The infected self: Revisiting the metaphor of the mind virus

The modern self as a mental analogue to the body

Blackmore (1999) described the self as an interlocking complex of memes (memeplex) that survive by convincing us that they are essential to our being. This mixing of mental and physical modalities has the effect of giving both the same ontological status and thereby places the thought in opposition to the thinker who is left undefined except as a receptacle for competing thoughts. In this mechanistic view, who we come to think we are (the self) is a clever illusion by which a particular and arbitrary set of viral memes entrench themselves in consciousness, which is itself an “after the fact” illusion. There is no room, in such a view, to make meaningful choices outside of those needed to ensure the replication of the controlling memeplex. This view, that both the self and consciousness are illusions, contrasts with Dawkins’ (1976) statement, “We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination” (p. 215), but both views imply that the “we” who is either convinced or empowered is antecedent to and separate from infesting memes. The failure to define that conscious primal entity with the capacity to defy genetic and cultural forces leaves tenable an assertion that the very consciousness assumed is illusory, yet the idea of self-consciousness is central to our definition of being human. As Gazzaniga (2000) observed:

A device that begins by asking how one thing relates to another, a device that asks about an infinite number of things, in fact, and that can get productive answers to its questions, cannot help but give birth to the concept of self. Surely one question the device would ask is, “Who is solving all these problems? Let’s call it me” – and away it goes! (p. 1320, para. 16)

Gazzaniga’s “device” is an evolved left-hemispheric mechanism related to language acquisition that acts as an “interpreter” in finding order, but it is dependent on the existence of sufficient conceptual understanding to ask the question he posits. While memetic replication can be understood broadly as a process of imitation (Dawkins, 1976), “Language extends the human brain into a mind which operates more efficiently because language accesses associations automatically and triggers memories more efficiently than the brain’s neural nets would without the cues of language” (Logan, 2008 p. 66). In tracing an evolutionary path from two-slot grammars that could have been used by Neanderthals and our common ancestor, to hierarchical grammars possible only in hominids possessing the FOXP2 gene, Progovac (2016) lent support to the hypothesis that memes co-evolved with genes giving definition to our species (Freidman & Sing, 2004; White, 1969/1990).

If humans were simply imitators of memes, the most successful of us should be those who are able to reliably replicate memes with fidelity and fecundity. In an experiment comparing adults with and without autism, Atran (2002) asked participants to repeat common sayings such as “Let a thousand flowers bloom” or “To everything there is a season.” The participants with autism repeated the memes more literally and exactly than those without autism presented with the same memes. Participants without autism would typically modify the information they were given in ways that showed associated interpretations or inference. In a related experiment (Atran, 2002), Christians were asked to write the meanings of the Ten Commandments. Despite the participants’ expectations, interpretations of the commandments showed considerable variation with little evidence of consensus. It is possible that our human ancestors were reliable replicators of culturally learned memes as postulated by Blackmore (1999), but modern humans without autism have either a diminished ability to do so, or they have additional mental attributes interfering with this more primal replicative function.

Following an analysis of early Greek literature, Jaynes (1976) surmised that pre-Homeric Greeks were unable to exercise self-agency and were dependent on pre-programmed cultural responses to triggering events. Events that were not culturally anticipated led to schizophrenia-like symptoms including auditory and visual hallucinations which were interpreted as divine messages. After examining similar data from pre-1000 BCE Greek and Egyptian cultures, Johnson (2003) said the people in these early civilizations lacked minds. He defined mind to be an evolved cognitive program that gives the brain (a) a capacity for objective beliefs, (b) a notion of individual volition, and (c) a capacity for internally consistent thought. While the respective interpretations of Jaynes (1976) and Johnson (2003) are debatable, if we understand mind to be a hybrid product of biology and culture (Donald, 2001), then new conceptualizations available through culture can affect mental processing. It would be surprising if individual selves with the capacities described by Johnson emerged full-blown at the dawn of our species. It is therefore reasonable to postulate that the modern self evolved from more primal versions.

People with such modern selves exhibit a level of consciousness not evident in people without selves, as may be found in those with Alzheimer’s or autism (Damasio, 1999; Hertogh, De Boer, Dralles, & Eefsting, 2007; Uddin et al., 2008). This self, as a cultural construct, begins development in early childhood with the acquisition of language and attributions of intentionality, but is not fully developed until late adolescence or early adulthood (Harter, 2012). This self-referencing loop allows the individual to understand that other entities exist with different perspectives, and this realization allows a differentiation between the subjective and objective, the foundational elements of the Jamesian formulation. It follows that this conscious self is analogous to the body while memes and complexes of memes that are not self-referencing but nonetheless replicable and deleterious to the functioning self are analogous to viruses seeking to enter that body. Using this analogy, complexes of memes that constitute a viable functioning self are mutualists making common cause with the physical self to the replicative advantage of both. Since both mind and body constitute who we are, only those memes that exist outside that complex can be considered to be potentially viral.

