~ We've come a long way culturally in 10,000 years, but we should keep in mind - that that mind is - the same one that scanned the plains of equatorial Africa in the days of our Pleistocene ancestors. (Workman / Reader 2009).

Results of human strangeness

Our way of processing information suggests some strange consequences and repercussions. Doublethink This is different from the similar idea of cognitive dissonance, both are about holding contradictory ideas, but whereas doublethink means you are happy or not aware about holding contradictory ideas, cognitive dissonance you are uncomfortable and try to rationalize the situation(ability to hold conflicting ideas) as described in George Orwell’s 1984 is one example, and he also highlights our susceptibility to Manipulation of language as a weapon of mind control and abuse of power in 1984. Another problem is our innate desire to rationalise rather than reason - see ⮝Nature of Brain - Thinking -3.

What's here

1. Introduction:❊2 05Aug25 15-01
2. Are we in control of our creations? - Ideas, Memes and Genes❊2
3. Who is in charge? implecations of idea appeal and meme❊2
4. The appeal of ideas and memes to our Worldview ♥
5. Priming and Growing a Worldview❊3
6. Examples of outcomes❊4
7. A expanded❊5
8. B expanded❊5
9. C expanded❊5
10. D expanded❊5
11. A possible key - hero or saint❊2
12. Self-fulfilling closed clouds of ideas❊2
13. Other examples of implication❊3
14. God & Brexit❊4
15. Brexit in the UK❊4
16. Covid 19 social and bialogica❊4
17. Biological viral spread❊5
18. Social unpleasantness❊4

Scope:

• Examples: president of US elected from prison, climate disarster, Internet for good and bad (PC camera time to take clothes off) º
• the operation of memes - just intro in ideas - new pic, who’s running, both already started in? INFO-DRV, CULT-EVO-REVEIW lots here about meme in principle but add more re action here? heart icon / glossary re where term discussed help here too, IMP-STRANGE-1, IDEA º
• the religious conundrum - barriers and paradigms book and Philo Rel course - phlogiston - initial explanation already started in? º
• all inevitable consequence of the evolution algorithm survival of the fittest, fittest for what? no divine goal º
• what was originally in 2? º
• xxx º
• xxx º

Introduction -

Here are some of the implications of our particular "strange" style of human operation, or its consequences and repercussions. The origin of our style is described in ⮝Background and Mechanisms -4 and our resulting style is described in ⮝Model of Turin Hominin -3, of which Idea and Worldview are of particular interest here.

Our style includes two important features that determines who we are, our personal collection of ideas (our Worldview) and the individual brain we have, which influences how we process and review new ideas in relation to our worldview - it is data and process yet again. New ideas may just arrive, but our "who we are" determines which unsolicited ones we pay attention and what ideas we actively seek out.

This style of our thinking and our innate sociability has served us well and enabled us to outcompete all the varieties of hominin that evolved from the branch with our common ape line about 7 million years ago. However, these characteristics are not necessarily the best for what should now be a cooperative lifestyle within our species, we stand supreme but we are now our own worst enemy. We've spent millennia fighting among ourselves, but we’ve also established stable and productive societies by using our brains to introduce a bit of law and order, nevertheless infighting remains but now just on a more sophisticated level.

Social organisation and cooperation is one of our defining strengths, but unfortunately it’s marred by our ancient "them and us" instinct and our reasoning ability is another asset that is unfortunately derailed by ancient emotion and biases, for example:

• The ongoing climate change that continues to drive our species into disaster, but currently with little hope of avoidance. There are daily examples of the impending problems, we have good intentions to change, but in the meantime we still fight over the ownership and interest of the deckchairs while the ship slowly sinks.
• Thanks to self-interests and manipulation of information (deliberate or otherwise) the most powerful democracy on the planet was contemplating the election of its next president who could have been imprisoned for subverting democracy (not to mention a long list of other offenses), but nevertheless has just been re-elected president for a second time.
• Long running conflicts such as the Northern Ireland Catholic-Protestant troubles and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, many parents on both sides want peace and encourage their children not to perpetuate retribution on the other side, but of course others are looking to an honourable solution to the cause of the escalated problem.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My initial interest in our strangeness was based on the question: "why do intelligent and educated people have such different views about things?" But as we moved into the era of: decrying expert opinion on very complex trading arrangements, or publicly declared alternative facts, and anti-vax conspiracies, the repercussions on the UK, US and the world outweigh cosy academic debates between Alister McGrath and Richard Dawkins about the existance of God.

The question now broadens to: "if our ability to process information is the key to our success, why do we so often have such little interest in its veracity?" Perhaps it’s due to another of our key features, that of social organisation and its vulnerability to being manipulated for the benefit of another feature, greed. We produce the information and perpetuate it, but rather than it being good quality substantiated facts it's all too often: bent for personal gain, or derived from a lack of knowledge or incompetence, or possibly just from emotion. And then back to the original question, even if we can see through the fogs of misinformation and disinformation we still have different views – will misthinking on climate change be our grand finale?.

