Be the best version of yourself, follow your heart, be the master of your own destiny, you are the master of your own life. But, is that really the case, are you really in control of your life all the time, and every decision is made out of your free will?
But one day, someone told you that you are just a robot, you are just a carrier of genes to continue and copy, you are just a robot. Genes are the true masters of human beings.
Why do you know that you will get fat when you eat sugar, and you can't help but buy desserts? You may be affected by genes; why obviously a certain coffee is not bad, you still choose Starbucks, you may be seduced by memes (cultural genes); why the front wave and the back wave can not directly affect your life, you are still tirelessly brushing the screen barrage once and for all, you may not be involuntarily installed with infectious memes.
Sounds a bit magical, isn't it, and a little bit subversive. Before opening Keith Stanovich's book "Robot Rebellion - Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin", I did not think that genes and memes were the masters of human beings, and all human beings did was to make wedding clothes for others, and to fight endlessly for the inheritance of genes and memes from generation to generation.
I have long heard Teacher Yang Zhiping recommend the book "Robot Rebellion", and before that, I also read Stanovich's book "Beyond IQ", which really subverted my own cognition at that time.
Keith E. Stanovich is a well-known psychologist who ranks among the top 50 cited psychologists in the survey of citations, and he is one of the 25 most prolific educational psychologists.
Evolutionary psychology tells us that gene transmission is the yardstick of evolution, and most of the time, genes, memes, and carriers, that is, human interests are aligned. But Keith Stanovich tells us that at some point, what is good for genes is not necessarily good for the vector, and that memes are sometimes more frightening than genes, which at least allow the vector to live to an age where the next generation can be reproduced, and that memes are more cold-blooded and ruthless, and he can infect vectors by brainwashing to continue to spread regardless of their lives. Through the book "Robot Rebellion", the author wants to tell us how to escape the nightmare of the genetic trap meme, how to critically look at the beliefs of yourself and others and the information of the outside world, so as to try to clear the Trojan horse program in your own mind, keep the healthy memes and protect them, so as to launch an effective rebellion and become their true master.
Objectively speaking, uh, subjectively speaking, this book looks quite difficult to understand, and many professional terms and nouns such as evolutionary psychology, philosophy, and logic in the book have been read through twice so far, and some places are still ignorant. But there are certainly some views and ideas that make people reflect, ponder, and perhaps bring some changes to our thinking and actions.
<h2 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > humans have a brain that fights with themselves</h2>
Road rage is often constantly played out in different countries. I remember once being a colleague's car off work, along the way she was like a balloon that was about to burst, one would say how this big car driver was unruly, and the other would say that this taxi driver was too angry and occupied the road; sitting in her car was really worrying. There are also people who are restrained in life, but on the Internet, they may be angry and hurt people, why is this? In fact, if there is time to reflect, these people often feel that their behavior at that time is unreasonable, and they seem to know the right way to think and act, but they are very entangled and cannot do it. Because according to Zheng Zhen of cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology, there are two different types of cognition in the operation of our brains: spontaneous systems and analytical systems. The two systems often conflict.
Image source network, invasion and deletion
Spontaneous systems, in the face of induced stimuli, react spontaneously, such as seeing a snake, screaming, and suddenly jumping away. By washing your face and brushing your teeth every day, you don't need much thought to be spontaneous. The advantage of a spontaneous system is that it is fast and automated and has the advantage of speed.
Analytical systems, which require high computing power and require the invocation of modules such as subgrade thinking, abstraction, planning, decision-making, and cognitive control, are more like software.
In the book, the author gives an example of a ground-digging bee, after the ground-digging bee catches crickets, places them at the mouth of the cave, enters the cave to check to ensure safety, and then pulls the crickets in, a series of actions look quite complicated, and when the researchers investigate, they find that behind all these behaviors is not the result of reflection, but a series of elaborate programmed reactions. And we in work and life, often like a digging bee as industrious and busy without self-awareness, perhaps a little reflection, a change of perspective, you can change the way of work to improve work efficiency, not to fall into this spontaneous system, invisibly consume bandwidth and consume yourself.
Sugoradites once said that the unexamined are not worth living.
