Re: MD Riff's Moral Dilemmas

From: dkm (dkmnow@tidepool.com)
Date: Mon Nov 27 2000 - 02:54:14 GMT


I THOUGHT I could step out...Oh, well...

Riff's TWO BYTES/MISC. MUSINGS...

ROG:
PPS...And they [memes] don't have to be stored in "people" they can be
stored in computers, web sites, books, physical models, records,etc...

RIFF:
...memo pads, in/out boxes, trash cans, garbage trucks, landfills...
...abandoned buildings, "subway walls/tenement halls"(P.Simon)...
...DEMOLISHED buildings, the "Conceptually Unknown"(Pirsig, 1995)...
...the metaphysical reality of non-actuality [(PzEph--am I getting Murdoch
right?),i.e.,just as hiccups need not be re-invented merely because, for an
instant, everyone stopped hiccupping, so, memes need not be in a state of
actual transmission/assimilation or residence (even in an unobserved
physical medium, such as a slip of paper at the bottom of a trash can on an
uninhabited planet) to have reality. Their potentiality is as real, in its
way, as any actuality (PzEph? y/n?)]...(Rog? "pseudo-sci"? y/n?)

Otherwhich:

I wanted to connect the following with direct quotes but this was becoming
cumberome, and I trust youse' to make connections where unspecified.

Rog, and All...

RIFF on our BAIS AGAINST Positive Sum, Win/Win, InterVal.,Evaleach, and
related anti-nihlist ideas whose ultimate summum bonum is Q/Value:

 Evolution, as we know, is almost exclusively concerned with
survival and self-replication, and does not give a flying rip (as far as
I can tell) whether we are happy with ourselves or our environment.
As a result, the vast bulk of our instincts and memes are assigned to
the task of handling what may threaten these functions. Observing what
may be "good" in life, especially at the intellectual level is, in
in raw survival terms, totally insignificant. The upleasant fact that
aversion is far more powerful than affection leads to a negativistic
style of perception. Instinctively and memetically, we are overwhelmingly
predisposed to see only what is "wrong" with life than what may be right
about it. Efficiency in evolution has left us with a built-in bias
AGAINST "WIN/WIN"! How pervasive this is in our culture and ourselves!

Ayn Rand (of all people) pointed out that the assumption that in order for
ONE to gain, ANOTHER must lose, is a FALLACY. Christian tradition, in
stark contrast, holds that man, unless redeemed through Grace, is
inherently evil! And yet we tend to regard Christianity as humanitarian
and Rand as nihlistic! What's wrong with this picture!?

I have given this considerable, if unstructured, thought over the years
and I feel there's something very important here, so I'll state my position
as clearly as I am able:

Evolution has left us with a BUILT-IN BIAS AGAINST A QUALITY CENTERED
UNIVERSE. (SOM thinking has exacerbated this.)

It is PART AND PARCEL of the biological level (among others).

IT IS UP TO US, if we can, to bear this ever in mind, always doing our
best to COMPENSATE at the intellectual level, and hopefully, in time,
create NEW static latches at the social level.

(y/n?)

All The Bestest!

Riff
(dkm)

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