ViRuS oF ThE MiND - ThE NeW ScIeNcE oF ThE MeMe

By Richard Brodie

Author's special note: Given the 'spin' on recent events, I felt it would be a great ideal to give the reader some insight into how the United States Government exercises the 'perception management' system to design public opinion in hopes of serving 'its' purpose of full spectrum domainance over our 'own' thoughts and feelings.

Summary

Virus of the Mind is the first popular book devoted to the science of memetics, a controversial new field that transcends psychology, biology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Memetics is the science of memes, the invisible but very real DNA of human society.

In Virus of the Mind, Richard Brodie carefully builds on the work of scientists Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, and others who have become fascinated with memes and their potential impact on our lives. But Brodie goes beyond science and dives into the meat of the issue: is the emergence of this new science going to have an impact on our lives like the emergence of atomic physics did in the Cold War?

Brodie would say the impact will be at least as great. While atomic bombs affect everybody's life, viruses of the mind touch lives in a more personal and more pernicious way.

Mind viruses have already infected governments, educational systems, and inner cities, leading to some of the most pervasive and troublesome problems of society today: youth gangs, the welfare cycle, the deterioration of the public schools, and ever-growing government bureaucracy.

Viruses of the mind are not a future worry: they are here with us now and are evolving to become better and better at their job of infecting us. The recent explosion of mass media and the information superhighway has made the earth a prime breeding ground for viruses of the mind.

Will there be a mental plague? Will only some of us survive with our free will intact? Brodie weaves together science, ethics, and current events as he raises these and other very disturbing questions about memes.

About the Author

Richard Brodie was Microsoft chairman Bill Gates's personal technical assistant and the original author of Microsoft Word, one of the world's best-selling computer programs. Educated at Harvard, he is the also the best-selling author of Getting Past OK. An accomplished speaker, he has appeared on more than 80 television and radio shows including two appearances on Donahue and NBC's Today. He can also be seen engaged in his hobby, playing the major televised poker tournaments.

Introduction: Crisis of the Mind

Because understanding this new science involves a significant change in the way people think about the mind and culture, it has been difficult for people to grasp. As with any paradigm shift, memetics doesn’t fit into our existing way of looking at things, of understanding the world.

The trick to learning a new paradigm is to set aside your current one while you’re learning rather than attempt to fit the new knowledge into your existing model. It won’t fit! If you’re willing to set aside your current thinking long enough to consider four concepts, some or all of which may be new to you, you’ll be rewarded with an understanding of memetics. With that understanding, I hope, comes a call to action for anyone concerned with the future of human life.

The first concept—the star of the show—is the meme, which I introduce in Chapter 1 and which plays a leading role throughout this book. The meme, which rhymes with "beam," is the basic building block of culture in the same way the gene is the basic building block of life. As I outline in Chapter 2, memes are not only the building blocks of culture on a large scale—making up countries, languages, religions—but also on a small scale: memes are the building blocks of your mind, the programming of your mental "computer."

Second is the concept of virus. It’s well known that viruses exist in biology and in the world of computers. Now we’ll see how they show up in the world of mind and culture, the world of memetics. In Chapter 3, I’ll draw parallels between the three different universes that viruses live in to show what we can expect from mind viruses in the future.

The third concept that contributes to this paradigm shift is evolution. Evolution is one of those words that many people use, thinking they are talking about the same thing, but really having different ideas of what evolution is and means. I’ll discuss scientists’ most current theory of evolution in Chapter 4, and how it applies to memes in Chapter 5.

The fourth concept necessary to understanding mind viruses is the new science of evolutionary psychology. This field examines the biases and mechanisms of our minds that evolved to support our survival and reproduction. Some of these biases take the form of psychological buttons that can be pushed to penetrate our mental defenses. I called this part of the book "Crisis of the Mind" rather than simply "Introduction" because the former pushes more buttons: it attracts more attention and more people will read it. I called this book Virus of the Mind rather than Introduction to Memetics for the same reason.

Memetics builds on these four conceptual blocks to form a new paradigm of how culture evolved and is evolving. It illuminates a major decision point for humanity:

Will we allow natural selection to evolve us randomly, without regard for our happiness, satisfaction, or spirit? Or will we seize the reins of our own evolution and pick a direction for ourselves?

Consciously spreading ideas you consider important is one way to combat mind viruses.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

Meme Central

Information Warfare

Internet Virus Antidote

Level 3 of Consciousness

Foundations of Effective Influence Operations: A Framework for Enhancing Army Capabilities