But there's more to an idea than its veracity, its appeal is far more critical. We all have a brain that we are free to fill it with ideas as we like (notwithstanding brain washing, indoctrination or grooming, but where do you draw the line of free will) and we all like some ideas more than others. We share some common likings such as music, sunsets, friendship, stories etc., but the preferred style of music, or topic of story vary from person to person - what appeals to you, may not to me, but some ideas appeal to us all. There are obviously ideas within a story or song lyrics, and friendship includes conversations with many ideas, but sunsets and other appealing images just trigger ideas that we already hold, the image becomes a wrapper of our ideas rather than being an actual idea. But even “actual ideas” have a wrapper that establish their appeal including its Pedigree (e.g. who said it) see ⮝ Appeal of an idea -3. And it's the already held ideas that are important, as they determine what's personally appealing; our initial collection of held ideas and their further accumulation is covered in ⮝Worldview - or each Turing Hominin's view of the world -3. So when we come across actual ideas in stories or conversations, which appeal to our worldview and may be novel or familiar to us, we think about them and come to conclusions, but the thinking processes we use leaves a lot to be desired Our thinking involves many biases and an ability to hold conflicting ideas as highlighted in Orwell's 1984 and Double Think. And although emotion is involved it is an essential component of reaching a conclusion and emotion often takes a big part in the "analysis" and our conclusion, leading to yet more problems around veracity. See ---

Are we in control of our creations? - Ideas, Memes and Genes

In our very recent evolution we have created very complex social features such as: The Market in the form of a worldwide trading and finance system, and political systems of various levels of success and fairness backed by militaries based on technologies. We also have health systems, which have worldwide oversite by the World Health Organization, and other worldwide organisations such as the United Nations, all trying to improve the world and co-ordinate activities. We have many admirable intentions, but also many counteractions - for example midday I listened to The Global Food System: Too Big to Change? discussing the fact that while parts of the world starve, obesity is a big problem elsewhere, and in the evening I watched Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby Joali Maldives describing how a Turkish company had leased a Maldives island to build a 5 star luxury hotel complex to pamper the wealthy – just one example of the daily reported conflicting stories. Can we ever hope to control the conflicts between our ideas of admirable intention and those that work against them - and after all “we need to see what The Market says”.

A part of an explanation may lie with Richard Dawkins’ memes. He introduced the idea of memes in his book The Selfish Gene and describes the term as: "a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation" ᚜The Selfish Gene 11 p192 ᚛ click , and he chose the word to draw a comparison to genes. But whereas a gene is a unit of physical transmission, which transfers construction information from body to subsequent body, a meme is a unit of cultural transmission that transfers information from brain to brain. He provides examples of memes as: tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of marking pots or of building arches.

A key point of the book is that evolution works at the gene level, not the whole body, group or species level and contrary to one time tradition e.g. the old Wilder beast does not jump altruistically into the river to sacrifice itself to the crocodiles for the benefit of the heard - its old and either slipped or was even pushed see ⪧name # Lec.xx ⪦ xx .Genes provide build information for a component of the gene perpetuation vehicle i.e. the human body – a gene is just a team member of the total creation that may survive and enable the proliferation all team members – it’s all the team or nothing, and there’s no “g” in team. And so the gene is described anthropomorphically as selfish, but selfish genes for altruism are a bit of an oxymoron although you do need to circumspect about altruism. This selfishness then also applies to the meme that wants to anthropomorphically spread itself for its own ends, or more accurately - what works will spread. From this it follows that memes have, and still are, driving our culture via a similar evolutionary process to that which built / builds our bodies via genes. Not only that, coevolution between gene and meme has resulted in a brain style appropriate to meme transfer, in the same way that genes evolved organisms of a style capable of copying genes - a chicken is just an egg's way of being copied; a brain is just a meme's way of being copied - long live battery farming and the Internet.

Dawkins' definition of a meme is pretty broad, especially if you include his example of ideas, which in my terminology includes all his examples and more, or put another way - we have ideas some of which may be memes. Perhaps we are saying the same thing and it depends on your definition of idea, however, I think memes are only part of the story. In my view all ideas have an attribute of appeal that attracts people accordingly - an ancient ancestor struggling to skin and animal who sees another using a sharpened stone will find such an idea appealing, a non-racist hearing racist ideas will not find them appealing - but perhaps a meme is an idea that has a high appeal to a lot of people.

To perpetuate an idea and influence culture we need to repeat, copy or imitate the original. If it's appealing we may choose to copy the idea and may also add our own embellishments e.g. different stone sharpening style, or its appeal is the opportunity to challenge racist ideas, or we may just like it and copy the idea as is. I suggest this is a key to a meme i.e. it's an idea repeated without embellishment or much thought. It could be harmless or not e.g.: a catchy tune, a good cake recipe, the promise of an afterlife or re-affirmantion that I'm superior. On the contrary, non-meme ideas are assessed and repeated with some personal judgement, the racist ideas may still be repeated, but not simply and blindly, they will have some form of judgement or argument attached and may become even more appealing if justified by an authoritative figure, and perhaps becoming a new easy repeat meme. So perhaps a meme is an appealing, discrete idea that can be passed on without thought or comment.

