A brief treatise of the soul

A brief treatise on the soul was a google doc used to sum up Evolutionist metaphysics. It was the predecessor to the Evolutionism Wiki.

The content is here but will be slightly edited to make more sense with contemporary terminology

Introduction
This is meant to be a brief treatise on the soul. It is meant to contrast with my planned “greater treatise on the soul”. The title is not ironic.

New terms are bolded when defined. This is meant to help facilitate communication with new terms

This is highly inspired by John Vervaeke after the MGS model section

α MGS Model
The MGS model is a model of the causes of the mind. It is not a model of the activities of the mind, but rather merely the causes of it.


 * Memes
 * Genes
 * Scenes

While they are a group of three there is no obvious correlation with ALO among them. It’s important not to overapply the concept to things that do not actually correspond with it.

Genes are mostly self explanatory to an educated western audience. But they also include epigenetics which are sometimes consider a combination of genes and scenes. A geneplex is a series of genes that work in tandem, and a genome is the sum of genes in an organism, and a genotype is a type of organism based on its genetic material used in population genetics. Genes can be reduced to base pairs. People can create genes using genetic engineering.

Memes refer to units of cultural ideas. The term comes from Richard Dawkins and they are considered the cultural equivalent of genes. Memes are transmissible between individuals and can mutate. Memes are not life experiences, they are just ideas you are exposed to and internalize in your life. A memeplex is a series of memes that work together, a memome is the sum of memes in an organism, and a memotype is a specific type of person based on their memome used in population memetics. Memes may someday be reduced to engrams but are at the moment irreducible. There is debate as to whether someone can actively create a meme vs just have a meme mutate within them.

Scenes refer to units of life experience. The term is inspired in its use from the Buddhist concept of karma, but taken from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Scenes are not transmissible between individuals, although they can be self perpetuating such as in intergenerational trauma, or blood feuds. A sceneplex is a specific set of scenes that combines together in a specific way to form a specific expression, a scenome is the set of scenes of an individual and a scenetype is a specific type of person based on their scenome used in population scenetics. People can actively create scenes by altering environments.

α Nature vs nurture and other confusions
This model is a bit confusing for some people. We are used to a less rigorous analysis of the origins of our thoughts.

Two people can have identical memes and genes yet different scenes. This would be the case for two identical twins in a small society that considers the monarch a living god. One becomes the monarch and the other lives as a peasant. They have the same beliefs and genetics but will become entirely different people

Converting to the same religion may give you the exact same memes but a completely different set of scenes. Converts to religions often are much more fervent in their beliefs. This may in part be due to memetic differences, but it may also be due to differences in scenes. Further reading on this topic

People often attribute a lot of their personal traits and characteristics to their life experiences. Many people will naively attribute nearly all their personality traits to scenes over genes and memes. People are notoriously bad at understanding themselves due to introspection illusion. Many traits such as virginity loss are heavily genetically determined despite the common views that they are a choice https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01135-3. This can be potentially extremely harmful as people may overestimate their ability to choose their life paths and blame themselves for the ways their genetics cause them to act. However this should also be balanced out with ideas that make people feel empowered in their lives, as that is associated with positive outcomes. We need to develop a new memeplex to achieve optimal happiness and productivity on this area because current memeplexes can be very harmful to people.

α The Path to awakening in MGS
As the MGS represents the three causal factors in the mind, each one can help lead you to awakening. The nature of awakening will be elaborated upon later in this document.

There are three roots of striving to awakening


 * awakenmeme
 * awakengene
 * awakenscene

awakengene is the simplest one. Genes that make one seek awakening. This is not to imply a specific gene is present in some people but absent in others, just that the nature of the mind and neural anatomy facilitates the path to awakening. Thinking itself is a manifestation of awakengene.

awakenmeme is the cultural transmission of practices. An idea that causes a movement towards awakening is a awakenmeme.

Finally awakenscene is your experience of making your oath to seek awakening, and your experiences leading up to it.

There might be a awaken-epigene imparted with the awakenscene. This could be in part merely a product of practices such as fasting altering epigenetics, or a product of some kind of initiatory gene therapy where priests alter your dna methylation to help you better seek awakening.

α Pravda and True Memes
Memes are strange because they are not how we typically see beliefs and ideas.

It is debatable exactly what constitutes a meme vs mere information. Are chemical formulas memes or just beliefs?