We must also often call our own analytical systems, filter and judge the information concepts we come into contact with, let the analytical systems drive, put us people first, and do not let genes and memes quietly control our actions and thoughts.
<h2 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > how to escape the memetic Dragon Pond Tiger Den</h2>
In the book "Robot Rebellion", there is a metaphor that runs through it: people are genetic robots, and people are also meme robots.
Memes, translated as memes, are defined as cultural genes, i.e., units of ideas, symbols, and behaviors, transmitted through words, discourses, actions, rituals, or any other imitatable means. From the popularity of ideas to the political changes in the spread of culture, from the perspective of meme, everything is self-replicated through the host of man.
We live in an era of mixed information, an era of Internet prosperity, WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou various platforms all kinds of information paved, how to distinguish between true and false, how to identify which are harmful memes, is what we need to be vigilant at all times.
Similar to pyramid schemes, missionaries, terrorist organizations, etc., often through the spread of infectious memes, some people into irrational situations, so as to open a spontaneous system to make some crazy actions. Stanovich mentions four principled guidelines in his book:
First, reject memes that harm the person.
Second, choose memes that faithfully reflect the real world.
Third, reject the exclusive memes.
Fourth, reject those who reject the memes of testing, and nothing is exempt from rational reflection and detection.
First, it is also very easy to understand, for example, many advertising merchants will publicize, like to buy, move with the heart, light hurt wallet heavy sad, do not see the network many children due to excessive consumption and fall into a variety of online loans, thus physically and mentally injured;
Second, choose the truth, face the truth, and don't deceive yourself. For example, in the face of this sudden epidemic, only by facing it calmly, using an analytical system to comprehensively and truly study the virus, and facing life without escaping, can it be possible to maintain relative security.
Third, if someone tells you that if you believe in A, you can't believe in B, and if you like grapes, you have to give up mangosteen, then you better stay away from him. There are often not so many either/or options in life.
Fourth, if there are some memes that refuse to be tested and do not accept any rebuttals, then be careful, the scammers will not be able to survive.
<h2 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > there is more important than money in life</h2>
If in the future hundreds of years later, your son brings back a high-tech experience machine, as long as you put on a helmet, connect to the computer, turn on the hedonistic mode, you can pass on the feeling of pleasure to your son, do you want him to live in this state all the time?
If your answer is that you don't want your son to have only a "happy experience", but to let him experience life, let him put on a helmet and open the life experience mode, and then experience it for five or six hours in one breath, including: dating, bungee jumping, surfing, skiing, etc., but he can experience it whenever he thinks, then do you approve of this way?
Most likely, you don't recognize, maybe you think it's a kind of chronic suicide, we care not only about how to pass the time, we also care about who we are, how we are born to reflect our own value, how to become a certain type of person we expect. No one wants to live a life without any meaning.
It's a matter of meaning, not money.
We humans have different levels of desire, the first-order desire may be that I want to buy cost-effective clothes, the second-order desire is to meet some of my dignity and face needs, and I want to buy some brands of high-value clothing. But there is often a distance between desire and realization, which leads to the pull of the self and the battle of a few villains in the brain.
Human beings ultimately struggle with their own desires all their lives, which requires us to cover spontaneous systems through analytical systems, to obtain belief information through reflection to analyze decision-making, and to obtain desires through reflection. For example, if you unconsciously get fat, it may just be that you buy some dessert cooked food and coffee after work because you live in a bustling neighborhood, which are spontaneous behaviors brought about by genes, and when you do it and think about it, you will find that these behaviors are often in conflict with your long-term goal of health.
Integrating different desires through reason, rationally evaluating ourselves, this task is arduous, can we be competent?
< h2 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > summary</h2>
Stanovich mentions in his book "Robot Rebellion" that in the face of two blind replicants of genes and memes, especially when the target of their replication has nothing to do with human interests, how can a person find autonomy, meaning, and value? Through rational self-determination, human beings will become the masters of their own lives in a unique way compared to other creatures on Earth.
I hope that we, as a robot, can live more clearly, more transparently, no longer blindly bow to genes, no longer blindly obey the superstition of fickle memes, have our own ideas and judgments, and become the real self. Embark on a long-planned rebellion.