Guide:
I. Introduction
II. Components of thinking
III. Mechanisms of cognition
IV. More mechanisms
V. Types of memes
VI. Meme2Meme2Gene interactions
VII. Human2Human transmission
VIII. A Bigger World
IX. Gravity of 'plexes
X. Three is a crowd
XI. Third scenario
XII. Religion and philosophy
XIII. Mental disorders of the new age <-you are here
XIV. True vs Fake
XV. Outsourced Me
______________________________________________
Time to commit the criminal acts against DSM.
An emergent property of every flexible system is creaton of states where shit goes wrong. Which means i can come up with various ways someone's brain can be defficient, as a demonstration of how systems work (Or don't work, which is the point). But it's not "genetic" problems, so no need to go full german scientist and eugene-ise the path of humanity on a molecular level - just right words and lots of practice is enough to fix those. Professional psychotherapists are supposed to smell these like K9 german shepherds smell cocaine, and know the solutions. Don't go diagnosing people left and right based on what i wrote here, but do consider if maybe something similar is happening to you. And it's not like i'm a professional certified specialist expert in the field of brain worms. But enough excuses.
#1: Viy Syndrome
A mindset which can be described as: "It doesn't exist unless the boss says so". Different humans value different kinds of information, the important distinction here being the source. Which do you trust more: what you see and understand yourself, or what others tell you?
This mentality is a consequence of being very well-trained to respond only to certain kinds of stimuli, certain sources of it, to be specific, at the cost of diminishing the value of the victim's own behaviours and the systems of its selections. Person with Viy Syndrome will frequently find himself in situations where the words of people with authority status will basically flip the opinions and control the behaviour of his, because he was conditioned to be this way through whatever means. Like person affected by Viy can discover a thing, and think it's neat due to whatever reason, and then the "Authority" comes and says "No, it's bad because %list_of_explanations%”, flipping the entire judgement around. If you think it sounds tame, things can always become worse, - later stages of the "disorder" mean the "Viy" figure don't even need to justify his commands, you'll just belive him. Because “compliance“ is “convenient“.
A quintessential "Viy Syndrome" in the wild is a person standing on the side of the completely clear road, no soul or cars as far as eye can see, and waiting for the traffic light to give him permission to cross. "Viy" doesn't have to be a person.
To counteract the effects of this disorder you must cultivate your inner decision-making systems, in particular - knowledge why things happen and why you are doing stuff you do. The problem is the brain getting used to receiving the information from outside sources, abandoning the need to think for itself and just relying on man-made signals coming from outside. Refined reception and execution, without the analysis. Just doing and thinking what you are told to. In the example with the road i gave the person forgot why the traffic light is even a thing, what it's purpose, and why one should wait for it's "permission", it’s easier to just wait because the other thought keeps drilling the victim’s head from inside out: “Comply with the order of things“. And so the "Viy" grows stronger.
#2: Hostile Structure
It's normal for humans to reject memes which contradict the already present beliefs and habits. But what happens if the system for whatever reasons fails to filter out the contradictions? You get a conflict.
Usually it's a consequence of some external forces affecting the judgement of a person, making him accept and develop contradictory memes. Don't use drugs, don't drink alcohol, don't avoid sleep, - your mental defenses night have issues with working properly if they can't load in the first place. Alternatively, don't get into situations where contradictory memes are a better option, e.g. - no becoming a hostage, or moral dilemmas. Remember, - you are what you do, so if you do something bad - it will stay with you. Witnessing something powerful against your will is a problem too. What is the result? A formation of extra sets of beliefs and habits which are now in direct competition with other.
Trauma is the most common way such conflict is created, the more peaceful situations don't feed the "false structure" with enough memes or emotions to make it strong, so there's little ground for struggle for control. More “softer“ and prolonged exposure with forced false 'plex also allows for your immunity to be rewritten more carefully too. You probably already have a few, giving you intrusive thoughts and occasional impulses to do something, because of some holes in your defenses, or it's just a remnant from the past, a memeplex older than whatever you currently consider yourself to be.
Doesn't sound too bad? Now imagine what it's actually like to live with a strong enough memeplex which is capable of inserting itself into your life when you don't want to, but it still happens because it tricked your system and isn't weak enough to be quickly forgotten. You'll always be struggling to act, struggling to think, with constant impulses to act in other ways or memories of how you acted. It will demand your attention, eroding your very perception of what you are.
How to solve the issue? No clue. Practice some form of meme overexposure, probably, but be careful, triggering PTSD episodes without help is, probably, counterproductive, and might result in getting some other form of damage.