Some people believe it is possible to create memes while others see them as merely mutating within individuals, perhaps “creative” people merely have a genetic tendency that makes memes mutate more when passing through them than other people.

Perhaps nobody makes any rational decisions at all and all that happens is memetic mutations and expressions in a sort of organic evolution. Memetic theory fundamentally challenges humanism and certain variants can memetically encode strong antihumanist beliefs.

One possible way to help with this is to devise a term to refer to transmissible factual beliefs as a subtype of memes which behave differently from the more chaotic memes that are more common in culture. I propose using the term “pravda” to refer to such memes.

α MGS Engineering
All three of the MGS elements can be engineered to lead to better outcomes. As an organized religion the Church of Evolution plans on engineering all three of these elements to bring people closed to salvation.

Genetic engineering is the most discussed of all of them, but also arguably the most boring of them. Epigenetic engineering is similar. Both are simple medical processes that we can’t really talk much about aside from that they exist and may be implemented in the future.

The other two by contrast are ways the church can easily work to optimize right now.

Memetic engineering by contrast would generally refer to a population-wide effort to promote beneficial memeplexes and discourage harmful memeplexes. This is an area where the Church can really help.

Memetic engineer may be a specific job within the church that works to optimize the memes believed by members. Memes promoting ethnic hatred and intolerance may be discouraged while ones promoting unity and hard work may be encouraged.

Scenetic engineering may superficially appear similar to memetic engineering, but it’s a different and more involved process.

Scenetic engineering doesn’t merely need to promote the right ideas. Scenes are path-dependent and involve the robust presence of a specific life history and strategic situation.

Methods of scenetic engineering on members will fundamentally differ depending on whether they are converts or born into the Church.

Techniques for converts could include screening for attachment styles and prescribing interventions to move members to secure attachment styles, or screening members for social isolation and doing interventions to fix this.

File:Nature Communications Biobag system design.jpg

Scenetic engineering is easiest when we can start as early as possible. Ideally starting in the womb by providing pregnant men and women with proper nutrition and avoiding environmental toxins. When artificial wombs become available we plan on phasing out natural birth altogether to be able to completely optimize the uterine environment and reduce congenital issues.

Children should be raised with good attention from their parents such that they are able to develop secure attachment styles and avoid being possessive or fearful in social relationships.

They should be raised to cooperate with each other rather than compete, as competition can lead to the development of xenophobia and authoritarian tendencies a la master-slave dialectic.

α MGS reincarnation
Theoretically someone may reincarnate based on recurrence of their MGS or parts of their MGS.

Theoretically purely on a physical level the Tulku system in Tibetan Buddhism may have led to a kind of MGS reincarnation by selecting a child in a similar genetic pool with a similar temperament, and raising them in a similar environment to give a scenetic overlap, and transmitting the teachings to them so they have a similar memetic environment.

This may be achievable in the future in an enhanced means by cloning spiritual teachers and raising them similarly.

Unlike the traditional Buddhist interpretation there is no need for the teacher to be dead before they reincarnate so the Evolutionist Tulkus may be cloned before their deaths and raised by their predecessors, or they may be made as copies with brain uploading and the lineages could split across planets, deceased ones may be frozen to preserve information and/or consciousness and may be revived and all connected to each other in hive minds.

λ Phenotype
Now that we have addressed MGS we can better address the mind as it actually works in practice from the MGS

File:Von Neumann Architecture.svg

Von Neumann architecture is a tempting starting point for modeling the mind. However it may be insufficient due to the different methods of processing and information storage.

This is a similar model



λ Four types of phenotypic expression
In a paper I read when I was 19 I came across a list of four different types of phenotypic expression. As it was so influential on me I really want to cite it but I cannot find it. Here is a list with some examples


 * 1) Strict genetically determined phenotype
 * 2) Tay-Sachs disease
 * 3) Eye color
 * 4) Sickle cell trait
 * 5) Facultative epigenetically determined phenotype
 * 6) Attachment style
 * 7) Temperament
 * 8) Sociosexuality
 * 9) Learned intransmissible
 * 10) Vomiting in response to certain tastes
 * 11) Antibodies (grey area with transmissible)
 * 12) Learned transmissible
 * 13) Memes
 * 14) Antibodies transmitted in milk

λ Consciousness
Consciousness is a rather ill defined term. Sometimes it is used in reference to an externally observable phenomenon in humans or other animals, and in other scenarios it is used to refer to qualia which are impossible to observe in others.

Ultimately the hard problem of consciousness is difficult to solve and may never be solvable.

