture) is a dynamic system and exhibits chaotic properties; and this is why you can’t say that cultural artifacts are “ultimately” the product of human brains.

Human brains form the computational substrate for human minds. Human minds contain cultural memes which do not originate in the mind, much less the brain. The mind acquires memeplexes through socialization and communication (books, letters, conversations, etc.). This is not to say that minds to not operate on memeplexes, they do. Memeplexes contain within them all sorts of internal contradictions, hidden implications and paradoxes, which presents cognitive dissonance which the mind tries to resolve (e.g., if I am a free thinker am I better off joining the Lutherans, or should I remain a heathen?).

Minds are constantly varying memes, transposing them, interpolating, extrapolating, mining clusters of them for hermeneutic explication, but very seldom do a mind create a meme out of whole cloth. It is always within the context of a memeplex. A Theory of Everything is one of those species milestones like the Human Genome Project, where all the rest of human knowledge is nested within it. See David Deutsch for a much more detailed and penetrating description of what this entails.

“Why would the unification of four elementary forces be “everything”?”

I’m not sure what you are asking here. I think this may apply to another thread we have going.

“the question what is beyond a superintelligence will remain open.”

If you are asking what I think you are asking (about whether there is a God “beyond” the superintelligence I posit which is embedded in the physical universe), I would have to ask you what you mean by “beyond.” How can there be a “beyond” to the physical universe, what would it look like, and if your God inhabited this “beyond” how would it be able to relate to you, being as embedded as you are in the physical universe? Do you really need two superintelligences? Whats wrong with the one that’s in the universe you are in?

Are you saying science can explain everything? So what is the ultimate root cause of your and my existence?

@mattbrowne: Science has yet to explain that, actually, but there are many scientists and philosophers working on the basic questions we have about ourselves. (i.e. What is the meaning of life?, What is consciousness?, What is real?, What is freedom?, etc)

I’m not sure you can argue that religion is better because it explains everything (if that’s what you’re aiming at). Although religion offers the answers to many questions, science may eventually catch up.

So I would posit that there are two different, basic religions: that of God, and that of Science. People who have religion are content because religion explains everything; people who have science are content because science has the possibility to explain everything (just not right now).

Was that roundabout? Did that make sense? It’s been a long time since my philosophy class. :)

@mattbrowne “So what is the ultimate root cause of your and my existence?”

Causation is an anthropomorphic concept. It arises from the fact that we are confined to a single point of view in space and time. If you could step outside of space and time, the question becomes moot. Because then you would be able to see that the universe has already “happened.” Everything in the universe would be laid out before you from “beginning” to “end,” much the same way you view a CD when you take it out and look at it. In the multiverse, there is not only the universe which represents the trajectory of your existence, but all possible existences corresponding to all the choices you could have made at every point along the way.

@evegrimm – No, this is not what I’m aiming at. I don’t see religion as “better” in a general sense. And religion can’t explain everything. On the contrary. Science can explain a thunderstorm. Religion can’t. Dogmatic religious fundamentalism make a huge mistake in their overreach from religion into science. Thunderstorms and tsunamis are not the result of God’s anger. Likewise does dogmatic atheist fundamentalism make a huge mistake in their overreach from science into religion.

@MontyZuma – No convincing argument, sorry. Besides, the introduction of a multiverse only relocated the core philosophical questions. Why existence? Why is the universe orderly? Why am I me?

Science can’t explain everything and never will. I give you a simple example. Let’s take the statement A

A = Science can explain everything

Note that A itself is metascientific statement, i.e. it is a statement about science, so it is not a scientific statement.

If A is true, metascience is responsible for it’s truth. Which is a contradiction!

Science has other limitations. There are mathematical systems with statements in them and we will never know whether they are true or false. A computer program which solves the halting problem does not exist.

Likewise a scientific theory which explains “everything” about existence does not exist.

Still, we should take science as far as it can go. Let’s repair the LHC, and continue our quest. But let’s retain some humilty.

@mattbrowne “And religion can’t explain everything.”

On what basis do we use religion to explain anything?

Seems to me that in terms of knowledge advancement, religions are just unsubstantiated hypothesis and fallacy generators.