Biological evolution happens due to a combination of physical environmental change (either it changes, or we move to a different one) and variation in gene data, resulting in appropriate gene vehicles surviving to sexual maturity and so qualifying to copy their genes, hence: survival of the fit-for-purpose in local environment. Gene variation and selection is essential for evolution and the production of the capable species that we have become, but of course our success is also due to our brains and their capability to use information, and our amassing a library of ideas or culture created by copying, enhancing and recording ideas. Dawkins suggests that this culture has evolved under the control of memes, in a similar manner to biological evolution under genes, but I suggest that ideas are the main driving force, but with memes also playing a part.

There's a mechanism regulating biological evolution, namely early death, which enables only appropriate sets of gene variants to be copied, but what regulates appropriate idea proliferation? Possibly it’s those that help the survival of the society of brains that are hosting, exchanging and realising them. Individual genes are subject to the survival test of the whole gene vehicle (not the group, society or species), so similarly ideas are assessed on the survival of the idea vehicle, in this case it's a collection (society) of brains, which are needed for the ideas to work and survive. As society size grew more sophisticated ideas caught on to help their success and smooth running, and possibly competing for resources with neighbouring societies via trading or fighting. Is this cultural evolution based on the appeal of ideas and survival of those fit-for-purpose in local social environment?

However there are other difference between biological and social-idea fit-for-purpose selection. Speed obviously, genes plod along at generational speed, but thanks to modern technology an idea can be offered to the world in minutes, although pre-printing press it was very much slower. Another is that inappropriate gene variants die and leave the stage, but while inappropriate ideas may not flourish, they never leave the stage, especially with the help of writing, the printing press and computers - there's no grim reaper applied to ideas. So whereas the stage of human bodies is relatively tidy, the social-idea stage may have basic helpful structures, but also has many hiding places ready for devious plots and self-promotion. The basic structure is created by ideas with universal appeal e.g. treating others as one would want to be treated by them, {Social Reciprocity - Autism Behavior Specialists / course strategy somewhere}, leadership, specialisation and organisation hierarchies etc. But our much loved plotting and scheming can be enabled by appeal manipulation (the food of memes) of the many ideas still around or of new ones, and all made the more complex when considering our acquired worldview that sets what we find appealing.

Ideas have a complex structure, see ⮝What is an Idea -2>Turing Hominin and big ideas have many peripheral ideas, for example: religions are big ideas and have various appealing peripheral ideas e.g. promise of an afterlife, colourful ceremonies, impressive music and buildings, sociability; national organisations have political, financial, legal, social ideas consisting of many serious ideas, but also subject to many appealing simple peripheral ideas e.g. Britain’s membership of the European Union (very complex) and the Leave Campaign’s slogans: “they need us more than we them” and any detailed challenge labelled “project fear”; or society's related lack of housing blamed on immigrants.

What makes an idea appealing depends on context, evidence of a new particle would appeal to a physicists, but to most of us most of the time it’s the simple things that grab our attention and appeal, but still depends on your background or world view see ⮝ Worldview -2>Turing Hominin - having a racist upbringing may lead to finding racist memes appealing. And of course your worldview depends on other experiences including formal and informal education and even your ⮝ Nature of Brain - Structure -2>Turing Hominin. Memes have a high appeal and therefore spread well, they may be a big idea peripheral, but they are also very useful to those wanting to manipulate the otherwise culturally evolved appropriate ideas e.g. disinformation and misinformation and wartime propaganda, not to mention election results and alternative facts.

So where do memes fit in? The above suggests that culture evolved based on the appeal of ideas that helped the advancement of society, and you could say that we were in charge and selected the good ones, or possibly more accurately (but less acceptable to our egos) that we accepted and proliferated those that worked – similar to genes by natural selection, rather than genes by eugenics. But because there is no dramatic exclusion of inappropriate ideas (inappropriate genes die) they all continue in the cultural mix, and possibly continue to work against the interests of society as a whole. Their continuation may be assisted by memes, which may be just long term traditions in attractive peripheral wrappers re-enforcing established ideas such as: long tradition in paintings, call to prayer, wartime propaganda, fashion reinforcement etc., or newly created ones with marketing intentions or political ones {by those with a personal interests and proposal of alternative facts}. But there’s no reason why memes can't work for the benefit of society, but that doesn’t appear to be so common.

