Hi Akshay, Gav, I think I agree with Gav. Akshey when you say ""The universe is a conspiracy on my behalf", the very sentence is contradictory because conspiracy, like clapping, cannot happen without two participating entities. .... Swearing together to harm, is that the Purpose?"
Depends what you think a "conspiracy" is. Natural evolution causes "harm" to some entities, making an omelette breaks eggs, so causing "harm" is not the issue. The issue, even for a well intentioned conspiracy (as opposed to one whose aims are malign) is essentially secrecy - how aware passive participants and the uninvolved are in the process and its motives. My theory, and the reason I tend to reject conspiracy theories (conspiracies by "them", the "system", etc) and see them as natural processes as follows. Yes, one reason is that human bystanders (even the passively involved) will always have different perspectives of means and ends ... how big a picture to take into account, how big an end is "justified" by how many "means" - a balance of values. But more importantly, the means and processes are often not so much secret, as un-recognised - discounted by too simple SOMist logic - so that people are more blind-sided than deliberately kept in the dark by anyone. Worse still we accept the blind-siding as the normal process of argument and justification - the SOMist meme - the rationalistic neurosis, natural hypocrisy. This latter case is by far the most important in the "whole world as a conspiracy involving me" angle that Gav is alluding to. There is no "them" here to deliberately keep secrets - but the accepted memes can leave us in the dark nevertheless. All this talk of deliberate ends is a question of teleology - purpose. For me teleology is in evolution - it's a natural direction (as opposed to end). At the biological level it is in the genes (not in the living beings). At the intellectual level it's in the memes (not in the hosts brains). These are the much misunderstood selfish genes and memes. Evolution is a natural conspiracy of natural processes. Whether it is on our behalf or not we benefit as the (so far) most advanced meme machine in our corner of the cosmos - the benefit is to the advancement of genes (and now memes). It's as well to remember that we are most importantly a collection of memes - the collection of genes and flesh and bone (and bacteria) are baggage along for the ride. The memes can keep a large part of our conscious intellect in the dark (Let them eat SOM, SOMist intellect for the masses). Fortunately some (Gav among them) are more enlightened, and recognise a good meme when they see it. We must not be uninvolved, passive bystanders. Thanks for that opportunity. Ian Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
