This entry into the noosphere of collective intelligence was inspired by an ongoing letter between Jason Snyder and Peter Limberg titled, Memetic Mediation & Perspectival Pidginism.
If you’re unaware of what Letter is, perhaps you’d like to check it out before continuing to read on here. In a nutshell it’s an awesome little platform where contributors of emerging ideas can engage together in a collaborative dance of thoughtful exploration. An underground think-tank where a greater synthesis of ideas and understanding may emerge from. I like the overtness of it and its co-creative spirit which encourages good faith dialogue and promotes a safe environment for mutual growth.
“As a personal corollary in the context of memetic mediation, I would add: if I am perfectly self interested and enlightened, I would try to mediate among everybody, understanding that they are not other than me. In other words, mediating online tribes is an attempt to resolve the cognitive dissonance that they each provoke in my own mind, an extension of my contemplative practice.” Jason Snyder
The above phrase was taken from one of Jered’s letters in the Memetic Mediation & Perspectival Pidginism conversation. It peaked my interest, I resonated with it entirely. It sent me into a contemplative rabbit hole on of the ‘diamonds in the rough lessons’ I extracted after finding myself smack dab in the midst of a memetic culture war.
Each tribe has specific social, cultural and experiential attractors that hold it together, building bridges between as many tribes as possible increases our chances of working well together towards the greater good of mankind. Tightly knit echo chambers create entropy, isolation and increase discrimination. But, the current state of the world requires a much higher level of healthy collaboration to work effectively towards solving some of the larger scale global issues we face.
Even if good faith dialoguing does not occur during the clashing of various tribal ideas and belief systems, all peoples involved are changed, at one level or another. A forced distillation will naturally amount through the cross-pollination. Even when it ends with what appears to be a: ‘let’s agree to disagree’, change is unavoidable.
In my particular case, those I was attempting to resolve conflict with were addicted to purposefully inflicting psychological and emotional pain on themselves and each other as a way of provoking increased awareness and a way of releasing some their suffering. In classical psychology, to a healthier degree, this type of therapy is called Systematic Desensitization.
If you understand the overall rules and constraints of the game you find yourself in, it changes the whole landscape of the playing field. Needless to say, if you’re unaware of the rules governing the playing field, they become sophisticated weapons that can be used to keep you looped into a high level of arousal. At which point it becomes almost impossible to think clearly, heal or co-create from a place of wisdom or compassion.
“I began to sense that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy … censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything – you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.” -Robert Heinlein
There is no irony that some of their best contributions are in part birthed from sharing some of the harshest memes meant to poke at their deepest fears and traumas. From what I’ve experienced in my own personal practice of pushing myself into challenging emotional spaces, dialogues and situations, is that if you can find that sweet spot, your threshold for pain and expansion, the mysteries of the universe begin whispering to you.
Perhaps another way of defining this is similar to embracing your shadows, all while not becoming a hedonistic/sadistic perpetrator disconnected from real life responsibilities and our interconnectedness. Each person’s constitution will determine what level of cognitive dissonance they can hold while maintaining a functional and healthy lifestyle.
Some of the factors are age, economic status, geographical location, cultural and societal upbringing, past traumas, the roles and responsibilities they have to maintain, such as whether they’re a provider, a single mother or father, a social worker, professor, brain surgeon, farmer, performance artist or ayahuasca shaman in Peru.
“I believe that if we (as humanity) are to have a chance of addressing the laundry list of existential challenges that we face, it is going to require an enormous boost of collective intelligence and sense-making ability. In addition to harnessing informational/digital technology wisely, this will only be possible if we can start (a) building relationship based on respect with people in other tribes/echo chambers/reality tunnels (henceforth referred to simply as tribes), (b) learning their memetic language and better understanding the life experiences that helped produced their worldview, (c) sorting through the noise and identifying the signal that can be transmitted to different tribes in their own language.” Jason Snyder
Some other factors are what stage of life you’re exiting and entering, the level of emotional intelligence you have and the level of embodiment you practice. Your level of education, street smarts and most importantly whether you have a safe community to connect with for integration.
The exponential amount of variables to factor in are what make the science of social complexity so real. All of these known and unknown factors will determine your capacity to hold the tension between clashing worlds while maintaining your ability to respond effectively.
The degree to which you desire to understand another tribal mindset, in combination with your ability to maintain an open heart, especially while others project their pain onto you, will determine your ability to stay in coherency with yourself and another person during any given conflict.
Why Memetic Mediation can be understood as a Pathway to Enlightenment
What I learned from being sent a link meant to bait me into a meme site (which since has disappeared) and thrown onto the centre stage. A place where my deepest traumas and private shares where made public to those in the know and poked fun at through anonymous memes. Including, by a close community member and a lover, who turned out to be, well, living a secret life, was that if we are to heal the world, we must first start with self. The place which informs us on how to perceive, navigate and interact with each other during conflict.
The glimpses into enlightenment that came during that time weren’t while I was externalizing my opinions and attempting to understand, co-create or mediate, it was by simply staying present with the pain I was experiencing through the tyranny.
Each heart is connected to the collective heart, just as each mind is connected to the collective mind. Every time we find compassion through opening the mind or heart we send out a ripple effect which affects the morphogenetic field of everything around us.
This understanding is what gives the ho’oponopono prayer its power. “I love you, I’m sorry, forgive me, thank you”. No matter how treacherous the enemy without, the possibilities of responding from wisdom can only be cultivated by maintaining self-awareness practices, learning to reason and embracing the suffering that comes along with sincerely trying to understand another tribal mindset that deems you as an enemy.
To resolve the feelings that arise during cognitive dissonance or blame and persecution we need to learn where the boundaries of our sovereignty begin and end. We must learn where love resides. We must learn the deep pitfalls of a gameA dynamic to further cultivate the principles necessary to co-create a GameB way of interacting in the world.
Some of the suffering I sat with was often beyond my capacity to do so in an innocuous manner. Allowing the excruciating pain of the conflict to increase my understanding of the world both within and without was the pathway towards enlightenment.
It affected my personal wellbeing more than I care to admit but through it I found tribes and tribes of other people collaborating together in hopes of finding middle paths, a place where something greater can emerge. Spaces where clashing dialogue is alive and thriving and seen as an opportunity to grow, in a healthy transparent manner.
Intentional virtual spaces that provide more clarity to the collective socio-cultural-psychological issues we face are what’s needed to increase health forms of mediation. We’re all learning the ropes of global accession, no matter which dimension you look at it from.