For more information see Memes

Who is in charge? implecations of idea appeal and meme

So if memes and ideas are using our brains to perpetuate themselves, it implies that we are not in total control, but if the subject of a meme is religion and God (Dawkins favourite example), you begin to upset a lot of people. The suggestion that their brains are “infected by a meme virus” isn’t a good sales pitch for the idea of memes, and such examples did little to promote the idea. But who is in charge, we or memes / ideas is a good question, and {DONE ABOVE what is a meme} and how it work is another. {REPEAT but ok} I say that memes are just a special cases of idea and how we process all ideas with our peculiar data processing machine begs the question of control. And if you add to the mix our technology to boost idea proliferation, starting with writing long ago, then the printing press in 1440 and to supercharging it with the Internet and subsequent social media, likes and information feeds, it all goes to create a vast swamp of ideas, either self-perpetuating via us, or others carefully constructed by us. But what is the intention of our careful constructions, a useful truth or a deliberate seeding of self-perpetuating self-serving ideas?

Brains owned by the rich and or powerful have always been able to push their ideas and the majority of us pull them, not to mention the meme ideas doing their bit to push themselves. For example, Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire is a well-used vehicle for idea promotion, but this is surpassed by Dominic Cummings’ use of ideas moulded and targeted on social media recipients during the Brexit Vote Leave campaign. From newspapers, news feeds and social media, some brains or people have the technology to push their ideas (be they good bad or indifferent) to millions of people within seconds, and then possibly the meme aspect kicks in to perpetuate them further within society. Humanity is farming ideas on a grand scale, joined by the meme weeds or are they flowers - a weed is only a flower in the wrong place. And to mix metaphors - never mind E. O. Wilson's dog walk with a lead "The genes hold culture on a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance with their effects on the human gene pool. The brain is a product of evolution. Human behaviour, like the deepest capacities for emotional response which drive and guide it, is the circuitous technique by which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact." Lumsden and Wilson - Genes and the Adapted Mind (as in Home page), it’s the whole relationship between dog and its keeper, influenced by behaviours that may originate genetically, but are also manipulated by ideas that we are also manipulating - more on genes and memes see xxx}

{REPEAT but} Memes transfer information from brain to brain: by being appealing ideas that get noticed and passed on by imitation Susan Blackmore described this as instructions for carrying out behaviour, stored in brains or other objects and passed on by imitation, which includes using: language, reading and instructions and other complex skills and behaviours ᚜The Meme Machine 16 p43 ᚛ click  , which implies with little or no personal assessment or value add, again all ideas transfer from brain to brain, but memes are a particular case like propaganda. However, the significance of memes is that they effectively hijack our brains to perpetuate themselves, much like a virus uses our cells to perpetuate itself and both avoid our natural defences, be it an immune system or reasoning. Of course neither have any intelligent evil intent, it's just the way things work, but to some the notion that their brains are “infected by a meme virus” doesn’t give the meme idea a very good image and did little to promote the idea.

So genes transfer construction details from body to subsequent body: by being useful and then become a component part of the total gene copying machine itself. Therefore they have a vested (selfish) interest in the design of the machine – much like an organisation donating money to a political party to increase their prevalence in the world. However, whereas political funding is supposedly regulated by our cultural rules, gene vested influence is regulated by its relevance to the current physical (and cultural?) environment. Its relevance is a simple check based on the gene’s usefulness for the survival of the copying machine, if the gene and its associates survive to reach sexual maturity and the machine operates they are relevant, if they don’t, that gene and associates either died prematurely (literally), or the machine didn’t operate due to a fault, opportunity or choice – example The FOXP2 gene is involved in mimicry & birdsong and echolocation in bats, and has been a useful gene for us for a long time, but even more so when other genes became active. The FOXP2 gene is now also involved in our speech and language, but had to wait for future gene developments that dropped our larynx to achieve our crowning glory of sophisticated language.
A new-born baby’s larynx resembles that of other mammals. It pokes up into the nasal passage like a snorkel, so babies can drink and breathe at the same time. But at three months old, the larynx descends, opening up a cavity behind the tongue. Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1211-intimidation-tactics-may-have-led-to-speech/#ixzz6tayJyX9f.Is this also a good example of both xx yy
This was a vital step in the evolution of speech as it allows us to utter a much wider range of sounds. A social species with better communications meant better chance of survival, but was it initiated by ancient male ancestors having bellowing competitions, what’s changed. . Or that is what happened until we lent a helping hand to operate the machine despite faults, for better or worse we have introduced problems similar to those of regulating political funding.

{orig}Genes form part and contribute to the gene copy machine – they affect the building of it and have vested interest to promote themselves in the design (like Johnson). But their selling point has to be relevant to the current situation e.g. fox speech gene little value before change of vocal arrangements. Genes vested interest in style of copy machine. We able to modify genes post birth e.g. gene therapy, vaccines manipulating immune system, and fertility and selection of genetically appropriate embryo (one without inherited problem?), but as yet we don’t manipulate egg or sperm genes to create new line of offspring.