Revelation simply sucks as a source of verifiable or even remotely consistent knowledge.

If science can’t answer a question, our imaginations can certain be employed to provide a convenient and appealing “answer”.

But this is an answer distinguishable from ignorance in name only.

@Critter38 – Religions can for example explain how we human creatures can get along with each other. Religions offer time-tested guidelines for ethical living. Of course they don’t have an exclusive right in this domain. There are many sources of wisdom. And please don’t confuse religions in general with the dogmatic fundamentalist flavor.

Maybe you’re interested in this Fluther thread:

http://www.fluther.com/disc/46534/time-tested-guidelines-for-ethical-living-are-spiritual-people-more-healthy/

@mattbrowne “Besides, the introduction of a multiverse only relocated the core philosophical questions. Why existence? Why is the universe orderly? Why am I me?”

If my argument fails to convince it is because you have moved the goal post. Your original question was “What is the ultimate cause of… existence?” Not, why, why, why?

To answer your “why, why, why” questions you need a comprehensive theory. The more comprehensive the theory, the more satisfying the answer. I submit to you that any supernatural explanation will be inherently less satisfying than a naturalistic explanation, since the latter avoid the tautologies and phlogiston-like problems.

Back in hunter-gatherer times the whole world was explained in animist terms. It was a theory of everything for those times, insofar as you could understand everything that was understood in those terms.

“Science can explain a thunderstorm. Religion can’t.”

Actually religion can explain a thunderstorm, its just that the explanation isn’t as satisfying as a scientific one to reality-based individuals.

@mattbrowne “Religions offer time-tested guidelines for ethical living. ”

I have to disagree. Religions do not offer time tested guidelines for ethical living, unless we define ethics by the very same guidelines offered to us by one of the multitude of religions, and judge ethics on that basis.. rather pointless not to mention circular. ...and not to mention that the religions themselves change in their interpretation of texts (often to play catch up with shifting societal norms)

It doesn’t take much to come up with a list. Persecution of homosexuals has not stood the test of time. Stoning for adultery does not stand the test of time. Considering premarital sex between consenting adults a sin does not stand the test of time….or should I say test of reason.

My earlier point is not that the people who make up religions can’t be right, only that they are not exempt from the same boundaries of knowledge, nor the same standards of evidence as the rest of us. They are simply not in any position of privilege with regards to access to answers for the great unknowns.

Although I agree that wisdom can come from many sources, the validity of that wisdom is determined not by its source, but by reasoned justification. The problem with many religions is that they claim these deep questions as their domain. There is no justification for this presumption.

And if we remove ourselves from the most dogmatic of religions, and move more towards deism, it still doesn’t get us out of this quandary.

A believer in a vague universal intelligence or force may justify having a lower threshold for evidence for their beliefs, namely because such a vague concept of god has little impact on day to day living relative to a judgemental supernatural prude; but at the end of the day claims for such a deity are similarly unsubstantiated hypotheses until demonstrated otherwise.

Now perhaps we agree on this. But from you comments you gave the impression that you thought religion does in fact have a special place in answering certain questions. That is what I disagree with, whether in relation to ethics or origins.

@MontyZuma – To me questions like ‘what is the ultimate cause of existence’ and ‘why existence’ or ‘why orderly existence’ are not very different in their nature. Let’s just say I’m a very passionate scientist but not someone who takes blind faith in scientism.

Nietzsche once said God is dead. As far as I can tell the one who’s dead for sure is Nietzsche.

Let me share a quote by Erwin Schrödinger with you:

“I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.”

@Critter38 – Selective perception, my friend. Religions do evolve. I hope atheism evolves as well.

@mattbrowne Is that the same Schrödinger as in that damned poor cat?

Not really sure of your point regarding religions evolving considering I say as much and I didn’t think that was really the issue?

@mattbrowne I don’t know what blind faith in scientism means. It sounds like an oxymoron, but I can’t tell because I can’t be sure what you mean by “blind,” “faith,” or “scientism.”

In my conception of things, the idea Nietzsche is dead is a rather parochial prejudice. In the multiverse, he is very much alive, if not in another timeline than in some other parallel universe. Moreover, I believe that in some parallel universes I am Nietzsche, and in others, you are.