#3: Fried circuits
Imma make some bold claims. There's a picture floating on the internet, showing the brain activity of a healthy person, and a depressed one:
Also, specialists are speculating depression alters the brain mass and composition, and also there's a recent study showing that SSRIs don't work as efficiently as they should, indicating it isn't just a disbalance in hormones. At least, in some, if not most cases. Also.
So what is depression? Your programming died. Can't force yourself to stand up from the bed? Neurons giving you willpower died. Can't find reasons to continue living? Reasons died. Cannot feel joy anymore? Everything that made you feel it died too. Dreams? ... And "restoring the hormonal balance" will not work because it doesn't magically fix the neurons to their pristine condition. And the brainmass changes because it shrivels and dies.
How did it happen? Overexposure of your memes + stress. Mostly stress. You cannot stay in single mental state too long, others have to be sufficiently experienced too. Also that state of mind better not be bad - stress seems to be more lethal and far-reaching than just uncontrolled hedonism.
How do you prevent it? Depends on your lifestyle - you have to figure out how not to get stuck in a mental black hole. I do recommend leaving all electronics behind and go outside and touch grass. Hug a tree. Or pet the concrete, if you are a farm child. I'm serious - take in the nature using all your senses, unload old and stressed out programming by changing the environment and do something suffeciently different, so it can “cool off”.
How do you fix it? No idea. Untill people with better knowledge figure out how to stimulate growth of brain tissue and neural connections - you are fucked. We are fucked. Over time, you can expect some systems to come back, but i can't tell the time it will take, and how much. Don't expect much.
That is assuming the neurons are actually dying, do remember that, and in the end it might turn out i was wrong.
#4: Disconnected I
Are you a human? A race i mean - the number of limbs, position of the eyes, skeletal structure, the number of organs, - can you confidently say you belong a specific organic lifeform species? If you ask some stranger on the street if they are human, if you don't get told to fuck off, you'll hear "yes".
That's a lie. He doesn't think he's a human. Sure, he understands the descriptions of his flesh, and he's not going to pretend there are extra limbs hidden under the layers of his clothing, but think deeper - does that person associates his own self with his body and flesh? Does he consider his own body a part of his own self, or the ego is just kinda floating in there, like some clump of software, disconnected and independent from the mortal coil? I don't know how it came to be, maybe that is the default state of mind for humanity and "merging" of the mind and the body is process some undergo under some specific conditions - as mental state you have to earn. Or maybe this disconnect is tied to the rising popularity of transhumanism, and humanitarian sentiments like "we are all equal".
So what this mental state exactly is? Basicly people start treating their body like a puppet that is controlled by some independent entity inside the brain, and the influence is mostly goes in one direction, and doesn't go beyond the feedback signals like pain or pleasure. Early stages manifest in statements like "don't judge book by it's cover", while spending not an insignificant time and resources on making sure their cover looks as good as possible. See why is this a "disorder"? It's not inherently wrong to think of the body as a tool, but the mental state i'm describing leads to lying to everybody and themselves. The consequence of the ideas like "It's what on the inside that counts" is abandonment of the care for that mortal vessel of yours, and not factoring it in the decisionmaking. Don't worry, showers are still being taken (hopefully) by the sick, but eating healthy? No. Workouts? No. Bodily modifications of increasingly questionable nature? Absolutely.
So what you get is a gradual change from the logic "I am human" to "My body is human" and the treatment of the vessel for the Self not as a part or even extension of the self, but more like a glove, which you can and should change as far as technology allows you.
How far that logic can go? It can create a new default assumption. Look at your relatives - they aren't human too, it's just their bodies are. You aren’t the only one who’s body is expendable.
No, it's not dysphoria i'm talking about, there's no discomfort or stress involved, just subtle change in perception. But the consequences...
#5: Mind full of brands
Stereotypes! Gotta love them, like a bacteriologist loves a new and deadly virus.
People sometimes rely too much on other people for thinking, creating a Viy syndrome in their minds, but there’s other variation of human mind being lazy and defficient, but with somewhat significant differences. This quirk doesn’t make someone care about other people’s words more at the cost of internal processes, branding-focused people are very capable of making their own judgement, and do so frequently and with vigor. The problem lies in how they come up with their conclusions.
Insufficiently effective mental wiring, for ease of operations, can come up with various shortcuts to simplify judgement, creating a system of markers one can recognize or mentally add to a person, or an event, to figure out the course of behaviour around the target. Understandable, really, if you are lacking capacity to make an informed judgement, something has to do the legwork. For example: if you aren’t a specialist in textile manufacturing, the words “Adidas“ or “Gucci“ convey more information to you about the quality of the fabric than the article of clothing itself.
