| The M0 parasite -- inducing rote-preference. |
[Mar. 13th, 2006|03:39 pm] |
http://www.reciprocality.org/Reciprocality/r1/
"The Anatomy, Life Cycle and Effects of the Phenomenologically Distributed Human Parasite M0"
"Vector
The vector organ primarily acts to spread M0 to new hosts, and maintain infection of existing hosts. It is a pair of positive feedback loops between the Behavioural(3) and Social(4) layers, one overt and the other covert, both again only constrained by practicalities. Its most obvious channel is the custom of almost all human societies, for a variety of rationales, to corral their children at around age four and bore them rigid for two years (Coercion), by which time dopamine self-addiction has established itself and the driver organ is running. Other examples of M0 Coercion are the explicit maintenance of ridiculous and time consuming ritualism for no useful purpose in courts, legislatures etc, as well as peer pressure to perform rituals such as attending football matches. Nations who have elected to dispense with silly wigs etc. in courtrooms have all kept the incessant, mandatory, obsessive-compulsive displays by the protagonists. If such bobbing, twitching, skipping antics were observed at the bus stop, the victim would be called mentally ill, and neurochemical "explanations" for his or her behaviour would be invented. At the bus stop, one is required to perform different rituals.
Less obvious is the overt return channel (Aggregation). This is the result of vast numbers of ritual addicted hosts needing to maximise repetitiveness and minimise novelty to avoid dopamine withdrawal. The result of this is that every transaction in M0 infected societies, from flirting with the opposite sex to buying a newspaper and even buttering one's toast has a defined "proper" series of actions by which it is effected. This endless barrage of repetitive input means that hosts in M0 societies rarely find opportunities to even encounter dopamine withdrawal.
The single, full duplex covert channel (Microsynchronisation) is a bizarre phenomenon that we cannot prove the existence of, but are forced to conclude must exist. As the driver and vector loops send the average dopamine levels of the population up, conscious awareness of influences and motivations reduces, and sensitivity to dopamine reducing novelty increases. Individuals become increasingly blown by the winds of the dopamine economy set up by mutual exchange of rituals. In this context, the minutiae of body language become synchronised to a level of detail, and in such a way, that we don't think one even knows what to look for without the high dopamine state needed to achieve sensitivity. In chronic cases of M0 hosting, each little crease in the host's clothing will be exactly where it was in the morning at the end of a long, hot day. Such "neatness" is a frightening measure of the constriction of the person's movements through the day, however it is rationalised as a desirable attribute in M0 afflicted society. Normal humans don't behave like that until they are dead. "
"
Natural immunity to M0 exists. The immunes have a singular set of personality traits, but many names. Children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Hackers (creative computer programmers, not the criminals). Mystics. In industry, people who "know Quality". In medicine, star diagnosticians. Creative artists of all kinds. Several of the present authors. Despite forceful (and often highly offensive) insistence to the contrary by M0 hosts, these people are not defective, or disordered, or stupid, or anything else. They have a range of normal human faculties not possessed by M0 hosts, because their cognition can exploit feedback. While M0 hosts simply deny that this is the case, natural immunes are quite happy that they can do what they do, and recognise and communicate with each other. An explicit argument showing that it is indeed the natural immunes and not the M0 hosts that have the right of this dispute is provided under the discussion of the "Exploitation of Feedback in Cognition", below.
Natural immunes have some genetically defective dopamine receptors or over-active dopamine cleanup mechanisms. Other dopamine paths work normally, for example the damping of motor nerve excitations that is lost in dopamine depleted Parkinson's sufferers causing tremors, works in natural immunes. The defective dopamine receptors mean that however the M0 vector may assail them with boredom, they cannot enter standby mode. Therefore they cannot become self-addicted, the M0 driver cannot become established, and cognition remains intact. That is why natural immunes have low dopamine and defective receptors - we are looking at a positive feedback out-of-control loop, not a negative feedback control loop. "
"over-active dopamine cleanup mechanisms" -- high metabolism!
"
Disagreements with Existing Understanding
This model disagrees with the following interpretations, which we believe are the conventional constructions put upon the data:
Dopamine levels rise with interesting activities.
They do not. They rise with boring activities. However, there is a bizarre side effect of Microsynchronisation that may illuminate the origins of this belief. Most people's ritual fixing is constrained by physical practicalities. Most hosts would fix more if he or she could. Hosts learn to recognise people more deeply into ritual addiction by their characteristic motor impairment symptoms, in which they see the promise of powerful dopamine rushes caused by the totally predictable behaviour they will be able to regard. Thus boring people will persistently describe even more boring people (and situations, such as football matches) as "interesting", and less boring people as "boring". Natural immunes do it exactly the other way around, since they are stimulated by, and do not suffer withdrawal stress from, novelty. This effect can often be seen in social settings. So what dopamine rises with depends on who is doing the testing.
[...]
"
That's right, exciting activities burn, not fuzz.
"[...]
People with ADHD live in a dream world.
There is a disagreement about who lives in a dream world. Members of both groups agree that they see the same things as other members of their group. This alone should make the situation interesting to rational people. Immunes are consciously aligned with respect to objective reality, people hosting M0 are unconsciously aligned with respect to the dopamine economy. But because the M0 hosts are unconsciously aligned to something they do not realise exists, they are incapable of defending their position. While in truth they cannot perceive the structural isomorphisms all around them that are core of what the immunes can see, they are obliged to restrict their position to an unsupported assertion that the immunes are all individually deranged and then perform exaggerated displays of contemptuous laughter when the immunes point out that they all see the same thing.
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(my bolding) |
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