It is plausible that a primal self emerged following the early evolution of language that resulted in successful humans operating as Blackmore’s (1999) “meme machines.” An evolved modern self would have retained many primal features. Thus, while a self-referencing autobiographical self is necessary for the notion of subjectivity and its conceptualized opposite, modern humans do not necessarily always function at this level. Nonetheless, the capacity to use reason and engage in conceptual thought, to situate ourselves temporally and engage in future planning, all of which is enhanced if not made possible by the modern self, are commonly considered to be distinguishing characteristics of being human. Thus, the modern self as conceptualized here is not a virus but is as integral to who we are as any physically evolved structure such as our oppositional thumb or color vision. But unlike physically evolved structures, the modern self is a cultural adaptation that must be learned in childhood.

Underlying mechanisms for mind-viral propagation

Dawkins (1976) inadvertently implied a kind of Cartesian dualism by treating all memes as viral. Since the self is necessarily constructed from those very memes, we become ethereal viral entities seeking human bodies to inhabit. As we have seen, Blackmore (2000, 2002) attempted to resolve this dilemma by declaring the self and attending consciousness to be illusions thus turning us into deluded automatons. If, however, we take the perspective that mind and body co-evolved with some basic mental patterns and behaviors genetically transmitted, then who we are is defined by both our constituent memes and the bodies in which they reside.

The modern self may be understood as a self-referencing cognitive feedback loop having qualities of volition, distinctness, continuance, productivity, intimacy, social interest, and emotion (Robertson, 2010). If such a memetic feedback loop leads to notions of the objective and subjective, then it has a necessary pre-condition for situating the individual in time and space and for logical thought. Through such a mechanism we can exercise willful choice without the necessity of resorting to dualistic explanations. On the other hand, it also follows that if some necessary constituent parts are missing or compromised we could expect impairment in the mind’s ability to function. A mind virus would be defined as a group of memes that attaches to the self in such a way as to ensure its propagation with deleterious effects on its host. While we might imagine the possibility of a neutral mind virus, such a virus would be difficult to identify and is beyond the scope of this paper.

Our understanding of mind viruses needs to consider how mental and physical universes may be said to differ. For example, while genetic evolution is Darwinian, cultural evolution is Lamarckian, ¹ involving the heritability of acquired characteristics (Dawkins, 1982; Gould, 1996). As Pinker (1997) noted: “A complex meme does not arise from the retention of copying errors. It arises because some person knuckles down, racks his brain, musters his ingenuity, and composes or writes or paints or invents something” (p. 209). Further, memes lack a molecular structure and cannot replicate in the manner of genes (Carroll, 2005; Distin, 2005). If the evolutionary mechanism between genetic and memetic evolution differ, we would expect that the entities that evolve in the two universes also differ in fundamental ways.

The ability to reason has become an essential part of our self-definition as a species; and that ability is tied to notions of individual volition. We would expect a viral infection affecting the mind would result in a reduced or appropriated capacity to engage that ability. If an existent mental structure is essential for conscious thought and that structure is a product of evolution, mental entities that would appropriate the resources of the individual likely co-evolved. Through this lens, the quality of reason or conscious thought associated with the modern self was an evolutionary development metaphorically not unlike an immune system. An effective mind virus would inhibit the capacity for reason in ways detrimental to its propagation while allowing that capacity to be used to ward off competitors.

With affective, connotative, and behavioral properties serving to bind memes into complex structures, the observation that memes frequently change during transmission (Boyd & Richardson, 2000; Distin, 2005) is explained. The memetic forces of attraction that give the modern self stability also predispose the individual to interpret new communication in ways that reinforce an existent worldview. The forces that promote memetic clustering in the modern self attract or repel memes outside of those clusters resulting in incremental and directional change to the memetic structure itself. Such change was observed with respect to a young Chinese woman who, on moving to Canada to attend university, converted to an authoritarian Christian religious sect that served as a replacement for the parental direction she had experienced in China (Robertson, 2010). Incremental self-change was also tracked with respect to a young aboriginal man who assimilated memes associated with Amerindian and Asian spirituality (Robertson, 2014a).

