You almost got it right in that your first response is one of skepticism but you’re asking for a “more powerful argument” when you should be asking for evidence. Arguments without evidence are just opinions.
Carl Sagan said, 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' and I have spent over 15 years gathering the evidence. I have also spent two months and almost all my blog posts on the subject.
You should check them out. Start with “ReThinking Beliefs - An Overview” then if you think it’s interesting read the next one. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes but be forewarned, it explains human behavior in a way you probably have never heard before and it could turn your understanding of the world upside-down. If it clicks, it will be like taking the "red pill".
If presented with hard scientific evidence that I’m wrong, I have to change my mind. Will you? Can you? Because if you can’t you’re kind of proving my point. :-)
Maybe I should have considered the fact that your name is @rethinkingbelief appearantly this is your worldview (yeh, i read your blog and liked it)
First, the link you dropped and comment you made is considered an argument.
2nd, i did very much agree with what you said about being hijacked by our beliefs but i can assure you that it didn't this
And it wasn't a scientific evidence.. Mentioning that it uses chemicals in the brain without mentioning what chemicals doesn't make it compelling enough.
Don't get me wrong, I'm trying to say our beliefs aren't powerful. In fact, I think because i didn't state it as being most powerful might have seemed to you as me downplaying it's power. But, what if I say it is the mind that is more powerful? It houses beliefs, thoughts, intent.... So don't not say your mind is your belief.
You are yet to produce hard scientific evidence yourself but i must confess.. Although your posts didn't understanding of the world upside down, it did give me a better off what memes are.
I study human behavior, hell it is what i probably spend the rest of my life doing. It might not be 15 years (and i respect that) but it is good years well spent.
This is my worldview
Yeah, sometimes you can judge a book by its cover or in this case my name. :-)
This is what I get when I Google “argument”:
That’s because it hasn’t clicked yet. :-)
That’s right! You’re asking a great question that needs to be addressed. I’m trying to keep my posts down to around 1000 words and after the general topics are introduced I will get into specifics. The “brain chemicals beliefs use” post is on my to do list. In the meantime you can watch a video I did on the subject: Ep02 How Beliefs Work (It’s not great but it will give you an idea of where I’m going with this.)
I didn’t think you were downplaying beliefs’ power but honestly I’m trying to be a bit provocative with you to see how you question the idea. This will allow me to adjust how I present the evidence in future blog posts.
And again you’re right about no hard scientific evidence for memes and that’s because there are no “hard” ways to measure them. How do you measure an idea or belief after all? (Blog post!) There is however a massive amount of hard scientific data that supports the idea of memes. Put another way, scientific theories (facts) support the meme hypothesis and that's what my blog is all about.
I don’t think there is anything more important than understanding human behavior because if we get it right we can solve humanities problems. If the problem is “we don’t understand the problem,” then it’s easy to see why we still have problems! Memes not only provide a way to understand human behavior but the solutions. That’s my ultimate goal.
Thanks for reading my blog posts and this ridiculously long reply. :-)