Memes and genes both have a vested interest in their personal proliferation and become part of their respective copying machine, genes by being a useful component and memes by tantalising appeal. However, these two machines operate on very different time scales, meme ideas can now spread round the world in minutes thanks to social media, whereas gene proliferation goes through its testing period of at least 10 years biologically and a lot more socially. Also their copying styles are very different, memes copy as we normally expect, like a photo copier or computer file copy, but gene copying is a strange (to us) method, as introduced in example below and expanded in see xx.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ previous orange and blue bits moved to Foot note and Mechs - this is last of find a home for bits ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The appeal of ideas and memes to our Worldview ♥

old versions

A key feature of ideas and memes is their appeal, but what are they appealing to? I suggest to our personal and culturally related worldview. We all have a worldview of some sort, which is primed soon after birth and then grows, nurtured by our surroundings and experiences. And as Keith Ward says in his book ᚜The Big Questions in Science and Religion 21 pxx ᚛ click , our environment dictates our view and we have little control of its foundations {he has lots of knowledge of different religions and says one is not better than another but he is a xxx for no other reason than he was brought up that way}; we may voluntarily update and enhance it in later life, but only in in relation to its initial framework set by our fortunes of birth. But never the less there are some common physiological features at play that influence all worldviews, such as the importance of family often result in strong nationalistic views, a sense of justice or injustice is another, a desire for comfort and peace in life even if only temporary via music and art, and of course sex has a strong appeal to most adults.

All ideas show appeal to someone (even if only the originator), while many have natural appeal to lots of worldviews e.g. music, art or humour (a particular juxtaposing of different ideas?), others ideas are designed to appeal to many e.g. propaganda, political slogans or sound bites and advertising, and then there are the ambiguous ones that appeal to some but not others. But what’s the difference between a humorous kitten clip, a dramatic news item such as 9/11, wartime propaganda, the latest medical report on Covid 19, TikTok clips, scarf knotting and the once-upon-a-time “A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play”. So which is a straight forward idea, and which is a meme, when does an appealing idea become a meme? Remember an idea here could be about climate change, but also the sound of Beethoven’s Fifth or Ninth symphony, or even just the first four notes of the Fifth ᚜The Meme Machine 16 p53 ᚛ click 

A key idea of a meme is that it hijacks our brain to copy itself, but nothing is forcing us to relay the idea - unlike genes that are an obligatory part of a biological copying machine that has been running for billions of years - although we're intervening now. Continuing with a biology and virus analogy, we have an immune system that helps prevent viruses from hijacking our cells to reproduce, and likewise we have reasoning to prevent us from mindlessly relaying an idea. However, reasoning needs other ideas to perform the process, these ideas come from education that in turn relate to our worldview, and of course the processing power to run the process. Education can be seen as the vaccine against brain hijacking and mindless relaying.

To continue the analogy and complete the picture, viruses are part of the grand biological machine and are just a feature of evolution, they are just there and if we’re not careful are sometimes a great problem to us. Likewise sometimes very appealing ideas are created that are just there, they drift past our immune system and do no harm, but other ideas are not so harmless and also bypass our mental immune system, and to make matters worse, there are those designing ideas to do just that and with modern technology (from xx printing press to the Internet) can seed them directly into millions of brains – not unlike the deliberate creation of nerve agents to attack the biological machine.

{original} Some ideas just have a natural appeal to lots of worldviews e.g. music, art or humour (a particular juxtaposing of different ideas?), while others are designed to appeal such as propaganda, political slogans and sound bites. But what’s the difference between a humorous kitten clip, a dramatic news item such as 9/11, wartime propaganda, the latest medical report on Covid 19, TikTok clips, scarf knotting etc. Which is information in form of an idea, and which is a meme? just an idea … when does an appealing idea become a meme - when it bye passes assessment by concentrating on emotion

Priming and Growing a Worldview

The idea of memes being in control is contentious and conflicts with our ideas around free will and that we are in control, but there’s another simpler contender for the influence on our freedoms, that of our initial core worldview. From our first hours on the planet (and possibly before) we are influenced by our surroundings and carers, and a bit later, once we have deduced their language and picked up some of their vocabulary, also by what they tell us and show us of the world. It’s the parents' choice how they prime their children, but it’s greatly influenced by the local culture and their own upbringing and priming - does this form an information "gene" {there lies memes and the "no I in team" but hidden "me" or is it "me me prima donna" of the team reproduction machine}. As children we absorb the priming with confidence in parental correctness and protection, but later as adolescents, who usually come under different influences, we may challenge the parental wisdom and custom, and possibly rebel against it, a simple example is "old wives’ tales", we're all told them but often see through them later, but other ideas like Amish culture are more extensive {foot re Amish – leave}. But nevertheless have permanent foundations "From his Darwinian perspective he [Richard Dawkins in Unweaving the Rainbow] seeks to show that evolution has equipped humans (particularly children) with an in-built credulity, combined with a stubborn determination to hold on to a belief once they have accepted it, regardless of contrary evidence." ᚜Philosopy of Religion - OCR for A Level 9 p45 ᚛ click  – not an unreasonable tactic to avoid ancestral real-time danger. been laid that will exist for a lifetime no matter how objective the individual?

