IMPLEMENTING METAMEMETIC THINKING AS AN APPROACH TO IMPLICIT BIAS REDUCTION

Back to Page Authors: Diego Fontanive

Keywords: memetics, metamemetics, critical intelligence, education and training

Abstract: By approaching the problem of implicit bias through a memetic viewpoint, we can say that a mind that is stuffed with memes-beliefs, second-hand thoughts & dogmatic assumptions tends to operate like a repetitive replicator: an automatic acritical cognition and memetic behavioral psychology, mainly because it is mesmerized by the never deductively investigated ''psychological luggage'' and epistemic acceptances it carries. ''Memetic'' refers to the behavior of memes as units of culture for instance, as proposed by researchers such as R. Dawkins, D. Dennett, S. Blackmore, etc. Richard Dawkins used to call memes, rightly, as ''viruses of the mind''. The best way to understand memetic behaviors and ''memetic infections'' is the concept of replication. For instance, the perpetual replication of a belief, a type of mindset, cognitive proneness, thought or idea in the mind taking place with no criticalness and therefore replicating, perhaps with variations, broken logic, biases or logical fallacies implicit in the memetic habit. A salient approach is represented by the need to reason and decode the difference between the activity of thinking and the production of thoughts. By the act of thinking we refer to the mental operation that takes place before the fabrication of more or less complex cognitive constructs, such as thoughts, ideas, assumptions, adhesion to preexisting beliefs, interpretations of sensations and emotions and so on. An important question regarding this approach and investigation, therefore, shall be: is it possible to think about our thoughts without using the same constructs of thoughts that have created those thoughts? Considering the great counter-intuitiveness implicit in this way of thinking we have to address this question with a series of in-depth propositions aimed to inquire into whether or not a constructive and beneficial approach can be developed in terms of refinement of thinking skills. As a starting point of inquiry, proposals shall be characterized as the following: is it possible to develop a cognitive training able to provide accurate thinking skills aimed at thinking about our thoughts without the interference caused by thoughts / memes / beliefs / epistemic constructs therefore without using all that as cognitive filters of evaluation, inquiry and comprehension? We will call this approach ''metamemetic thinking'' which refers to the possibility to develop via training the abilities to think in terms of memes detection and critical decoding of the fallaciousness of memetic constructs of thoughts before adopting them and as they arise in the mind. Some unprecedented elements have to be taken into consideration. The modern human world we live in offers a spectrum of available distractions and entertainments as we never had in the past. An outcome of this human reality is the circumstance that almost the many of us are merely spectators while very few are ''players'', policymakers, thought leaders, innovators and fundamentally thinkers. Another element is represented by the fact that for thousands of years we have been around with a biological self and a psychological self. While the biological self is based on our genetic structure, the psychological self is instead almost entirely constructed on what we have experienced, what we have been told and the ways through which we have been conditioned throughout our lives and due to the external environment. In brief: the biological self is based on genes; the psychological one is based on memes and memeplexes (social and cultural systems of memes). Today something unprecedented has happened: for the first time many of us have a biological self, a psychological self and a digital self. A phenomenon that characterizes our times, not only something that involves millennials or generation Z, is the tendency to prioritize the digital self over everything else as a means to gain self-esteem. The digital self is so commonly perceived as even more relevant than the psychological self. Our sense of identity and even psychological security is getting more and more digitized: from cultural/ideological/ family-based propagated and indoctrinated memes we entered the digital world of technological memes, and the problem is that considering how the psychological self is in itself heavily conditioned by so many memetic factors that usually go unseen and unstudied, the digital self is actually even worse than that. Not because of the onset of social media, new technologies and AI development and its applications, but rather because of the dull and acritical relationship we have with such elements and with our own use of our thinking abilities. We are moving toward an automatic society of entertainment and superficial thinking and this situation, which appears to be an actuality of our times, should show us what the urgency of implementing our thinking skills really is. Critical thinking for instance, which does not seem to work, should be combined with the understanding of memetics and the application of high order multilogical and metamemetic thinking skills.