Myths , Memes and Boredom

Myths , Memes and Boredom.
Andre Willers
7 May 2008

Summary :
We live by Myths .

Boredom:
Learned helplessness can be caused by boredom . The organism reaches stasis with its environment . The “weights” in the neural networks get randomized , because of lack of change over critical thresholds . This is a big no-no .

What are the critical thresholds?
Once again we haul out our trusty Infinite Probe . We can immediately say that if less than 27% of the environment shows change , boredom sets in . But if the change is over 37% , the organism runs the danger of being overwhelmed (ie insufficient reserves) .

But any successful organism has the goal of minimizing risk , ie change . The more successful the organism , the less change . The more sensory deprivation .

Sensory deprivation .
The alert reader would have noticed the connection between sensory deprivation and boredom . The successful organism then starts generating internal stimuli to prevent learned helplessness .

Language.
Language forms (shared internal delusions) . This forms a meme (language) , a true meme transmitted only in floating form from person to person .

Language is then a true meme , codified later in writing , but continuously altered .
Mother to child , by mouth . Even written language has to run as hard as it can to keep with the spoken language . Theoretically , printing should have frozen the language , but ask anybody who has wrestled with Shakespeare or Dickens . Not to mention 1930’s vernacular .

The human system gets bored quickly , so always seeks novelty , so untruths (hypotheses or myths) are formed . Myths which correlate with reality replicate with the language .

When agriculture was invented , things got even more boring in a hurry . This suited the ruling classes , since learned-helplessness is an ideal peasant state .
Unfortunately , they do not good fighters make . Even there , myths (religions) were essential to keep the population from becoming completely comatose .

The Greek Chorus
Derived from the Maze-runner chants of Northern Europe . See Hop-Scotch chants below . Maze-dances (many people linked on the maze , with a dragon motif) , Morris-dances , Chinese Dragon-dances and the Greek Chorus share distant roots .

This was vital as an anti-boredom thingi since everybody could participate . Even today , Church and Community Choruses are a vital part of human life . Not everybody can be the star , but everybody can be in the chorus . The chorus was the precursor of democratic systems , since the chorus acted like the Fates in dictating the course of the play . And the play was the mythos . And humans shaped their actions to the mythos .

Greek hoplites were required to be members of the chorus in earlier days .

Bread and Circuses .
The Roman enterprise lasted surprisingly long because of the circuses . It was actually an essential part of the whole civilization . Together with theatre , plays , etc .

Christianity and the endless nit-picking arguments also came to replace the circuses .
But more popular , since everybody could participate .

Romans got bored with gladiators discussing life in the arena compared to discussing their chances of life in the hereafter .

What finally gave the church the Coup-de-grace was glasses and cheap printing .

The alternate Universes in all their glory was born . The novel was well known in Roman times , but limited to the wealthy . Now everybody who could afford a penny and glasses could alleviate their boredom by entering an alternate universe .

The mental health of the species underwent a major change . Mirror-mechanisms in the brain underwent major expansions . Sympathy systems grew.

One thing humans of the present era cannot complain about is that they are bored .

Ho!Ho!Ho!
The amusing thing is that one can make a very good case that the population explosion since the 1700’s was because things became less boring . Understandable if you look at this reality as a holiday locale .

Even the hope of change brought about cultural radiance from Western systems would have been enough to destabilize static systems by increased birthrates .

Myths.
As you can see , myths play a central role in creating a sufficiently stimulating role for humans to prevent them from sliding into learned-helplessness ennui .

Successful myths become religions , or if they have some correlation with physical reality , sciences . Humans are inordinately proud of these .

Hop-Scotch .
Some memes just keep on existing . A good example is hop-scotch . This is a children’s game now that started life as a training regimen for maze-runners about
5 000 years or more ago . Each new bunch of children was taught by the older ones . Thousands of years later and thousands of kilometers away (Bloemfontein , 1960) , I played it without the faintest idea of the esoteric significance of its origin . A true meme .

Each pattern was accompanied by a chant going straight back to pre-homeric Greek choruses .
The Democratic tradition also still held . Anybody , rich or poor ,could play . I cannot remember anybody ever being excluded . Even the clumsy ones .

A meme-specialist would say that the entire democratic western civilization can be recreated from hop-scotch . It can be unfolded . This is truly remarkable . It has sufficient information to unfold in a structured way to recreate the structure it derived from . The closest analogue is some proteins that does the same thing . This deserves some closer study .

A Matriarchos meme ? Could be .

Do children still play hop-scotch ? Yes . A meme that has survived this long (and the disapproval of the roman catholic church) , definitely still survives . In India at least .

An interesting corollary is that schools (where children gather) has existed for at least 5000 years . This is not at all obvious , since this means teachers , principals and ways of paying them from the public coffer . Ie some form of taxation .

What could they have taught them ? Remember the Myths ? Humans always find ways of filling the space between their ears with meaningful-sounding noise .

The noise evolved to be slightly above 37% of ambient .
Stochastic resonance meant that the smartest would grasp some new elements , and be promoted as promising students . The rest would be trained into a learned-helplessness stupor .

But what would happen if the ambient noise dropped below 37% ?
What information would hop-scotch impart ?
I draw your attention to Rull-type mind-controls and information transfers .

The Matriarchos Mythos .
See previous posts .
I will summate quickly .

2 million BCE – 200 00 BCE : Homonins subject to heavy leopard predation .

200 000 – 72 000 BCE : Ropes invented by females(unweaving) . Nets . Language . Leopards exterminated . (Mk I humans)

72 000 BCE :Toba : Peace invented by females. Weaving of cloth . Co-operation of all human species under the Matriarchy . (Mk II humans)

Population slowly inceases . Experimentation with crops . Small scale war by designating dissident humans as prey .

Extensive bio-knowledge . Breeding of snakes as temperature sensors and chemical sensors and dispensers .

Breeding of humans . Matriarchal bio-engineering might have reached take-off point for singularity . Unknown .

10 000 BCE : Agriculture invented by females . Population starts to explode as climate stabilizes . Females expand war by breeding males for aggressiveness and strength .

Matriarchy breaks down as factions contend .

Extensive bio-warfare .

Horse-nomads become independent . Horse-milk developed . Possible rogue Matriarchs involved in development of enhanced nomads and horses as surrogate troops .

Bio warfare intensifies . Psychotic induction biologicals released on the borders of the steppes . Possible dooms-day weapon in the Indian Ocean affecting surface plankton and algae . Climate over Africa , Middle-East and India changed .

Extensive droughts over Middle-Asia .
Designation of humans as prey for eating by the Matriarchy .
The final mistake .

The Late Bronze-Age civilization collapses in a welter of genocidal warfare .

Every vestige of the Matriarchy is eradicated .

The betrayal hurt too much .

But not all elements of the Matriarchy were bad . They packed meme-structures to self-inflate if circumstances were right . This level of knowledge argues that they were post-singularity remnants . This fits in with the time-scale . One would have expected at least one singularity between 100 000 BCE and 15 000 BCE .

These are these same hop-scotch rites , amongst others .

If these were triggered to activate when the ambient noise fell below 37% , this would have happened at the start of the 1700 ‘s

We are watching the millennia-old unpacking and resurrection of the Matriarchy .

Let’s hope they do a better job than last time .

It would be hard to do worse than what the males are doing at the present time .

Oh well

Andre