But it can get worse. You can start adding labels to people too. The jacket is “Supreme“, but the person is a fascist/communist/democrat/republican/gay/homophobe/woke/bigot/whatever. And while the shirt may be incapable of clearing it’s name, people have the capacity to dispell the errors of other people’s judgement about them, only to be denied such an opportunity with a simple word. Brands also can be used by other stereotypers as a simple way of recognizing “threats“ - “Don’t talk to him, he %makes_NFTs%“.
Judgement markers are a many, but when in the context of application to humans, are frequently used proxy for finding if the person is “moral“ enough - we are social animals to the core, so the transgressors against the “society“ are not human in the first place. Are you not “christian”? Or you voted for that one president? Then it also means you eat babies and want half of the world dead.
Structurally it’s a simple interaction between interpretation and meta patterns, where a simple que triggers chain of associations, where the conclusion is created by ques which shouldn’t be associated with it in the first place. Why are they associated though? Does that mean the issue is too many ques? No, the problem is too few metas to do the thinking, leading to boiling everything down to simple archetypes. Everything is “Sexist“, and everything is “Satanic“.
So how do you solve this problem? Simple, really, - every time you get an urge “oh, so he’s an X“ - stop it, kill it, and salt the part of the brain where it resided. Don’t allow yourself to think in labels.
#6: The Ingenious Gentleman of la Mancha syndrome
Man, you sure are smart. And handsome. And resoursful. And just great all round.
Totally superior to those other guys, who are just so repulsive, weak, and cowardly, and stupid, and…
Or so one sometimes think about themselves. And more importantly - others.
Reasons can be plenty, like inflating their own ego at the cost of perceiving others as lessers, or just being a victim of propaganda, but whatever the reason - sometimes we have wrong perceptions about the world, and as a consequence - maladaptive reactions. Just arguing with someone is a mundane task, it’s boring and unfulfilling, but you you are fighting the battle against a terrible, maybe not even human, being, for noble and earth-saving goals - that just hits different. Accuracy of one’s biases and assumptions is presumed to be more valuable for survival, for “being a decent human being“, but sometimes (a lot of times) it’s more enjoyable/convenient to think of stuff as something it is not. Sometimes people are craving a particular type of information, even if it’s not true. And that info is shaping their worldview.
To put it short - it just might be what you know about a thing, things, or everything, is wrong. Maybe it was built by others, through carefully constructed signals, designed to form very specific conclusions and perceptions in you, or maybe you are just stupid or/and unlucky to form incorrect associations and interpreters, which result in wildly different, dirporportionate, and maybe even destructive conclusions and reactions to people and objects. That guy you talked with yesterday? He’s not just a “guy“, he’s an “X“, something terrible, inexcusable, something you know about him probably because someone else told you, and you believed it because you might be that gullible. Told ye, context is very important.
Of course, these paragraphs assume that a “correct“ response exists, but i’m sure you can agree that stabbing someone with the knife for asking the question is rather… extreme. And if extremes exist, then a moderate, accurate reactions are a thing too. Think you are well aligned with reality? Be careful, because it’s easy to start fighting windmills.
#7: Stimuli Allergy
A series of questions:
1) If presented with a choice of clothing would you choose to wear a red attire or grey one?
2) Same with a car - Yellow or black?
3) House and rooms in it - would you go for white paintjob?
Carefully think what would you do in those situations, and pay attention to what you feel. Remember how your organism reacted to various options.
Here’s the brief description of an affliction: gradually, over time, you become more and more averse to various forms of stimuli, starting with colours and progressing towards more visceral experiences. Most of the time you’ll see and feel the reaction induced by the “allergy“ when thinking and/or experiencing stimuli coming from personal belongings, hence the questions involved your immedeate posessions, because subconsciously you understand that the’s stuff that is closest to you and you’ll experience it more often, but it will progress towards other people’s actions and appearances later. Chances are - you can notice how you prefer more “pastel“ colours right now i’m sure, just think of wearing bright and colourful attires and take note of how it makes you feel. Usually, that’s the starting point, which develops towards more monochrome experiences, untill you start avoiding and scoffing at the mere thought of doing “exiting“ things. Late stages will make you cringe every time someone else is performing something energetic, be it base jumping, driving at fast speeds, or just running. It’s not just adrenaline which becomes taboo, everything that makes you feel alive turns into personal mind poison.
The decease is rather widespread, illustrated by this little infographic:
and it produces environments like this:
Do 𝒸𝑜𝓁𝑜𝓊𝓇𝒻𝓊𝓁 things if you want to get rid of this mind virus. Learn to appreciate excitement.
more to come