We have a very clear view about external boundaries. We know who’s Mom, an idea or Germany. It is obvious Russia invaded Ukraine or somebody entered into your house.
But the more abstract you go the boundaries begin to fade.
Before evolving into objects or actions we start by having thoughts. If we go deeper into the atoms of thoughts, words are the most discrete elements.
With the help of words we build internal thoughts, concepts, most of what defines us as humans. Then we try to share our perspective about the world. Most of the time, words live inside our minds. Sometimes (more and more time nowadays) they go out in the wild to break into other people’s heads.
Rarely alone, mostly organised in guerilla-like teams of ideas or army-like beliefs. Sometimes they become countries-like structures as dogmas or cultures. Generally speaking any discrete pattern recognisable by our mind classifies as a meme . ( I prefer the word entity instead of meme but is less used). Our mind is their home. 8 billion houses to sleep (or whisper) during our nights.
In life, as in Facebook, most people have a false sense of choosing the building blocks of their thoughts. Which entities we let inside the (house) mind. Reality is we choose from a very limited (menu) context which different from the other one’s.
Some people noticed this fact long time ago and started to play around with people’s context. After the first experience of a successful manipulation, we understood something. Our thoughts can become the other one’s context.
Curious minds developed entire sciences of behaviour, habit-formation and so on. Today the science empower businesses, religion or politics as PR, propaganda or lobby. Weapons now shoot exponentially more targeted and efficient. Through ML algorithms and deep personalisation.
People cannot observe this process easy. It is very difficult to distance ourselves from our thoughts. Observing thoughts is the first step on building a successful Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. But it works only for people forced to understand what happens in their heads. Usually it takes months or years of practice or therapy.
The fluidity of these entities in battles are incoherent with our conscious reality. Our cognitive perceptions is not so fluid. Atoms of information as the new soldiers are being born every second. Human knowledge is doubling every 12 hours . They are sometimes equipped with real-time-algorithms weapons and autistic bosses.
It is very unlikely to make Peace on this battle field using conscious arguments. They are from another realm, slower and chunkier.
In our reality, we know each one should be able to choose the life reality (context). But today you can craft 8 billion realities only in a Metaverse. It comes with a limited menu, designed by the masterchefs of manipulation (Meta/TikTok).
In real life you cannot even start. Look at Ukraine — Russia war. You cannot say, guys: those of you who like Putin (whatever this means) move to the left in your own country/reality. The others move to the right and do the same. Split your country in whatever proportion you want. It is difficult to split furniture when a couple gets separated, let alone a country.
Conciliation within the conscious realm of words is also a dead end. It takes the time no one has while minds become saturated and exhausted. You cannot apply Cognitive Behavioural Therapy at global scale. Algorithms are exponentially more powerful than CBT.
Ideas or beliefs have a stickiness proportional with their complexity (word-ideas-belief-dogma). You can agree upon a word/phrase with somebody in minutes. Hours-days for an idea. Lifetime for dogmas or deep beliefs.
So someone asks what is your opinion in a conflict of any kind (now is Ukraine vs Russia)? I cannot answer from the level of facts reality because the minds are polluted. The information is not transparent and it is impossible-to-track the causality root. Who handled the realities of each of the persons implied?
So we should be more preoccupied on how not to reach the same problem over and over again. The problem is not solved with the same tools which are causing it. Moving words is not a solution: most of them became old agents who sold their souls to the higher bidders. (to use another meme :).
We can understand or feel how to be in an authentic relationship with them? If yes, words can do their part: be discrete carriers of information in a symbiotic relation with us. Without killing the hosts.
Can we collectively cohabit with our different thought memes in such a relationship? I would say yes. Human bodies are a collection of cohabiting cells, bacterias and viruses. Each with a different epigenetic. Why not do the same with more abstract entities, such as the informational ones.
One way is to look at humans communicating from the perspective of an alien for whom language is unknown. Observe from distance as in the “One Fleew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” movie.
What if we correlate large, unconscious data sets of people interacting (e.g. heart rate) with conscious patterns (words/context)? We could spot and later understand how these data clusters form, and then move from one head to another. Data processing and ML algorithms can help us understand the network patterns.
Solving this problem has a time limit. Entities can spread and take over the host. Bits of information can take us over and die together as in a Shakespeare drama.
In the realm of biological species, Humanity’s 200,000 age puts us in the Kindergarten .
In the realm of abstract species we don’t even have a scale.