Change consistent with an individual’s self-direction need not imply a mind virus any more than the process of aging would imply a physical one. Since viral infections involve the appropriation of resources at a cost to the host, those mental changes that imply commensurable mutual benefit would not fit the analogy. Successful use of the viral analogy requires change to the self that is inconsistent with previous self-direction and is measurable. Consciously planned transitions, such as those developed in psychotherapy, fail to meet the viral analogy as such change is volitional.

The distinction between volitional and non-volitional change is not always clear. For example, in their study of the propagation of urban legends Heath, Bell, and Sternberg (2001) found that memes that elicited disgust were more likely to be passed on to others irrespective of their truth content, than memes eliciting little emotion. From the subjects’ perspective they were choosing to share stories with a high emotional content. From the perspective of the meme, however, memetic clusters that carried the capacity to invoke an emotional response (in this case disgust) were more likely to be replicated than those that did not. Since it would be in the replicative interest of a mind virus to convince those infected that they are acting volitionally, self-reports of choice, particularly in the presence of strong emotion, are of limited value.

Not all unplanned transitional self-change fits the viral metaphor. Unplanned transitions in response to crisis, trauma, or sudden environmental change that tax the adaptive capacities of the individual would not be viewed as viral unless such transitions involved the opportunistic appropriation of mental and/or physical resources by otherwise unrelated clusters of memes. Transitions engineered through the manipulations of a malevolent human actor for personal benefit would not fit this definition of a mind virus because human agency is still involved albeit without the agency of the targeted individual.

If we invoke an “intentional stance” (Dennett, 1996), we can see that it would be in the interest of our posited mind virus to have the individuals serving as its vectors believe that they were acting volitionally. Therefore, the determination of a mind infection must be made by an outside observer. Further, since humans are capable of altruistic motivations the criteria that the individual is not acting in his or her own self-interest cannot be absolute. The virus analogy may be thought to apply to those memeplexi that commandeer the minds of people to become vectors for their subsequent propagation at some personal cost without objective evidence that the individual is acting altruistically.

In summation, it is possible to envision a mental universe in which some entities act like viruses on those mental representations that give us selfhood. Fortunately, the foregoing discussion has produced a number of heuristics to help guide us in this determination as to whether a mind-virus “infection” has occurred: (a) a mind virus will result in an observable change or transition in the individual’s self-definition that is neither planned nor related to self-betterment as may be found in psychotherapy, nor the result of the conscious manipulation of the individual affected; (b) the change must involve a diminution or negation of the modern self or its component parts; (c) the change must involve an appropriation of the individual’s resources that have the effect of spreading the meme cluster in question and this is not attributable to altruism; and (d) the change is likely marked by considerable and uncharacteristic emotional valence.

Manifestations of suicide as possible mind-virus activity

Although suicide presents as an ultimate act of self-negation, not all suicides can be seen as manifestations of mind-virus activity. For example, it is possible to envision someone killing themselves in an effort to save the lives of others. It is also possible to envision someone with a terminal and painful illness rationally making such a choice. Further, we do not need a mind virus to explain the actions of someone who kills themselves as a result of a mental illness. In this section, we look at examples of suicide and self-destructive terrorism as promising areas for mind-viral research outside of these limiting exceptions.

Viral implications of religiosity

Religion has been pictured as a mind virus that commandeers the resources of the individual to its replicative advantage (Brodie, 1996; Dennett, 1995). Dawkins (2006) observed, “As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers” (p. 306). Ray (2009) declared Roman Catholic priests to be human vectors who have been directed to spend all of their discretionary energies propagating a Catholic virus. He declared that their celibacy “is genetic suicide for the priest’s genes, but gives the Catholic Church a powerful tool for propagation” (p. 28). Abadian (2006) described the post-American colonization religious narrative as a disempowering infection that includes, “the portrayal of humans as pitiful and degraded beings, an obsessive preoccupation with apocalyptic world endings … the glorification of suffering; the instilling of fear, shame, and unworthiness; and an insistence on the value of self-denial, total sacrifice, and punishment” (p. 23). This description of the Christianity given Amerindian peoples reminds us of Hoffer’s (1951/1966) post-World War II description of ideological and religious mass movements:

They … effect an enduring estrangement from the self. They depict an autonomous, self-sufficient existence not only as barren and meaningless but also as depraved and evil. Man on his own is a helpless, miserable and sinful creature. His only salvation is in rejecting his self and in finding new life in the bosom of a holy corporate body. (p. 80)

Hoffer was not speaking of all who share religious or ideological beliefs but to a subset of fanatics he termed “true believers.” There is no existential necessity that a core belief in the historical existence of Christ (or Mohammed or Buddha) is necessarily tied to a doctrine that rejects one’s own self and the selves of others. Not only is it possible to envision religious individuals who nurture others’ and their own self-development, it is possible to develop an argument that religions in particular contexts have promoted such values (Campbell, 2004; Eungi Kim, 2004; Nishida, 1921/1990; Somerville, 2006). If we view our species’ evolution as including social and emotional needs for identity, purpose, and transcendence, religion is not a virus per se but a social contract representing a balance between forces of collectivism and individualism. Group bonding, as may be effected by religious belief, could enhance group survival in contexts that demand individual sacrifice. Difficulties emerge with efforts to enforce millennia-old social contracts that evolved under different conditions. The virus, then, is not the old social contract but modern memeplexi that evolved from outdated religious doctrine.