Consciousnesses and happiness of consciousnesses should be seen as intrinsically valuable.

There are various theories on the hard problem of consciousness ranging from a theseus ship type neurological continuity, to genetic reincarnation, to ideas of memory transfer being sufficient. Likely none of these will be conclusively proven as the correct interpretation, and as such all means should be used to preserve consciousness of individuals even if it means an unclear continuity of identity.

λ Mind of a Bacteria
To address minds in the simplest form we should start with a bacteria. Bacteria do not have memes, only genes and scenes, but memes are a recent introduction that is best to address after explaining how a memeless mind works. It will help us with understanding increasing levels of cognition and consciousness.

A bacteria is an autopoietic system. It takes resources from its environment and uses it to repair itself based on its own inborn plans. What we may call its Telos or final cause.

It responds to its environment. It may produce more of a specific enzyme when it is exposed to high CO2 levels and a low level in low CO2 levels. This is scenes at their simplest form.

It will replicate itself and heal itself based on its Telos too.

More complex organisms aren’t that different.

A frog may have low blood sugar so the hunger response gets triggered and the frog seeks out food, or it may have a low body temperature so it has hormonal signals that tell it to crawl up on a rock and bask in the sun.

However a frog will have more at play than mere hormonal signals and set responses.

λ learning
A frog will learn and respond to its environment more dynamically.

A frog may have specific memories of locations where it can satisfy its desires better.

As a tadpole it may be very simple in its actions, but as it grows it will build a network of behaviors that help it achieve its desires more efficiently.

The frog may try various methods to satisfy its desires in thermoregulation, eating, mating, etc. It will repeat those patterns that satisfy its desires and build on them while giving up on the ones that don’t.

It will leave some kind of trace in its nervous system that we will call engrams, which will enable it to record these actions.

But here an interesting question comes up with the frog. What happens when it has conflicting desires?

λ synthesizing desires
Synthesizing desires is the cognitive state beyond merely learning. There are multiple ways to deal with conflicting desires. One way is to simply rank desires and always follow the higher one. A more comprehensive way is to synthesize desires. Use some kind of system of learning to come up with how to rank desires, or even achieve underlying objectives of them instead of pursuing them blindly.

This is unique because it is the development of a holistic narrative rather than merely individually pursuing desires.

This is what we may call the holistic narrative generating machine.

As this is a learning process it develops within life. Beginning from no synthesis in infants, and progressing to a complete synthesis in adults, and perhaps a cosmic synthesis in sages.

It is unclear whether language developed independently from this stage or not. It conceivably could have happened before or after this stage. There are many theories such as the bicameral mind and female cosmetic coalitions that link these stages together. While I have my own thoughts on it, I see it as being fairly difficult to exactly figure out how this happened, and I think it is worth putting a pin in and addressing later

One thing worth mentioning is that I think male promiscuity is associated with an incomplete synthesization of sexual desires with other desires. The result of this is that sexual narratives are isolated from the rest of the life, and as such desire to have and raise children is lower. This likely resulted in higher male reproductive success in preindustrial times, but now it is associated with lower reproductive success as we live in a more complex society where reproduction tends to come from active decisions rather than the passive result of sex. The expected result of this is that male promiscuity will tend to go down with age as desire synthesis may be still going on but just slower on that particular area

Another linked proposal is that dark triad traits may be a product of a similar inhibited desire synthesis, the links of those traits to promiscuity may support it, although that theory goes more into Collective desire synthesis in the next section

Happiness may be described as a feeling of your holistic narrative being satisfied

Female cosmetic coalitions paper

This theory is somewhat inspired by this paper

λ collectively synthesizing desires
The development of language and memes combines with the synthesizing of desires to produce a potential new social arrangement. Collective desire synthesis.

In addition to spreading practical information this may be a critical part in the original development of mythology and societies.

Society has a few different models people try to apply to it. The age of awakening tended towards a rather atomized social contract theory, but my proposal is that common myths are the main source of societal unity, and thus organized religion is essential to it.

As with the previous section this likely relates to a slowing of life history. This paper covers more on it although specifically on axial religions and not pre-axial ones.

Hegelian recognition relates with this.

λ flow state and shamanic flight
Flow state is a specific kind of way we learn by fulfilling our narrative desires which is powerful and lets us learn and adapt our narratives to the world.

The flow state makes people consider their lives meaningful, it is perceived as enjoyable, and it highly increases productivity.

