When it comes to being human, one of our most successful survival strategies has been to share our experiences, among each other, and over time. Like the game "Civilization" and its cohorts, the history of the human species is shaped by our ability to pass on "memes" from one person to another, from one generation to the next. It is the development of language and other communication technologies (books, radio/television, internet), which has permitted us to see the world from perspectives across individuals over time. This "shared reality" moved us from individual subjective experience to a collective, shared objective experience, and gave us some insight into how to avoid dangers once thought of as beyond our control.
Just like genetic evolution, new ideas must be introduced and tested, and the successful trials must be remembered, embedded into the system, so that they are available in the future. In the genetic world, new ideas are introduced as variations in the DNA of a species. Changes occur frequently, though most do not contribute to higher survival rates, and so may be lost. In the genetic world, the rate of change and adaptation tends to be measured in hundreds of thousands of years, with species (tests that survived), lasting hundreds of millions of years.
By contrast, memetic evolution tends to introduce and test ideas on a much shorter timeline. A new idea (fire, for example) might spread quickly, as quickly as another person might show and another person might learn. In the past 30,000 years, humans have become more and more adept at sharing ideas, from word-of-mouth to writing to radio/television to the internet. We have also become more adept at testing new ideas, moving ideas of an individual into a more generic category of ideas that might be shared and useful to many. The scientific method is one tool we've developed to parse ideas. The economy (choosing with money) and politics (choosing with votes/guns) are two others. Social media "up/down votes" is yet another.
I make my genetic choices through my decision to have children or not, and my choice of partner. There are many sources of advice on the discipline of having children. And we have long recognized our genetic programming to procreate.
Disciplines around memetic propagation are less-well understood and practiced. Here are some disciplines I practice. I hope some day they will become habits, part of my way of being:
1. I do not repeat anything I am told without first being aware of the harm I may be doing.
Passing on memes without awareness robs me of my power to choose, my power to bring my best self into play, my power to define who I am, what I stand for, what I care about.
Yes, that meme may have made me laugh, but at whose expense? Yes, that meme may be very clever, but does it represent the world I want to live in? Yes, that meme may support my anger, my fear, but do I want to stand for anger? For fear?
2. I learn most from memes I don't believe or understand.
What I know is that I don't know everything. That means that learning is the process of figuring out, littered with mistakes. With each new piece of knowledge, there is the pain of being wrong. If I listened to my ego, avoided the pain of being wrong, I would limit my learning. This means I must constantly challenge myself with "wrong" ideas, in a quest to identify and compensate for my ego's need to be right. Collaboration is the agreement that we each are partly right, partly wrong, and our collaboration might lead to both of us learning something.
3. Logic provides consistency, but lacks inter-subjective reality.
As much as I might want to live in my bubble, my reality, I am limited to internal consistency. This means I will be denied reality. I have to communicate with others, share what I think I know, be open and learn what I don't know. Logic is a valuable tool, but it has its own limitations. Perhaps it is necessary, but it is not sufficient.
4. Correlation does not imply causation.
This is so fundamental to understanding the world that it is remarkable that I still see so many people believing in correlation. Unfortunately, others see the belief in correlation as a way to exploit and mislead people. Given enough data (and we have lots of data these days) almost anything can be shown to be correlated with something else. If I smell correlation in an argument, without support for causation, I immediately suspect the intention of the source of the meme.
5. It is my responsibility to make the best choices I can.
Although I am just one person, whose views may be wrong (since I don't know everything), it is still my responsibility to make the best choices I can. One of those choices should always be, talk with someone who might be more knowledgeable than me. I don't have to agree or choose their recommendation. But I should listen and consider their point of view. The world I want, the world I will fight for, demands that each human has a role to play, a contribution, and this is manifested in each individual's choices.
6. It is my responsibility to test the authenticity of any meme. What are its intentions? What were the intentions of the source of the meme?
For example: I don't trust advertising. Someone who has the intention of making money from my purchase may be biased. This demonstrates the power of independent sources. It is also why I don't trust reviews on the internet. How do I know what motivated the person to give that review? Were they paid by the producer? By the competition? Did they actually use the product? Unfortunately, there is more money to be made in writing misleading reviews than there is in writing honest ones. This leads to the economic solution of making reviews untrustworthy. I will ignore reviews (like I ignore advertising) until I find a way to trust the intentions of the reviewer. In some respects, this is the role of the "influencer", who is trusted enough by enough people that their opinion carries weight.
7. Sharing a discussion about a meme helps me evaluate the meme. A second opinion never hurts.
As I've said before, I am biased, my perceptions are biased, and so my conception of reality is biased. First, there is the bias of my particular life experiences, which are unique, valuable, and limited. Second, there is the bias of my ego, my conception of myself, which further processes my experience in such a way as to make me feel good. There is nothing so humbling as me having a discussion with someone else whose ego is as big as mine.
8. I must be vigilant against memes that support my views. My ego will overestimate (bias) the value of these memes.
This is another way of warning against the feel-good my ego generates from the self-validation I get from agreement.
9. I don't pass on memes without putting my perspective into the mix. That means no cut and paste. If the meme is worth repeating, it's worth seeing from my point of view.
Making me stop and think when I'm about to cut and paste is always a good thing. But more importantly is my self worth, the value of my experience, my opinion. Humility (the result of interacting with others and finding out I was wrong) drives me to reduce my voice, reduce my confidence in my own experience. Putting the effort into writing something in my own words, based on my own experience, helps me believe my point of view has merit. Of course, I have to watch out for my ego, too :-)
10. I encourage others to be more disciplined about accepting and passing on memes. This takes effort, diplomacy, and compassion.
Finally, any discipline worth practicing is worth sharing. Disciplines are memes, too. If they are not shared, they will die out (or have to be rediscovered).
Disciplines are hard. If I already did these things automatically, I wouldn't have to learn them. Disciplines tend to be in response to unwanted automatic (often genetic) responses. Whether the discipline is in reaction to a learned habit or a genetic response, the discipline will be hard work, at first. Fortunately, repeated practice turns most disciplines into a habits.
I practice these ten disciplines as my commitment to our shared reality, a world where we collaborate, share ideas, and work together to overcome challenges to our survival. These are good things. It's a big part of what has gotten us here, today. We haven't gotten here without making mistakes. We'll make more. It's how we learn. But the alternative is a world where mystery dominates.
May your disciplines become habits! And may your subjective reality be augmented to include memes from other people's realities, for your survival, for the survival of the human species, and the planet.