At any given point in history evolutionary pressure may favor humanistic memes such as liberality and diversity, fundamentalist memes like essentialism and intolerance, or other directions and themes dependent on selection pressure with resultant changes to the corporate religious body. For example, Robertson (2007, 2014b) examined conditions favoring the selection of mutated religious memes disguised as spirituality in specific scientific and colonial contexts. The conditions under which subsets of religious memes may mutate into self-destroying mind viruses need study.

Discussion

“Meme theory” has been critiqued because memes have no molecular structure deemed necessary by some authors to ensure fidelity in replication (Burman, 2012); they are perceived to act more as elicitors than replicators (Atran, 2001); they are said to always be systematically transformed during transmission (Boyd & Richardson, 2000); and they are thought to normally change by directed mental processes as opposed to random mutation (Pinker, 1997). These concerns largely flow from the perception that the memetic perspective supports a thesis of environmental and cultural determinism. While this thesis was denied by Dawkins (1976, 1999), he failed to provide a mechanism that would allow for individual volition as is necessary in directed mental processing. It is proposed here that the culturally learned self is that mechanism, and that both the “viruses” and the hosts they may be said to “infect” are constituted by cultural units or memes. If the modern self constitutes the mental “body” necessary for reflective self-consciousness, then cultural units that impair that consciousness while appropriating the resources of the individual may be thought of as mental viruses. Since both the metaphoric mind viruses and the bodies upon which they act are cultural entities, we are able to contemplate evolved laws governing the mental universe at variance with those governing the biophysical realm.

We examined classes of suicidal behavior for evidence of mind-viral activity with the conclusion that some, but not all, meet the proposed criteria. It is likely that non-suicidal individuals may be infected by viruses with different phenotypic patterns, but there is a danger that the term could become a pejorative referencing people whose beliefs do not correspond with one’s own. A blanket description of religion as a mind virus would fall under this caution. While elements of faith and obedience found within many religious belief systems may allow for viral mutations to escape rational examination, the social and economic conditions under which such transformations occur require further investigation. The mutation of ideological belief sans religion in directions satisfying the definition of mind virus also requires investigation.

There is no reason to suspect that the modern self stopped evolving with its first appearance with the implication that it has co-evolved with religion. Such a perspective invites further psycho-historical research. The relatively recent Euro-American emphasis on individualism as a positive attribute may be understood as a recent memetic mutation, but it is too early to say that it will become the planet-wide norm.

The paradigm developed in this paper places the self at the core of mind without which conscious reason would not be possible. We are both created by and create the configurations of memes around us. While our self is largely shaped by our place and time over which we have little control, it is also the mechanism by which we place ourselves in time and space perceiving, anticipating, and planning accordingly. To be meaningful, the concept “virus” applied to the mental universe must have the means to parasitically interact with this evolved process in a way that propagates the infective agent. Such an entity may accomplish this by inserting itself into the self of an individual. It is suggested that viral complexes of memes adapt, not primarily to the natural world, but to an environment bounded by culture in ways that are not necessarily adaptive for the individual host. The mechanisms by which such adaptations occur are, at this point, speculative and may differ from those governing the genetic model. For example, as Gabora (2004) observed, memes might be viewed to be non-living phenomena with replicative properties like polymers preserving structure but failing to replicate with high fidelity.

In tracing the evolution of the meme “meme” from Dawkins’ (1976) original conceptualization to Dennett’s (1991) “thinkable psychological entity,” to Blackmore’s (1999) “reification of the term,” Burman (2012) ties the evolution of the concept to the social, political, and economic events that popularized it. Such events as they influence the memes people choose, or think they choose, can be studied. From a meme’s perspective change due to chance mutation or free will is indistinguishable, and this invites the possibility of designer viruses initially crafted as a means of manipulating human perceptions but taking on a life of independent replication.

As defined in this article, memes are a fundamental constituent of human cultures. ² While most are useful, many offer no obvious advantage and some are demonstrably detrimental to the individual’s survival and reproductive success. This paper has outlined a paradigm from which this phenomenon may be studied.