Our worldview, however it's established, is the key to the information that we seek out or absorb, and which in turn bolsters our worldview; it's also influences the information we chose to re-iterate into the cultural environment for others to pick up. But the subsequent bolstering is all too often aided by our ability to rationalise rather than reason – see ⮝Thinking -3 for detail. In summary it’s: deliberate thinking to support a conclusion - rationalised problem addressing doesn’t work well for chess, I want to move "black Bishop to d3", how do I justify it? But it can work, although not necessarily correctly, for crime, we know who did it, now find the evidence to support it. And all too often it occurs in politics, how will I look good and get votes, then work back from there; as opposed to deliberate thinking to find an answer i.e. assessing the evidence to arrive at some sort of conclusion, such as a good chess move, all be it to support the conclusion of “I want to win”.

But to extend the argument, do we have different levels of objectivity so making some individuals more willing to challenge the foundations of initial priming than others? We are all born with slightly different brains - see ⮝Nature of Brain - Structure -# but they are also subject to the continuing nature / nurture cycle - course xx presents a similar table as the one below to represent the outcomes of schizophrenia in relation to an initial brain within its developmental environment. Similarly I suggest that the brain’s developmental environment may also determine the extent of objectivity, you may get a brain with a good capacity and configuration for objectivity, but it needs stimulating to reach its potential – perhaps. This would lead to the complication that the style of priming, in combination with the initial brain style, may also affect the approach towards priming itself? The table below summarises priming and approach towards it (however created), with a middle ground shown in grey, and outcomes labelled A to D.

Priming Open – there may be elements of Specific Priming, but in general this style is about options and that there are many different lifestyles that should be considered, understood and respected. This may be deliberate teaching or just an open parental view of the world.

Priming Specific – the first topic that comes to mind is religion and normally relates to the social environment, if you are growing up in a Catholic household you are unlikely to be versed in Hindu beliefs. Other priming may relate to politics, which may set a lifetime of party allegiance, and or social class and possibly relate to ethnic origins and difficulties. Any priming may be deliberate and in depth, or just by implication.

Approach Objective – some people tend to be argumentative and questioning, which can be irritating to the rest of us, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. We need people to challenge the received {or is it} perceived wisdom and status quo, else nothing ever changes. Here a personal review of priming information may result in acceptance or rejection of it, which may be the rejection of an atheist view to gaining a religious one, or vice versa, but within limits of society - becoming a communist in the USA McCarthy period wasn’t advisable.
other subject example?? Fed tory but go labour, US to comi, but if open and options isn’t that par for the course, except faith based religion, is it the purpose / value thing? . . . rejection of it, be it a religious, political or social view or lack of

Approach Accepting – possibly the majority of people are accepting of the status quo and don’t spend too much time challenging every idea presented to them. For a stable and successful society this is an advantage, we can get on and live our lives without endless debates, but of course nothing changes.

Examples of outcomes

Ideally examples below should include all topics, but examples available on the Internet generally relate to religion, but others topics are addressed in general terms; and of course I've chosen those that support my proposal: that initial worldview priming set us up for life and is difficult to overcome. The fact that we are influenced by our upbringing and that we reflect our worldviews, which we can obviously change over time, probably isn’t too controversial; but how much, and how inclined we are to change our views from initial priming, is more difficult to say, and possibly gets into the realm of free will; and a formal study would be useful.

1. Open - raised with options, Objective questioning nature:
   accept: Richard Dawkins, Bertrand Russell
   rejected: Sy Garte - From Atheism to Agnosticism to Christianity
2. Open- raised with options, Accepting not questioning nature - confused just go with one?
   
   
3. Specific - raised with prescription, Objective questionig nature:
   accept: Alister McGrath although temporarily rejected, Professor James H. Hall (see detail below)
   rejected: Dan Barker, actor
4. Specific - raised with prescription, Accepting not questioning nature - orthodox followers

The examples are expanded below with emphasis on A and C and with fuller description of Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath as they form part of my original question "why do intelligent and educated people have such different views about things?"
Both Dawkins and McGrath are aware of Christ and the teachings about him and both studied science, but one considered him an entity with whom you can have a relationship, while the other considers the entity to be a convenient human invention. A reason may be given in "A possible key" below - one is happy that we are here just by accident and a very intriguing process, while the other wants more than that, and wants a purpose to it all, but where do those two attitudes come from, seeds planted by parents, or some part of initial brain configuration?

Professor James H. Hall is also given a fuller description in C as I have spent many hours listening to his lectures and gained quite an insight into him and his views, he’s also the inspiration for "A possible key" below that possibly explains our differences - some include intention and value into their worldview, while others are happy without it.

