SCP[3] (as far as I can tell) started out as a group collaborative writing experiment. The basic idea is to write a creepy or scary story, but to do it in a clinical / scientific format as if the phenomena are being catalogued by a shadow government organization. Slowly over time the writers kept on trying to one up the others and at some point the concept of anomalous memes shows up. The basic idea is that some information is somehow magically dangerous and in fact can spread through people in much the same way a virus does.
At some point someone realized that you could have the opposite of a meme. That is an anomalous idea that resists being remembered. An antimeme. The write-ups for this concept range anywhere from relatively simple and comical[4] to verifiable works of art[5].
The author of qntm.org wrote a short story[6] on the SCP site that captures the spirit of anomalous antimemes.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
[3] - http://www.scp-wiki.net/
[4] - http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-055
[5] - http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2521
[6] - http://www.scp-wiki.net/we-need-to-talk-about-fifty-five
The question I have, though, is can we create actual antimemetic effects. To clarify, I'm not asking if we can create anomalous or magical antimemes. But I'm wondering if there aren't things that we can do to make it harder for people to remember.
The existence proofs are the invisible gorilla experiment[7] and research on chess experts being able to remember chess boards configurations, but only if they represent an actual game and not random piece placement[8].
The invisible gorilla experiment involved asking people to count the number of passes players of a basketball game made and then having a man in a gorilla suit run through the room during the game. People were too focused on the action of counting passes that they did not notice the gorilla.
Similarly, chess experts have an easier time memorizing chess board configurations. The research wanted to rule out the possibility that chess experts just happen to have better visual memories. So they also gave chess experts randomly configured boards. In this scenario the chess experts were no better at memorizing the board than a non expert.
[7] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Gorilla
[8] - https://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericssonk/ericsson.mem.exp.html
Okay, let's throw it all together and add in my problem calculus[9]. The theory is that if you're an expert it means that you brain has adapted to some sort of hidden or non obvious structure. If you understand the structure, then you're more likely to remember any given instance you encounter. To promote forgetfulness then would be to create instances that either have an unknown structure or a subverted structured (ie almost matching the true structure but instead having a few aspects that would otherwise be invalid).
Similarly, the gorilla experiment shows us that forcing people to focus on a difficult task can cause them to otherwise ignore something that they should notice.
So I'm suggesting a two pronged attack against memory. The first attack is to create structure that you are sure is unknown to your target. The chess experiment shows us that lacking appreciation of structure can hinder memory. Additionally, creating structure that is nearly identical to something familiar but varies in key places where you want your target to forget is expected to hinder memory.
The second attack is to find a way to draw attention to a problem which is difficult to comprehend and takes a significant amount of mental attention. This will help obfuscate the item or event you want to go unremembered which should be already obfuscated by the structure attack from the previous paragraph.
Finally, problem calculus should be used for both of these attacks. Problem calculus allows you to express aspects of a problem that is difficult to comprehend. You can also use the elements of problem calculus to create problems with difficult to comprehend aspects. This allows you to create something which you know your target will not be familiar with. Alternatively you can map the structure of something your target is familiar with and then modify it in ways that the target will not be expecting.
Additionally, if you want to use a distraction, then you need to make sure that your distraction is sufficiently cognitively distracting. Problem calculus will provide guidelines for knowing that your distraction is sufficient.
[9] - http://stackallocated.blogspot.com/2018/07/problem-calculus.html
No comments:
Post a Comment