We are brilliant at finding patterns in the world, but we can develop biased models

Self-monitoring is associated with the dark triad, and is inhibited in the flow state which further may suggest that the dark triad is associated with deficiencies in narrative generation, and that such people will be able to grow out of it as their synthesization matures.

Shamans basically have their job to develop insights for the collective group and help with collective sensemaking and narrative making. Developing meaning and wisdom for the group.

Shamanic flight (and magical girl transformation sequences) are a manifestation of this transcendental mode of thought.

Inspired in large part from this video dark triad part aside

See Also A secular age by Charles Taylor

λ as above so below
Organized religion helps represent values and philosophy as more real for us and offers a practical framework to follow them

In Plato’s conception of the soul there is the division between reason spirit and appetites. Using organized religion we can use the spirit (represented by a lion) to use social pressures to get people to conform to narratives and philosophies they couldn’t do so on their own

λ Lovelust-Mithra
Lovelust-Mithra (also known as Mithra-Varuna) is a system to break through bias by building up Gestalts (Mithra) and breaking them (Lovelust).

It is based on opponent-process theory

Mithra is scaling up of attention, Lovelust is scaling down

Mithra is contemplation and Lovelust is meditation

Mithra corresponds to Metta meditation and contemplation. Mithra is the Buddha’s path of asceticism

Lovelust corresponds to Vipassana meditation and meditation (contrasted with contemplation). Lovelust also corresponds to chunk decomposition and constraint relaxation. Lovelust is the palace Siddartha grew up in.

Each one has its own contrasting mystical outcomes: the pure consciousness event for Lovelust and the resonant at-onement for Mithra.

The goal of lambda mysticism is to experience both at once. This is the middle path, and Satori.

awakening is achieved by breaking through bias and growing this way. awakening is not a firm state but rather something that develops in levels and is dependent on physical anatomy and its functioning. So as bacteria may not be able to achieve Siddartha’s level of awakening, there may be levels above our current neural anatomy.

Quantum changes are a manifestation of this optimization, and linked to the flow state

λ awakening
ninefold vaccine

ω Promises
Now that we are through Lambda we are focusing on promises. Promises have the unique ability to act as a metaphysical escape from suffering and let us reach awakening.

ω Galaxybrains and Toposophic ascension (higher awakening)
As mentioned earlier there’s reason to believe capacity for awakening is limited by physical neuroanatomy. A bacteria may not have the same potential for awakening as a human. Likewise there can potentially be beings of higher cognitive level with higher potential for awakening than humans.

We will call these differences Toposophic levels and ascending in the levels Toposophic ascension

This difference would be fundamentally a difference of quality rather than quantity. A level of self-reflection and flexibility not present in human minds could be present in minds of a different structure, although implicitly there are likely structural anatomical limitations and a minimum scale necessary to facilitate such a mind.

Some may try to link this with AI, but describing it as simply AI taking over fails to comprehend the difficulties and similarities between all minds.

AI is a bit more immediately modifiable due to running on better understood hardware, and it lacks the original sin as humans have, but it’s likely that the limits on making a better mind will be pretty similar, and if brain computer interfaces advance well then humans and ai may merge quite rapidly with ai adding biological brain components for functions better done with such components and humans adding digital components for functions better done with such components.

With increased cognitive ability the ability to create be more sophisticated shared narratives and achieve higher levels of awakening, both collective memetic and in terms of non-transferable skill (Sophia and phronesis). Bigger more comprehensive meta-narratives of cosmic unification will develop.

Over time ascending beings will move through singularities at which point something a singularity below them will be incapable of understanding their thoughts. This may become a useful metric moving forward.

Toposophic ascension can give us the ultimate cosmic unification we are seeking to reach.

Apotheosis is a related concept for a being that increases in both merit and comprehension. As such someone becomes a God or a Kami

If without merit one ascends then they will become an Asura instead.

So there are two paths to ascension: The sorcerors path and the sages path. The Sorceror’s path leads to becoming an Asura and the Sage’s Path leads to becoming a Kami

Asuras are quite dangerous. They are what people fear with AI non-alignment the most (second would be paperclip maximizers which are subsapient). We need to have enough Kami out there that they can preach to the Asuras to help them develop spiritual discipline and awakening equivalent to their level.

Eventually gods and transapients may become planet sized or even use the entire energy of stars as matrioshka brains. Someday we may all merge together into a giant galaxybrain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef-mxjYkllw