Generally a “purpose to our existence” is attributed to God(s), but there is also scientific interest in the form of the Anthropic principle - an idea that address the fact that the laws of nature, and parameters of the universe have values that are consistent with our life here, why? I first came across the principle in 1987 via a BBC Horizon programme The Anthropic Principle. One memorable contributor to the programme was David Deutsch who I have included in the examples below. I have assumed, because he's a scientist that he has an objective approach (but as Alister McGrath said “I turned my back on one faith and embraced another” - from science to religion) and it doesn’t appear that he had a strong religious upbringing, so perhaps his worldview that includes a purpose to our existence has been deduced rather than primed.

A expanded

B expanded

This situation suggests that "open" parents are raising a child that is not particularly receptive to lots of options; if so is this due to a brain architecture not geared to options (excluding specific damage or divergence) and how often does this happen? Or would every child acquire an “open” worldview if given the right stimulation. But here let’s assume this child settles down to accepting some highlights of initial priming - specific examples are difficult to give.

{needs sorting - not happy} Is this situation contrived and just the result of completing a grid, or perhaps there's a mismatch between parents and offspring here? I suggested above that a possible key difference between Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath is - one is happy that we are here just by accident and a very intriguing process, while the other wants more than that, and wants a purpose to it all - and I also wondered if this key attitude was the result of seeds planted by parents, or some part of initial brain configuration. Perhaps this is the “the brain architecture not geared to options” or rather puts a constraint on what is acceptable, but then what happened to “as children we absorb the priming with confidence in parental correctness and protection” or does the former override the latter. We all have and inbuilt sense of justice, is this taught or part of the Homo sapiens’ DNA package, course xx describes how our social life evolution gave us a sense of guilt {was it?}, how much is nurture as opposed to inbuilt nature of the beast. This might be true but is it reasonable to include “the key” here too, also sounds like the God gene idea as discussed in course xx.

C expanded

Topics for specific priming may include, for example: politics, religion, social class, ethnic origins and its difficulties. The first two topics have a range of possibilities dependant on the social environment and with varying levels of options. If raised in North Korea you have little choice, you may have personal doubt about what you are taught, but it’s only the brave who try to spread such ideas, and so orthodoxy is enforced. Those of us within democracies have more freedom, but we are still subject to initial priming and our willingness to challenge it, which may also extend to the status quo and nature of democracy itself e.g. US and UK ostensibly run by one of two adversarial parties. Similarly if raise in a theocracy you probably have little religious choice about your public declared beliefs; and again those of us in democracies have more choice, but sometimes the local environment is a constraint e.g. Catholic / Protestant periods in Britain, or the American Bible Belt.

D expanded

The topics for specific priming are the same as C above and may include, for example: politics, religion, social class, ethnic origins and difficulties, but in this scenario the child is of a more accepting nature and so readily maintains initial parental priming. Religion is again an obvious example, if children are raised in a deeply religious environment, they may accept the teachings and continue with the lifestyle. But perhaps if they gain understanding of different ideas and attitudes, due to connection with different environments, or a general change of social attributes over time, then the “blind” continuation with orthodoxy is less likely.

And of course religion isn’t the only topic where orthodoxy, parental or otherwise, is maintained, it can be political such as right, left or liberal, racist, homophobic or not, etc.

There’re many other topics of more short-term current thinking, be it politically instigated, national or social, for example the current UK government’s demonization of those risking life crossing the English Channel for a better life, much of the world’s adamant support of Israel, complacency towards action on climate change. Possibly some short term attitudes done feature in initial priming but certainly get involved in developing a world view and challenging some of the orthodoxy can be difficult.

NOTEs

Other subjects and priming influences include the human involvement in climate change and the value of capitalism and free markets.

Political spokesman e.g. (ambas Tom Mis) can & do hold mutual inconstant ideas and rationalise them to speak rubbish or politically expedient – today 23oct23

A possible key - hero or saint

This may appear a bit simplistic as I’m sure many orthodox followers spend a lot of time questioning their faith, but they rarely take the leap to a totally different one, but possibly to none. And certainly those in C have formally and thoroughly challenged their own ideas and lifestyle and continue with the initial path. But possibly there's single important feature as highlighted in xx, that of wanting to include intention and value to the basis of your worldview. Some of us are happy to accept there's no specific purpose or value to our lives and to the world; everything is just the lucky result of initial organic life, an evolution algorithm and global events, and to we humans some events are good and some not, but there is no absolute value to them or intention. However, many don’t agree with this and their worldview includes intention and value to their lives and the world, which in turn requires some form of supernatural overseer. So perhaps if you have the inbuilt value and intention requirement (or genes, a God gene has been proposed but not yet found ref curse), or have been raised with a strong belief and priming that there is intention and value, then perhaps it sticks despite analysis to the contrary, it is after all much more comforting to believe there is intention to our lives, and perhaps it’s more a matter of requiring comfort than objectivity?