I have no doubt that the reductionist science of Schrödinger’s day is as bleak and silly with respect to quality of life questions, but I don’t see it as being necessarily so everywhere and for all time. There is nothing to prevent us from creating a science and a technology of pleasure.

Science is concerned with means; and we usually credit philosophy with discovering and clarifying ends; but in principle, there need not be any huge gulf between them. In fact, we would probably be much better off if we saw them as more connected. In philosophical pragmatism, for example, things like democracy and knowledge are both means and ends.

There is also literature, the distillation of information into wisdom. As a science fiction writer, you should know probably better than anyone else, that these can be all of a piece. Consider Cohen and Stewart’s Heaven as a thought exercise in speculative biology, memetics and religion. (You can get a copy at Amazon for only a penny, and it is a wonderful tour through the implications of what I call the new biology.

@Yetanotheruser – Poor cat? One instance of her is alive and kicking!

@Critter38 – People are flawed. Therefore religions are flawed. Therefore atheistic world views are flawed.

@Zuma – I like the idea of parallel universes. However, they are speculation.

@mattbrowne

Parallel Universes are more that “just” speculation.

@Zuma – Okay, let’s settle on hypothesis.

A parallel universe may refer to:
* A multiverse, the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes
* The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_universe

Thanks for the article. Max Tegmark is an outstanding scientist (I actually mentioned him in my sci-fi novel which is set in 2061). Still, parallel universes are not part of any confirmed theory. Eventually the Copenhagen interpretation might prevail. Why do you think Max Tegmark hasn’t tried quantum suicide yet? Because what will happen to him is still speculation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide

Are you up to it?

@mattbrowne Thanks for the cites. I guess that’s why they call theoretical physics theoretical. Did you, by any chance, look at the cite to Heaven (above). I think you would totally love it.

@Zuma – The word theory has two meanings: a scientific one and a colloquial one. In the scientific sense, a theory describes something that has been confirmed (unlike a hypothesis). I put both David Deutsch’s Fabric of Reality and Ian Steward’s Heaven on my reading list. Thanks for the tip! See also my reply in the physics thread. It actually belongs here:

Suppose 500 million light years away in a spiral galaxy quite similar to our own there’s sentient life about 100 times more intelligent than human beings. On the Kardashev scale the civilization’s level of technological advancement is somewhere between Type 1 and 2, sufficient enough for interstellar and intergalactic travel. Suppose they eventually reach Earth not too long after the human race became extinct. The space travelers find the cause of our extinction: a genetically engineered virus released by terrorists. Many artifacts are still intact including numerous books which allow the visitors to learn English.

Eventually they discover ‘The Fabric of Reality’ by David Deutsch. A remarkable book, they conclude, yet knowing Deutsch was a product of his time. A theory of everything? Hardly. The sentient beings – who are 100 times more intelligent – compare the content with their own knowledge of ‘everything’. Deutsch isn’t even close, but he was more advanced than Aristotle of course. Well, Aristotle’s scientific shortcomings (like the 5 elements fire, earth, air, water, aether) should not mislead one into forgetting his great advances in the many scientific fields. The same holds true for Deutsch of course. Converging into a grand unified theory within which “everything else” would be subsumed? The space travels can clearly see human hubris and arrogance. They feel sorry for the humans and that they became extinct. There would have been so much to learn.

Now imagine a singularity as described by Ray Kurzweil. It’s a million times more intelligent than our space travelers visiting Earth. Does it know everything? Well, the “event horizon” of this superintelligence just reaches out a few light years. But what is beyond? What about a singularity which is the equivalent of a supermassive black hole powering quasars? Does this supersuperintelligence know everything? Again what is beyond? An intelligent creator of the universe, perhaps? Deists would think so. They assert that God (or “The Supreme Architect”) has a plan for the universe that is not altered either by God intervening in the affairs of human life or by suspending the natural laws of the universe. Sitting back and enjoying the show.

Well, is deism enough? I don’t think so. What about moral signposts? Some say, the language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, but they contain no chapters asking if it’s a good or bad idea. Does David Deutsch’s theory have an answer? Will our intelligent space travelers have an answer? Kurzweil’s singularity?

@mattbrowne See my answer to this same question in the other thread.