{has this done scope - all inevitable consequence of the evolution algorithm survival of the fittest, fittest for what? no divine goal}

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

{is this to be scope - the religious conundrum - barriers and paradigms book and Philo Rel course - phlogiston - initial explanation already started in?

Self-fulfilling closed clouds of ideas

Some areas of study and discussion are closed loops that may be complex and have acknowledged experts who are qualified in the area, but unless there is some external examination or testing of the veracity of the ideas they can only remain a self-fulfilling closed cloud of ideas {9may20 sleep idea}. Although I am trying to expand the question beyond religion, the fact remains that religion is an influence on most of social life and although its teachings are often debated, its unparalleled gravitas is protected, despite it being a closed cloud of ideas. The area of Theology, or more widely Hierology, has made many attempts to prove the veracity of the ideas against some external examination or testing, but as yet none have been successful But what is successful, does it really matter? The previous footnote on attempts to prove God's existence includes a Professor of Philosophy, James Hall, who concludes that a “God worthy of worship” probably doesn't exist, but nevertheless spends a lot of time doing so. He rationalises the anomaly, but I suggest this doublethink is a feature of Worldview Priming - see Priming and Growing a Worldview above. and ultimately it comes down to a matter of faith. This would be an acceptable conclusion if it were not for the gravitas attributed to this faith based set of ideas, the Catholic church for one has immense power on this basis, but worse still it sets a precedent, and gives respectability for other closed clouds of fluffy thinking, or what we often call conspiracy theories. I am obviously not the only one with this view of religious privilege, Richard Dawkins is a well know critic of religious thinking and privilege privilege, but there are many more, past and present, such as: Baron d'Holbach, Lord Bolingbroke, Thomas Paine, Ludwig Feuerbach - to name a few, or Wiki for more - and organisations such as the UK's National Secular Society.

Much of the above indignation about religions and their ideas comes from the fact that they are so influential, however we are complicit in this. All individuals suffer from fluffy thinking - I have my ideas, my mind is made up, nothing will convince me otherwise possibly on religion, phlogiston, Brexit or Donald J Trump - and this predisposition is harnessed in group-think and led in this case by educated Theologians who invest a life time of work and commitment to the ideas, and together they maintain the cloud. But if it were not for we the populous not thinking critically it wouldn’t happen, but in some areas of the world, little by little, some are thinking critically (or are permitted to do so publically) and questioning the ideas, however there are still large ares, notably in the USA, where Worldview priming still holds many back.

There are many areas of cloud group thinking that can be verified against some external examination or testing, possibly the best example is Darwin’s (and Alfred Wallace’s) proposed algorithm of evolution that has been proved correct by many physical mechanism, likewise the ideas around combustion and phlogiston were investigated against visible evidence. But there are obviously many other areas where no direct physical mechanisms or evidence exist, for example the cloud of ideas around capitalism and communism, which have been socially tested in Russia and communisum abandoned, and China where a hybrid of the two has been introduced.

Returning to religion, their teachings are similar to the clouds of capitalism and communism in that they can be assess against social success. In theory most religious teachings should create good, fair and happy societies, from the Abrahamic ones to Hindu, Sikhism, Buddhism and many more. But the reality is generally anything but good, fair and happy and I believe the other aspect of religion, their call on superpowers, connected to our primitive “them and us” feature is the cause. There is however one exception on the above list of religions, that of Buddhism which in its original form was just a way of life and no superpower involved, however headlines such as “Buddhist monks 'storm UN shelter’ to attack Rohingya refugees” obviously diminishes the assumption that superpower approval is behind domination and unrest, but this is an unusual recent event, the Abrahamic religions have much to answer for in this area.

Other examples of implication

God & Brexit

{some stuff already done in /set-3/god-brexit.html need to move here or expand here} see God(s) and Brexit

Brexit in the UK

{some stuff already don does it need to move here or expand here}

Covid 19 social and bialogica

Covid 19 has had a massive effect on humanity but only because it has affected the prosperous part of the world and hence we need to react, else it will destroy the whole of society. Thousands, if not millions of people have died from famine and war in poor parts of the world for many decades, but no concerted effort has been made to stop this.

We are all concerned about our social isolation and the affects upon our mental wellbeing, but this is nothing to what Nelson Mandela endured. He was imprisoned for 27 year (much / some in solitary confinement)for fighting against HIS country being run by white supremacists.

The problem (but only as we now see it) in South Africa was obviously a human created problem resulting from many of our less desirable traits. Covid 19 may well have originated from some foolish food fashions or habits but its huge impact on us was purely biological.

Biological viral spread

RNA package drift around, find itself in lungs, imbed in its associated cell type, use cell mechs (which?) to replicate and burst out lots of RNA package, immune system fight but may start on host body too. "Bad" stuff (not good for us stuff) find home and replicate - meme.

Social unpleasantness

ideas appealing to our nasty side (natural instincts of protect genes - family support of them too) spread whether or not we intend.